Electronic Highways

The Next Net Frontier: Accessible Web Design

More and more of us are becoming involved in the creation of Web sites. Whether in administrative, consulting or direct roles, not only do we want to ensure the accuracy and currency of the information they include, but we also want to employ the most cutting-edge applications for their design.

However, it is equally important to keep in mind the issue of Web accessibility. For example, have we chosen colors that would prevent those with color blindness from reading our site? Do our sites include text alternatives for image-map, graphic or audio components for those who may have difficulty interpreting those arenas? It diminishes our efforts if we create a site with superlative content, design and presentation that proves to be hopelessly unreadable or uninterpretable for individuals with disabilities.

This important area of Web design is one that recently has received some informed attention on the Web. To read a brief, well-written overview article, you may wish to consult Arthur R. Murphy's "Design Considerations: Readers with Visual Impairments" (http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/gallery/dzine/access/), which appears in Dzine, an Online Guide to Good Web Design (http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/gallery/dzine/).

After familiarizing yourself with some essential concerns in accessible Web design, you may wish to consult a few comprehensive directories of links to sites that address a wide variety of Web accessibility issues.

The University of Washington's DO-IT site is devoted to "Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology." It has compiled an excellent directory, "Accessible Web Page Design" (http://weber.u.washington.edu/~doit/Resources/web-design.html). This frequently updated directory provides links on broad information accessibility topics such as universal design, adaptive technology and intuitive systems. It also features links for more specific access topics, such as color blindness, Java and Adobe accessibility and Web video captioning. Further, it includes a link to the WebWatch-l Discussion List, which discusses the relation of people with disabilities and the Web. Finally, this page includes a link to DO-IT's own "HTML Guidelines," providing practical recommendations along with clear, well-reasoned explanations.

Another highly useful directory of accessibility links may be found at WebABLE (http://www.yuri.org/webable/), issued by the Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation. This site emphasizes technological solutions to information accessibility problems on the Web. It provides links to sites pertaining to aural cascading style sheets; captioning and audio description on the Web; Emacspeak (a speech output interface); and vOICE (auditory display for vision substitution). You also may click on the Web Access Symbol at the bottom of the page to find out how to denote your own site's adherence to Web accessibility standards.

By becoming aware of accessibility issues and solutions, we all can contribute toward the creation of a more truly World-Wide Web.

For assistance in connecting to the World Wide Web, contact the CIT Help Desk at 645-3542.

-Deborah Husted Koshinsky and Rick McRae, University Libraries