[thelist] Disability Accessible Websites

[Leah Fretwell]

Niki:

Unfortunately there is not an online tool to check for screen reader
compatibility. You can check it yourself if you have Windows 2000 which has
a screen reader built in, or you can download a copy of JAWS that will work
for 40 minutes at a time. There is quite a learning curve with JAWS though,
so what you check yourself will not be an accurate test of what someone who
knows the program could read. There is a free speech program available
called Simply Web 2000 that you can download and use to test your pages, I
understand it's easier to use than JAWS. The following are some resources on
Accessible web design that may help you.

Mail lists on Accessibility:
accessiblewebdesign at egroups.com and htmldesigners at egroups.com are both good
resources on accessibility. The first is a mail list on designing for
accessibility and the second, html designers is a mail list for blind web
designers. You may be able to get one of the htmldesigners members to look
at your site with JAWS or Window Eyes.  Also, the WAI mail list at
w3c-wai-ig at w3.org. Web Accessibility in Mind has a mail list too at
webaim at mailservice.cpd.usu.edu. There is a special mail list for Java
Accessibility at  Sun Microsystems LISTSERV at java.sun.com. There is a
comprehensive list of blindness related email lists at
http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/blist.html#dislist which has all sorts of
lists.


Links to Accessibility resources:

Aware Center on Accessibility http://aware.hwg.org/index.html
Web Accessibility in Mind http://www.webaim.org/
The WAI Checkpoints for Accessibility
http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/chk1-0.htm
The WAI Table Linearization Tool http://jigsaw.w3.org:8000/tablin/
A Demo Version of JAWS to download http://www.hj.com/JFWdemo/JFW33DemoOp.htm
Web AIM has a searchable index on accessibility
http://www.webaim.org/php3/php.exe/searchability/index.php3?viewCat=42
VisiCheck has a color blindness simulator http://www.vischeck.com/
Lynx View demonstrates a Lynx, text only browser
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html (and I have been told it's quite
close to a test for screen reader technology, if it works with Lynx it
should work with JAWS.)
Simply Web 2000 download site http://www.econointl.com/
pwWebSpeak is another screen reader, much less expensive than JAWS
http://www.prodworks.com
WebAble has a searchable database on accessibility http://www.webable.com/
and testing for websites
Bobby of course has testing, you know about that one
http://www.cast.org/bobby/

I hope some of these will be of help.

Leah Fretwell
Webmaster, The Nuclear History Site
http://nuclearhistory.1fx.net/
Member HTML Writers Guild and
International Webmasters Association
Editor Open Directory Project Atomic Age and WWII Atomic



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com