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Web Development Guides


As teachers, we have ethical and legal responsibilities to provide all students with equal access to course materials and resources. The CWRL is committed not only to making its website accessible to people with disabilities, but to making it more accessible for all users. John Slatin, a former director of the Lab and co-author of Maximum Accessibility: Making your Web Site More Usable for Everyone, argues that "accessible design is good design." We offer this site and the web accessibility guidelines below as proof of this concept.

As of January 1, 2003, university policy mandates that all new course web sites, including those created for classes offered by instructors in the CWRL, DRW, and English department, must meet the accessibility standards for public information set forth in Section 508 of the U.S. Government's Rehabilitation Act. The CWRL's response has been two fold: to redesign its own website to meet these Section 508 requirements as well as priorities 1, 2, and 3 of the more exacting W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and to draft and publish a set of web accessibility guidelines adapted from university and federal requirements.

Operating System Resources

The accessibility options for the Windows XP operating system can be found by selecting Start Menu->Programs->Accessories->Accessibility.

The Mac OSX operating system, meanwhile, has a Universal Access control panel under Finder->Apple menu->System Preferences->Universal Access.

Applications

Accessibility software applications for the PC platform are generally better than products designed for the Macintosh.

  • Jaws is a text reading program available only on PCs) for users who have visual impairments.
  • Dreamweaver is a web-authoring software available for PC and Mac which can prompt you to insert accessibility attributes when they are needed. Select Edit->Preferences->Accessibility and then choose all the options.
  • Dreamweaver also features accessibility checks with the aid of a UsableNet plugin. If the UsableNet plugin is installed, Dreamweaver will display a UsableNet menu with options for Section 508 and WCAG testing. If the UsableNet extension is not installed, Dreamweaver can test only for Section 508. Select Site->Reports->Accessibility. You can download the UsableNet plugin, and see other LIFT accessibility checks and products at http://www.usablenet.com/.
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