Accessibility
Accessibility is a major topic in the media, with new laws forcing the industry to think about this very old aspect of web usability again.
Accessibility means making our web site available to everybody, regardless of ability or technical environment. Surely not a bad idea, or? The following articles describe changes to common web design practises to make them more accessible. Accessibility needs to be considered a lot earlier in the design process than the implementation stage to make it usable though.
Text-Resize Detection - 12th September 2006
A quick trick mixed with a custom event allows you to detect and react on font size changes in the page. (published at Alistapart)
The future is hybrids - how JavaScript can purify pure CSS solutions - 4th September 2006
A reminder why JavaScript is so much better in providing web page behaviour than CSS is. (published at Wait-Till-I.com)
Seven Accessibility mistakes part two - 06th February 2006
Learn about avoiding common mistakes to avoid when it comes to developing web products (published at Digital Web)
Seven Accessibility mistakes part one - 31st January 2006
Learn about avoiding common mistakes to avoid when it comes to developing web products (published at Digital Web)
Flexible CSS Tab Navigation - 15th Januar 2006
Learn how to create a flexible tab navigation with CSS and one rounded corner background image (published at locally)
Navigation - our visitor's travel guide - 22nd September 2005
This article compares real life navigation aids to those we use on the web and invites the reader to keep web navigation as simple and helpful. (published at evolt.org)
Ten reasons why our clients don't care about accessibility - 13th September 2005
Written almost half a year ago, this article summarises the experiences I had with clients when it comes to trying to get them to make their products accessible. A debunking of overly enthusiastic Web Accessibility sales rap, so to say. (published at Digital Web)
Easy as A,B,C - dynamic A to Z indexes - 30th March 2005
A welcome shortcut for visitors on text-heavy websites is an A to Z index of the services offered. Much like the sitemap, it offers a fast way to find what you need on the site. An index is even more user-focused. The sitemap reflects the structure of the site something that is only relevant to visitors when it is badly implemented in the navigation. This article describes how you can make A to Z indexes more interesting and easier to use. (published at devarticles.com)
Dynamic Galleries with DOM and CSS - January 2005
This article shows how to use DOM and CSS to create a fully accessible dynamic gallery that shows images without page reloads for those who can and falls back to a linked thumbnail list for all others. Local copy without ads. (published at Devarticles.com)
Standards, baby, yeah! - July 2004
Illogically called "Standards Vs. Sensible Design", this article tries to explain why following and advocating standards is great, but not enough. It needs a shift in technical use and in design to make web development a more secure and respected job. If you want to, you can also read the original "director's cut" version with all special effects. (published at Sitepoint.com)
Javascript Image Replacement - November 2003
A JavaScript-based alternative to the Fahrner Image Replacement technique using plain vanilla XHTML, with no special IDs or CSS tricks. Published on alistapart, this one caused a rather long and ugly discussion on the forum, mainly due to a misunderstanding that later on got sorted out. (published at Alistapart)
Dynamic Page Elements - Cloak and Dagger Web design - October 2004
Dynamic elements make web pages more fun, more interactive and allow us to make pages more usable - if we have CSS, Javascript and a mouse at our disposal. This article discusses some uses of dynamic page elements with accessibility and usability in mind and shows where they fail and what to do to make them better. Also make sure to check the local copy of this article for updates and less advertisements. (published at devarticles.com)
Accessible Interdependent Select Boxes - May 2003
This article explains how to mimick the funtionality of an interdependent select box in an accessible way. (published at evolt.org)
Create Pop-ups Without Dead Links - June 2004
A short article explaining how you can create popup windows with
enhanced features only for those browsers and settings supporting it.
Currently this article is with a wrong photo and was mildly edited, if
you want to read the original proposal, you can read it here. (published at Sitepoint.com)
HTML, CSS and Tables - the beauty of Data - November 2004
This article shows you how to style tables with CSS and save a lot of trouble by sticking to the correct markup to create valid, accessible data tables. (published at devarticles.com)
Taming the select - November 2004
Originally meant for alistapart, this article show you how to safely style a select dropdown and how to create accessible selects without a go button. (published at devarticles.com)
Unobtrusive Javascript Self Training Course - October 2004
Brush up on your Javascript skills and join us in 2000 with this self training course. (published at )
Accessibility overview for designers - November 2003
This is the material used for an internal training to raise awareness about accessibility. Good for non-developers to give them an insight how development looks like from the markup point of view. (published at onlinetools.org)
How to improve web site accessibility and capture new business - Jan 2004
A presentation I held at the travel technology show in January 2004. It gives a nice overview why taking accessibility into consideration at the beginning of a development cycle can save money and time in testing later, and increase the popularity of the product. You can also see the Powerpoint slides. (published at onlinetools.org)
Accessible HTML standards - Sep 2003
Markup development standards used internally to ensure accessibility of products. They are mainly a repetition of how to create valid xHTML, with some extra information of how to markup forms and tables in an accessible way. (published at onlinetools.org)
YADM - Yet another dynamic menu - June 2004
This "article" is a copy of the YADM homepage. (published at Devarticles.com)
Conjuring site navigation - June 2004
A JavaScript-trick to automatically add a navigation dropdown to the page. The navigation gets populated by the LINK data in the document, thus enhancing browsers that don't do that. Comes with a PHP example, too. (published at Alistapart.com)
Dynamic Elements - cloak and dagger web design - September 2004
Dynamic elements make web pages more fun, more interactive and allow us to make pages more usable - if we have CSS, Javascript and a mouse at our disposal. This article discusses some uses of dynamic page elements with accessibility and usability in mind and shows where they fail and what to do to make them better. You can view this article in a local version, that gets maintained more frequently. (published at Evolt.org)
Learn to let go - May 2004
Accessibility is only partly a problem of technology. It is also a mindset. This article and tool describes how you can empower your users to change your site for their needs. (published at Evolt.org)
Javascript navigation - cleaner, not meaner - February 2004
Javascript makes HTML more interactive and can increase usability. It can also mess up the markup code with loads of event handlers. Which is not at all necessary, as this example explains. (published at Evolt.org)
Recommended books about Accessibility
Building Accessible Websites
Joe Clark is an accessibility guru with a lot of years expertise in the field. This book, which also comes on a CD (handy if you are on the move a lot) explains what accessibility is and what it means for websites. It is a no-nonsense approach describing each element of web design and three levels of how to increase accessibility in each of them. If you are confused by accessibility requirements, this is a very good start.
