Accessibility

Websites built with accessibility in mind are flexible in meeting different user needs, preferences and situations. Though these methods can increase usability for everyone who uses the web they are often legally required to be implemented in a specific effort to prevent discrimination against people with disabilities.

See the tracker under Accessibility Compliance in Moodle 1.8 and Compliance with Italian Legislation on Accessibility for more information on what we are doing for Moodle 1.8.

Starting points

These are some readable introductions to accessibility that cover; what accessibility is, why it is important, as well as practical advice.

• Web Accessibility Initiative's Introduction to Web Accessibility
• Mark Pilgrim's Dive into Accessibility
• Joe Clark's Building Accessible Websites book

Standards, guidelines and legislation

• SENDA - Special Educational Needs and Disability Act/Bill
• Disability Discrimination Act 1995
• Section 508
• Web Accessibility Initiative
  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (draft)
    • an article on the problems with WCAG2

Other countries

• Germany: Barrierefreie Informationstechnik-Verordnung - BITV

Tools

• Firefox Accessibility Extension by the Illinois Center for Information Technology and Web Accessibility (iCITA)
• Web developer extension for Firefox
• Blank Your Monitor and Easy Reading Extension for Firefox
• W3C validation (for HTML in Moodle, CSS and RSS)
• Web accessibility evaluation tool
• Cynthia Says accessibility checker
• Fangs – the screen reader emulator for Firefox
• NVDA NonVisual Desktop Access - open source screen reader for Windows

see also this long list of accessibility tools.

Resources

• Web Standards.org's Accessibility Task Force Manifesto
• Accessibility articles from A List Apart
• Mark Pilgrim's Won’t somebody please think of the gerbils?

Dive Into Accessibility by Mark Pilgrim

• Joe Clark's writings on accessibility

Building Accessible Websites by Joe Clark (online version)

• Wikipedia article on Web Accessibility
• Validity and Accessibility
• Videos showing as student accessing another Learning Management System via Screen Reader software

See also

• Moodle Accessibility Specification
• Semantic HTML
• Accessibility forum on Moodle.org
• Using Moodle New Accessibility Themes forum discussion
• EASY: Interface Between The Virtual Environment Moodle Learning and People with Visual Impairments
• BBC blog post on how their Web 2.0 homepage was made accessible
• BBC Accessibility Help