- Accessibility refreshers
This section briefly discusses material from the AIR-Austin “Accessibility Basics” course and serves as a refresher for previous AIR participants. There are several topics covered in this section:
- web accessibility challenges faced by people with disabilities,
- text alternatives,
- creating a logical tab order with
tabindex, accesskeyor other navigation methods,- form accessibility,
- data table accessibility, and
- laws and standards for web accessibility.
- Importance of valid code and semantic markup
This section discusses the benefits of markup and CSS validation, and tools for partial accessibility validation. Beware that while HTML and CSS validation require only scripts, accessibility validation requires extensive human analysis (The “Bobby Approved” graphic does not mean accessible. It means, “The script couldn’t find any errors, but keep looking.”).
This section also discusses semantics and metadata, and how using semantic markup can benefit you and your site’s audience.
- Cascading Style Sheets
This section discusses the basics of CSS, benefits of CSS, and how to use CSS in an accessible way. CSS resources, examples, and a demonstration of User Style Sheets are also provided.
- JavaScript/ECMAScript
This section discusses the ability to provide rich usability benefits to a majority of your audience without negatively affecting the accessibility of your site to the disabled minority. This material dismisses the myth that accessible means “a separate plain-text site” and demonstrates how most common uses for JavaScript can be executed in an accessible manner.
- Accessibility testing
This section discusses quality assurance techniques to ensure your site is accessible to as wide an audience as possible. DHTML requires additional accessibility testing, so several testing techniques are covered. The term, DHTML, simply refers to the creative combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- Flash MX
This section briefly discusses the new accessibility features of Flash MX and how to overcome accessibiity challenges while providing a rich user experience.
- Audio/video
This section discusses how to make other forms of media accessible: captioning video, descriptive audio tracks, etc.
- Conclusion
This sections concludes the course with a compiled list of resources, contact information for the instructors, and time for questions.