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Web Accessibility - Simulation
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Introduction:
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Simulation Web sites.
We have put together three Web sites which demonstrate excellent, poor,
and partially accessible Web design. Before clicking on the links below
which lead to the sites, take a moment to turn off the image display in
your browser. While not a foolproof test for visual impairment accessibility,
it is a good start. In the Resources
section of these materials, we will explore some validation tools which
could be applied to the example sites below, as well as to your own site
as you consider accessible design requirements.
Go to image display instructions for Internet Explorer.
Go to image display instructions for Netscape.
The three example sites:
- A highly accessible site: the City of San Jose, California's site
was designed to be accessible to city residents and officials with vision
and hearing impairments. The site's standards were put in place after
disabled city officials and residents proved that an accessible site
was crucial for all members of that community. While this site is designed
with accessibility in mind, it is still attractive and functional for
all visitors.
Visit the main City of
San Jose site.
Visit the site's instructions
for users with disabilities.
- An inaccessible site: many designers just don't think about accessibility
issues when designing their sites. A common problem are sites which
use Flash for navigation. However, even lower bandwith sites can be
problematic if they use images without ALT tags. The following site
is an example of both Flash and images used in a less-than-accessible
manner.
Try turning off the image display in your browser
and clicking some links on Volkswagon's
site.
- A partially accessible site: in designing this Web site, we used many
of the accessibility tips mentioned we tout. However, even when accessibility
is a goal, sometimes institutional or other factors hinder full accessibility.
While the main content of this site makes sense when viewed through
a text-only browser or view source, some of the programmatically generated
portal tools at the top of the pages are not fully accessible because
of limitations in the technology used to control them. When you find
yourself in a situation where certain elements of a Web site's design
are beyond your control, it is still worth making the parts of your
site you do control as accessible as possible.
Try viewing the source of this page, and also the scenarios
page, which contains a table that should read linearly when
viewed as text.
To view source in Internet Explorer: From the View
menu, choose Source.
To view source in Netscape: From the View menu, choose Page Source.
To turn off image display in Internet Explorer (instructions
for Netscape are below):
From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options, then
click the Advanced tab.
Scroll down to the Multimedia section, uncheck the box for Show
pictures, then click OK. You may need to load a new page
in the browser for the setting take effect. A screen capture of
the Internet Options dialog box is below.
 d
To turn off image display in Netscape (instructions
for Internet Explorer are above):
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From the Edit menu, choose Preferences,
then choose Advanced from the categories at left;
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Uncheck the box for Automatically load images,
then click OK. You may need to load a new page
in the browser for the setting to take effect. A screen capture
of the Preferences dialog box is below.
 d
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