Accessible Forms 2: Required Fields and Extra Information

The second in this series of articles about improving the accessibility of web page forms looks at different ways to mark-up required (mandatory) form fields and provide additional information that maybe necessary to understand or correctly complete a form.

Accessible Forms 1: Labels and identification

The first in a new series of articles about improving the accessibility of forms looks at ways to identify and group form controls, including the use of implicit and explicit labels, title attributes, and fieldset and legend.

Accessibility: More than WCAG compliance – CSUN2013 Talk

Web content accessibility is being increasingly viewed solely from the perspective of how well a site complies with WCAG 2 rather than how well people with disabilities can access the content. Slides and speakers notes from my CSUN 2013 talk that considered this issue and outlined a new Accessibility Priority Tool to help organisations identify and correct likely access barriers to their web content.

Forgotten of Web Accessibility: CSUN2013 Talk

Slides and speakers note from my CSUN 2013 presentation about some of the forgotten of web accessibility: the elderly, novice web users and people with cognitive and reading difficulties.

Accessibility Priority Tool

The Accessibility Priority Tool is a mechanism for helping organisations identify and correct issues that could reduce the ability of people to access web content. This Excel tool takes account of the needs and target audience of a site, as well as a professional assessment of the likely impact of potential accessibility barriers.

Headings: Who needs ’em?

This is a story about web page headings and sub-headings: A story that tries to look beyond the absurd distinctions that are sometimes made about the usability and accessibility of web content, to ask who needs headings and why.

Changes in web-user behaviour

By comparing two projects, five years apart, the article considers the growing influence of Facebook and Google. It looks at how this maybe be changing the behaviour of some web users, and the potential impact it could have on the accessibility of websites.

Is PDF accessible in Australia?

I am concerned that mixed-messages relating to the status of PDFas a “web content technology” in Australia could put at risk the whole move to improve the accessibility of the web.

JAWS 11 and IE 9

We found some problems when using forms with JAWS 11 and IE 9 that could mean someone relying on a screen reader would not know there were checkboxes or radio buttons on the page.

Accessibility Barrier Scores

This suggested ABS system aims to provide a measure of how often barriers to accessibility occur in reviewed web page(s) and the likely seriousness of those barriers.