This material is copyrighted by Richard Banks and Norman Coombs in 2002. We encourage your sharing useful individual pieces of information to help people. However, we request that you do not share the entire workshop without specific written permission.

Many of you have not previously taken a distance learning class. You will want to keep a notebook of what you learn for later use. I will suggest 2 basic ways to do this. One will give you an electronic workbook, and the other will give you a paper workbook.

1: Making an online workbook:
There are 2 ways to make a workbook on your computer's hard drive.

One way to make an electronic workbook is to save all or most pages that you access while online. Pull down the file menu on your browser and you'll see several save options. You can select to save a html version of the page or a text version. In either case, previously you should have made a subdirectory on your computer's hard drive in which to store these files. Then you have to remember to save the pages regularly into that directory. You will not be able to save any of the media, just the text pages and, in some cases if you save in html, you can save the graphics too.

The other electronic workbook option is for you to have both your browser open and you word processor. You can switch back and forth and be writing notes like you would in a paper notebook. You can even cut and paste some lines from the browser window to the word processor. This way you'll have a solid set of notes which will include your own comments and insights in the workbook.

Making a paper workbook:
You can have your printer connected and turned on while you are working online. You can print all the pages or as many as you want as you go along giving you a huge stack of paper that can be your paper workbook.

The second paper workbook will be for you to have both your browser and your word processor open simultaneously. You switch back and forth and make notes in your word processor including cutting and pasting some bits from the web browser into your word processor. Then, periodically, print what's in your word processor.

You know whether you work best on paper or on screen. Decide which kind of workbook you want and use it to help you save and remember what you want to remember for future use.

Actually, you don't have to know how adaptive software functions in order to code correctly for accessible web pages. However, we believe that if you can understand and envision some of the problems faced by people with disabilities who visit your site, then coding correctly for access features to meet their needs will make more sense to you. It is often difficult just to follow rules unless you understand the logic behind and understand what the correct code actually does. At least, speaking for myself, I find it almost impossible to mindlessly follow rules that make no sense to me. But, if I understand the reasons behind the rules, then my ability both to comprehend and to be willing to follow rules both increase significantly. That is the rationale behind our taking a lesson to introduce you to the adaptive technologies that users with disabilities will have as their interface to their browsers.

Computer users with hand or arm motor impairments who cannot use a conventional keyboard or mouse use a variety of alternative input devices to access the computer. These alternative input devices then permit their using software applications including word processors and web browsers. Frequently, these users cannot manipulate a mouse efficiently because of a lack of fine motor control and instead use the tab key or an alternative equivalent of the tab key to navigate links on web pages. These include one-handed keyboards, onscreen keyboards, sip and puff systems and much more.

Video clip of onscreen keyboard

Video clip of Alternative mouse

Users with low vision require the text and images on the computer screen to be made larger. They use screen magnification software for that purpose. Screen mag software not only gives a wide number of magnification settings, but permits the user the ability to control font and colors among other personal settings. This means that these users actually see only a small portion of a web page at a time. Complex pages can be very confusing and cause them to get lost as to where they are in a web page.

Video Clip of Screen magnification

it's the Right Thing to Do;

it makes economic sense;

it's the law;

Do it for yourself.

In 1999 Dick and I did a three-day workshop on web design for the Chicago Suburban Library System. Next is a video clip from that presentation in which we cover the 4 reasons why we believe that you should use universal design principles to design your web site.

Reasons to Adapt Your Web Site

The web changes every day. The tools that let you add new design features to the web change every week or sooner. Therefore, the problems and solutions related to accessibility are constantly changing as well. We are talking about a moving target. When a new design tool creates another problem for accessibility, the adaptive software programmers set to work finding ways to overcome it and find a solution. Frequently they succeed, but before the solution is on the market, yet another tool has been created making even more problems for users with disabilities as they surf the web.

