The Web Accessibility Initiative

Some More Resources

This isn't a definitive list, just some resources I've found particularly helpful in beginning to address the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 when posting my own web content.

On General Design Issues

http://www.rnib.org.uk/digital/hints.htm

Hints for designing accessible websites from the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

http://www.lighthouse.org/print_leg.htm

Making Text Legible: Designing for People with Partial Sight, by Aries Arditi, Ph.D, vice president for vision science at Lighthouse International.

http://www.lighthouse.org/color_contrast.htm

Effective Color Contrast: Designing for People with Partial Sight and Color Deficiencies, another useful web pamphlet from Aries Arditi at the Lighthouse.

http://style.metrius.com/

If you're interested in typography on the web, Todd Fahrner has put together an interesting site, Agitprop, at Metrius (formerly Verso), illustrating both good and bad things you can do with fonts on the web.

On HTML

http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/html4-access

This WAI document explains the accessibility features built right into specification 4.0 of the Hypertext Markup Language we all know and love.

http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/#html-index

A handy chart of HTML elements, where each element is hyperlinked to the set of techniques recommended for using that element in a way that promotes accessibility.

http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/

HTML Tidy is a free tool written by Dave Raggett at the W3C; it will clean up your HTML files and suggest improvements. It will even generate a Cascading Style Sheet for you based on what's in your document. It's continually updated and well worth a look.

On CSS

http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/CSS2-access.html

This WAI document explains how style sheets benefit accessibility.

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/index.html

Everything you ever wanted to know about Style, by John Allsop of Western Civilisation (based in Bondi Beach, Australia), is a good quick introduction to both the concepts behind CSS and how to use it.

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/hands_on_tutorial/

Another document by John Allsop, this Hands-on tutorial gets you writing style sheets right away. If you like to learn by example, this is a good place to go. It also contains a useful set of links to other resources.

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/house/cookbook/

Titled Style Sheets Cookbook, this is John Allsop's "Lazy person's guide to snazzing up your pages with style sheets"

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/positioning_tutorial/

Yet another document by John Allsop. This one is a bit more advanced and explains Positioning with CSS2.

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/academy/browser_support/

This is a very useful Browser Compatibilty Guide, which tells you what level of support for CSS2 (and for which elements) is given by each version of popular web browsers. It's maintained and updated by Western Civilisation.

By now you've got the idea that John Allsop and Western Civilisation have put some very useful style sheet materials on line. It just so happens that they also sell a GUI style sheet editor. (You can download a demo version for free, and the download includes John Allsop's tutorials and help files.) I haven't used it (and I hold no stock in Western Civilisation), but if you're looking for a fairly painless way to generate valid CSS2 style sheets, you might want to take a look at it.

On the WAI and the WCAG

Most of these show up in the slide show, but here's a handy listing all in one place.

http://www.w3.org/WAI

The Web Accessibility Initiative homepage.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/Resources/Pointers-flyer

A web brochure which gives a useful summary of what the WAI's all about. It contains a list of links to further resources.

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10

The text of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TRANSLATIONS

Translations of the WCAG 1.0 into many foreign languages.

http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/

The WAI's document on techniques for implementing the WCAG 1.0.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/QuickTips/

The "Quick Tips" card for the WCAG 1.0.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/QuickTips/Translations

Links to translations of the "Quick Tips" card.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/

The WAI's Curriculum for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

Some Automated Validators

http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/

This is the Web Design Group's HTML validator. It give you the option of submitting the URI of a page to validate, or uploading a file on your hard drive for validation, or simply pasting in some HTML to be checked.

http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/csscheck/

CSSCheck, also by the Web Design Group, will validate your CSS syntax. Again, you have the option of submitting a URI, pasting in some CSS statements, or uploading a file from your computer.

http://www.cast.org/bobby/

Bobby 3.2 will check your pages for accessibility according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.