HTML Editors: Four Key Capabilities to Address Web Accessibility Issues

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HTML Editors Four Key Capabilities to Address
Web Accessibility Issues
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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Certain capabilities within HTML editors can go a
  long way in tackling web accessibility issues.
  Specifically, your editor should have four
  essential capabilities
•  
• Accessibility checking as you type
• Wizard to create accessible tables
• Inspecting content and providing accessibility
  reports
• Providing compatibility with assistive
  technologies
•  
• But before delving into these capabilities in
  greater detail, well first provide some
  background information on web accessibility and
  standards.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Accessibility The Force Behind Most Web
  Standards
•  
• When you comply with web accessibility standards,
  first and foremost, your web pages can be
  accessed by persons with disabilities, while also
  gaining greater visibility in searches.
• The search engine is able to access and index
  your documents more easily and accurately.
• The same goes for robots that collect information
  from your website on behalf of search engines.
• Compliance to standards offers additional
  benefits as well.
• For example, your web pages can be converted to
  other formats, including databases and Word
  documents.
• Standards help create versatility.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Accessibility The Force Behind Most Web
  Standards
•  
• Web documents can be accessed through other
  software and hardware platforms.
• Fortunately, a good HTML editor can provide the
  necessary capabilities to help you comply with
  the webs accessibility standards.
• With these capabilities already built-in to the
  application, you wont have to worry about
  meeting compliance standards the editor will do
  the heavy lifting for you.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Capability 1 Accessibility Checking As You
  Type
•  
• You and your authors want to know if your content
  is compliant before its published.
• Therefore, an important capability to have is
  accessibility checking as you type.
• This feature lets you immediately spot things
  like images missing alternative text,
  inaccessible tables and other accessibility
  issues.
• The accessibility checking as you type function
  works as simply as a word processing spell
  checker. Its a must-have feature for HTML
  editing.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Capability 2 Creating Accessible Tables
•  
• Its not easy to create accessible tables. So,
  make sure you get all the help you can get from
  your HTML editor.
• The accessibility checking as you type feature
  mentioned above will identify any issues. But
  you should have additional capabilities available
  as well.
• Your editor should provide other capabilities to
  create accessible tables such as a convert to
  percentage widths feature.
• With one click, your HTML editor should be able
  to create a relative-sized table.
• Also, a table accessibility inspector and
  table accessibility wizard can help users apply
  the right header and data cell relationships by
  pointing and clicking, not coding HTML.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Capability 3 Inspecting Content and Providing
  Accessibility Reports
•  
• Your HTML editor needs to thoroughly inspect your
  content against the two established sets of
  industry guidelines
• the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
• Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act
  Amendments of 1998 (Section 508)
• Then, it must deliver accessibility reports
  highlighting any errors.
•  
• Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),
  the WCAG formal guidelines identify how to create
  accessible web content. WCAG 2.0 includes 12
  guidelines and 65 checkpoints.
• The checkpoints are prioritized from one to three
  in terms of access barriers.
• A priority one checkpoint indicates barriers make
  access impossible for one or more user groups
  priority two denotes access is difficult and
  priority three signifies access is somewhat
  difficult.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Capability 3 Inspecting Content and Providing
  Accessibility Reports
•  
• For each guideline, testable success criteria are
  provided.
• In order to meet the needs of different groups
  and different situations, three levels of
  conformance to WCAG 2.0 guidelines are defined
• A (lowest), AA, and AAA (highest).
•  
• An outcome of legislation, the Architectural and
  Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, also
  called the Access Board, published the Electronic
  and Information Technology Accessibility
  Standards (Section 508) in December 2000.
• The section on web-based intranet and internet
  information and applications" provides sixteen
  standards which define the minimum level of
  accessibility for federal government websites.
• These standards strongly resemble the WCAG
  checkpoints, and continue to be reviewed for need
  for enhancement.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Capability 4 Providing Compatibility with
  Assistive Technologies
•  
• You also want your HTML editors interface to be
  accessibility compliant with assistive
  technologies.
• What does this mean?
• Not only do people with disabilities need to be
  able to access the web, but your web pages as
  well.
• Everyone accessing your site must understand it,
  even if they use a non-typical browser.
• For example, a person with a vision disability
  would be using a voice browser that reads web
  pages out loud, like the JAWS from Freedom
  Scientific, or a Braille browser that translates
  text to Braille.
• Other unusual devices might include hand-held
  browsers and teletext displays.

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HTML editors and web accessibility

• Making sure your content management tools address
  web accessibility standards will help ensure
  traditional browsers, as well as non-traditional
  browsers and devices, can access your web pages.
  
• If you dont follow standards, youll limit
  access to your target audience and adversely
  affect your business.

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About the Author
Tom Smith is VP Worldwide Sales and Marketing for
Ephox Corporation, a fast-growing software
company focused on delivering content performance
solutions for developers, marketers, authors and
web production teams. Learn more about our
HTML editor capabilities by visiting
http//ephox.com/.