The World Wide Web Consortium has created guidelines for HTML code trying to bring some vague order to all this chaos. Now there are new programming additions to HTML such as XML and MATHML. Some kind of standard is needed so that page designers and web browser designers don't create incompatible products. If the browsers can 't read the code, nothing works. The W3C has done a great job of keeping the web flexible and open while providing standards that provide the framework for all this creativity.

The Consortium has also established the Web Access Initiative (WAI) to develop standards for accessibility for users with disabilities. Previously there were as many opinions about what constituted accessibility as there were web critics. Some accessibility critics were willing to accept less access while others demanded a very high standards. What some called accessible; others called inaccessible. For this reason, many web designers didn't even try to make their pages accessible because they couldn't satisfy all these competing and sometimes contradictory formulae.

Wai has now developed a set of 14 HTML access guidelines bringing some order out of the confusion. For simplicity, WAI has also established a set of 10 quick tips which can fit on a standard-sized business card. Because this is a beginners web accessibility workshop, we are using the 10 tips rather than the more technical guidelines as the heart of our workshop. While they may still look daunting at first glance, remember there are only 10 tips that fit on a small business card which you can keep in your wallet. In delivering on-site web workshops for colleges and libraries, we have found that the great majority of web designers are not technical types and are "put off" and discouraged by presentations that are too technical. Most use WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editors an are intimidated by too much HTML code. We do not teach much HTML. We restrict ourselves to the basics of accessible design and no more so far as HTML code is concerned.

The Federal Government is also concerned to make its web sites accessible to all of its citizens including those with disabilities. In 1998 Section 508 of the Rehab Act was updated and its regulations on web accessibility were published in December 2000. The federal Access Board built on the WAI guidelines and created 14 web accessibility standards. They did not just copy the WAI guidelines as the Access Board was concerned to have standards that would be measurable and therefore more enforceable. The Federal government cannot build or purchase web pages that do not meet these standards. It is widely believed that the States' acceptance of Tech Act funds will result in Section 508 regulations applying to states and state agencies including public universities and colleges.

Whether these standards do apply to public universities and colleges is yet to be made clear by the courts. It is also not yet clear whether web designers will look ore to the Section 508 standards or the WAI guidelines and quick tips for shaping their work. Therefore, we will try to cover both. We admit it is confusing juggling 14 guidelines, 10 quick tips and 14 standards. If you get confused, ask for more clarification from us.

Below are links to the WAI guidelines and the Section 508 standards. The text also has this information in it. It is important not to get overwhelmed by looking at them now. Skim through them if you like, but you will understand them much better by the end of the course.

www.w3.org/wai Web Accessibility Initiative

www.access-board.gov Access Board

Frequently it is helpful and interesting to know who you are working with. We do hope you will become involved in some of the online discussions. For that reason, we'd like you to post a personal introduction to the workshop discussion area. We urge you to keep it on the short side as most of us are busy. Maybe tell us the following:

1. Your name, location and institution

2 What is your position or job and why are you interested in accessible web design?

3. Include something personal about yourself so that we aren't all just professional robots.

Your instructors will also share a brief intro with you.

Please also share any reactions to anything new you learned about how users with disabilities access computers and the web.

4. Please let us know if you are a Mac user. If so also let us know if you can run Windows programs on your Mac or whether you can get access to a PC to download some software and play with it. If not we will need to make another arrangement for you. Letting us know now will be helpful to us.

The second part of this assignment is the first of the web repair assignments that will be in each lesson. For this assignment, go to http://www.cast.org/bobby

First find the "About Bobby" link and read about Bobby which is the best-known web ccessibility evaluation tool. After reading about it, go to the edit box on the url above and input the URL for a web page you want to evaluate. Before clicking on the submit button, select to evaluate the page for Section 508 standards. After you submit it, you will get results evaluating the page. Do not worry if some of the report is not clear. It will be as you learn more. Finally go to the edit box and input the same URL but evaluate it for WAI guideline accessibility. This report will be more complex. Compare it with the 508 evaluation, and discuss your
questions and responses with the class online.