Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Web Site More Usable for Everyone By John M. Slatin,, Sharron Rush
Table of Contents
Chapter 2. User Experience: Born to Shop
Accessibility barriers are not created because Web developers want to keep people away from online information. Rather, they most often occur as the result of ignorance. The creators of most inaccessible sites have simply never thought about the fact that people with disabilities use the Internet in the same way as anyone else: for fun, for learning, for community information and for commerce. This is the first of several chapters in which we illustrate particular design features by inviting you to experience the Web along with us as we browse using assistive technology. In this chapter, we are trying to make a purchase online. Most of the barriers we encounter here are caused by missing ALT text that is, image maps and buttons that lack the equivalent text alternatives that would make them accessible to people using assistive technologies such as screen readers and talking Web browsers. We demonstrate the experience of missing ALT text in this chapter and provide the means to improve the situation in Chapter 9, Equivalent Alternatives.
HTML Elements and Attributes Addressed in This Chapter
Elements
<img>, <area>
Attributes
alt, longdesc
Accessibility Checkpoints and Standards Addressed in This Chapter
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Checkpoints
1.1. Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). [Priority 1]
9.1. Provide client-side image maps instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape. [Priority 1]
Section 508 Standards, §1194.22
(a) A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (for example, via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content).
(f) Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.
