The National Library for the Blind

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TheNational Libraryfor the Blind
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Designing accessible websites

• Joanna Widdows
• David Egan

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Design For All

• Accessible design is good design for all
• Visual impairment (VI) and the Web
• VI a continuum

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How do visually impaired people access the web?

• Magnification
• Refreshable Braille
• Speech synthesis

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Why Bother?

• Social Inclusion
• Best Value
• DDA
• E-Government

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Myths and Tips

• Text version of site is essential
• Good sites can include more than just text

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Myths and Tips

• Frames must not be used
• Give frames titles
• Use no frames version

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Myths and Tips

• Tables must not be used
• Avoid the use of tables for layout
• Use necessary markup to describe tables

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Myths and Tips

• Images must be avoided
• Give all images alt text
• Give imagemaps text links

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Myths and Tips

• Flash and Javascript must not be used
• Offer alternatives for Javascript, applets,
  flash plug-ins

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Myths and Tips

• PDF must not be used
• Make Access Adobe available for PDF files -
  http//access.adobe.com/

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Myths and Tips

• Bobby is all you need
• Use Bobby, other tools and human evaluation

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More Tips

• Make the text legible
• make the design flexible
• Provide a site map preferably at the bottom of
  the screen

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and more

• Multiple links can make navigation difficult

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• Make sure links make sense out of context

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The proof of the pudding...

• Some examples of good and bad practice

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NLB Consultancy

• Co-ordinated by Interactive Initiatives
• Developing NLB charter mark
• david.egan_at_nlbuk.org