Web Accessibility

Creating accessible web pages is an excellent way to effectively communicate with patrons who use adaptive technology. The Committee acknowledges that not all CS-SIS members work in institutions where they can control or influence the web site design; however, many do.

This page links to accessibility guidelines and tools.The discussion of the wiki's accessibility issues occurs after the tools links.

Accessibility Guidelines

Section 508

A federal government web site that discusses Section 508, an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act codified in the federal regulations at 36 C.F.R.§1194.22.  

• officially authenticated but inaccessable PDF copy of Section 508 in the CFR 
• unauthenticated but accessible web page copy of Section 508 in the CFR  

Section 508 applies to federal agencies. The Department of Justice has used section 508 to measure Web accessibility when reaching settlements with local municipalities. It is the simpler of the two commonly quoted guidelines for web accessibility.

Web Accessibility Initiative

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines lead to a higher level of accessibility but are also the more complex of the two commonly quoted guidelines for Web accessibility.

Accessibility Tools

WAVE

WAVE generates a report listing web accessibility errors and other elements that may require attention to make a website fully accessible. It is a service of WebAIM which is affiliated with Utah State University.

W3C Validator

Validates HTML code against accepted international standards.

The Wiki's Accessibility Issues

This wiki page was validated with WAVE.  PBworks provides user configurable spaces within a standard configuration that is not subject to user configuration.  There are five accessibility violations beyond the control of the user. Four of these involve link arrows without any text. The first link arrow controls the size of the main window.  The latter three arrows show or hide the navigator, sidebar, and recent activity menus.  Someone who accesses a page through a screen reader would never know that the links within each menu could be skipped by hiding the menus. Being unable to control the side of the main window could impact someone using a screen magnifier.

The fifth accessibility violation is even more important. A sighted reader can easily see the search box in the top right-hand corner of the page. A screen reader cannot see that search box and those using screen readers would be unable to search the workspace.  Though these errors would not be difficult to fix, users cannot fix them.  Therefore, pages on the PBworks wiki cannot be made accessible.

The CS-SIS Adaptive Technology Web Pages

• Adaptive Technology Introduction
• Adaptive Technology Products
• Adaptive Technology Law