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Making WWW Pages Accessible

Contents of this page:

• Designing Accessible Web Pages
• General Web Access
• Web Video Captioning
• VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) Access
• Haptic and Tactile Displays
• Sonification
• Java Accessibility
• Intelligent Agents
• The Merging of Browser and Desktop
• Other
• Disability-Related Information
• Blindness Resources
• Deafness Resources
• Vendor Support
• Education, Research and Development

Designing Accessible Web Pages

(The following is a handout from a workshop at the WWW6 conference. It is a compiliation of resources for designing accessible web pages)

The goal of universal Web design is to create Web sites which serve everyone regardless of individual needs and abilities and the technology they use to access the Web.

The explosion of the World Wide Web has created exciting new ways for doing many things: e.g., to locate and store information, to perform daily living tasks such as ordering groceries or meals, to communicate with others, to read books online, to deliver and receive education. For persons with disabilities, assistive technologies can provide access to these new opportunities provided by the Web, but some aspects of Web design limit the accessibility of a site for a person with a disability.

The purpose of this tutorial is to provide a basic understanding of the capabilities of assistive technologies as they relate to Web accessibility; a contextual understanding of access issues in various Web environments; demonstrations of how access issues arise from Web design; information about existing resources for accessible Web design; and, a discussion of developments affecting the future of Web accessibility.

The Presenters:
Carl Brown
Director, High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community Colleges, Cupertino. Topic: Speech Recognition: Technology for the Web That Really Works

Jerry Kuns
HumanWare, Loomis, CA. Topic: Screenreaders, Browsers and the Web: Issues

Larry Goldberg
Director, CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), Boston. Topic: Accessible Media for the World Wide Web

Crystal Waters
Author: Web Concept & Design, San Francisco. Topic: Universal Design is for Everyone

Jutta Treviranus
Manager, Adaptive Technology Resource Center, University of Toronto. Topic: Accessibility and the Future of the Web

General Web Access:

Web Review - Web Accessibility

Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto:
http://www.utoronto.ca/atrc/

Trace Research and Development Centre, University of Wisconsin
http://trace.wisc.edu/world/web/index.html

The Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation: WebABLE
http://www.yuri.org/webable/index.html

W3C Disabilities Developments
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/

Starling Access Services
http://www.starlingweb.com

National Centre for Accessible Media
http://www.boston.com/wgbh/ncam

pwWebSpeak: User Interface Design of an Accessible Web Browser
http://www.prodworks.com/webpaper.htm

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Web Video Captioning:

Making Moving Clips Accessible
http://trace.wisc.edu/text/ext_docs/wgbh/wap/wap.html

Captioning and Audio Description on the Web
http://www.boston.com/wgbh/pages/ncam/captionedmovies.html

Captioning QuickTime Movie Clips on the Macintosh
http://www.boston.com/wgbh/pages/ncam/qtcaptionhowto.html

VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) Access:

Accessibility and VRML
http://www.utoronto.ca/atrc/rd/vrml/main.html

An initial Survey of Reality Modeling Language Access Issues (Draft 1b)
http://www.utoronto.ca/atrc/rd/vrml/intech001.html#ii

The 1st European Conference on Disability, Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies '96
http://cyber.reading.ac.uk/cyb/ecdvrat96/

Virtual Reality (VR) and Disabilities.
http://www.gu.edu.au/aeres/ats/articl15.html

Haptic and Tactile Displays:

Haptics Community Web Page
http://haptic.mech.nwu.edu:80/intro/tactile/

The ASEL Haptic Page
http://www.asel.udel.edu/sem/research/haptics/

Tactile-Based Direct Manipulation in GUIs for Blind Users
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi95/Electronic/documnts/videos/hp_bdy.htm

The Videotact Exploiting Tactile Perception
http://www.execpc.com:80/~unitech/videotac.html

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Sonification:

Soundscapes from "The vOICe"' Seeing with your Ears?
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/voice.htm

Investigation Into Auditory Displays
http://www.iris.com/web/elopresti.nsf

PC Access Project
http://www.citi.doc.ca/Citi-Mosaic/Citihome/Programs/TECSOE/Projects/ProjectsTECSO.html#pc

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Java Accessibility:

Java Accessibility Project
http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/java/java.htm

Java Accessibility Questions and Answers
http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/java/javaQA.htm

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Intelligent Agents:

IBM Intelligent Agents Home Page
http://www.networking.ibm.com/iag/iaghome.html

Microsoft Agent: ActiveX Technology for Interactive Software Agents
http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/agent/

The Java Intelligent Agent Library
http://www.bitpix.com/business/main/ialib/ialib.html

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The Merging of Browser and Desktop:

Explorer 4.0: New for '97
http://www.zdnet.com/pccomp/features/fea1196/feature1/wsub2.html

Cyberdog and OpenDoc
http://cyberdog.apple.com/

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Other:

Adobe Acrobat/ PDF Accessibility
http://access.adobe.com/

Microsoft ActiveX Accessibility
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enable/activex.htm

Access to the National Information Infrastructure (NII)
http://www.gsa.gov/coca/nii.htm

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Disability-Related Information:

EASI -- Access to Information for Persons With Disabilities
http://www.isc.rit.edu/~easi/

Computers and People With Disabilities
http://www.isc.rit.edu/~easi/easi/heath.html

NCSA Mosaic Access Page: a resource for people with disabilities
http://bucky.aa.uic.edu/index.html

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Blindness Resources:

American Foundation for the Blind
http://www.igc.apc.org/afb/

National Federation of the Blind
http://www.nfb.org/

Welcome to The Canadian National Institute for the Blind
http://www.cnib.ca/

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Deafness Resources:

Gallaudet Research Institute (GRI)
http://gri.gallaudet.edu/

Closed Captioning Web
http://www.erols.com/berke/

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Vendor Support:

Microsoft Accessibility
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/

Apple's Disability Solutions
http://www2.apple.com/disability/default.html

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Education, Research and Development:

The DO-IT Program
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~doit/

Archimedes Project
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/arch/front97.html

High Tech Center Training Unit
http://www.htctu.fhda.edu/

Western Blind Rehabilitation Center
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/arch/GUI/wbrc.html

Center On Disabilities
http://www.csun.edu/cod/center.html

National Center to Improve Practice (NCIP)
http://www.edc.org/FSC/NCIP/

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Last Revision: July 30, 2002