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Focus on AccessibilityIntroductionWhen we create HTML-based content, many of us fail to take into account the needs of users who have accessibility restrictions. These restrictions may be due to a wide range of factors: visual impairment or blindness, browser incompatibility, device limitations, or lack of required technology such as JavaScript or plug-ins. Consider the case of John who is partially sighted and relies on a speaking browser to read information aloud to him from the Web. On numerous occasions, he finds that the home pages with fancy animated graphics contain little no information that the browser can read aloud. Even when text-based information is available, it is frequently poorly sequenced so that John has to listen to a lot of redundant information before getting to the important menu options that he needs. Or how about Valerie? She regularly uses her Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) to browse the Web for places and events of interest. The PDA's screen has only 240 x 320 pixels resolution, so on most sites Valerie has to scroll repeatedly both across and down to read the entire page. Accessibility and User AssistanceYou may think that these issues are not so critical when you are writing user assistance. It's true, you may be confident that your users are free of certain limiting factors. Your audience research may tell you that your users are all viewing your Help on a full-sized computer screen of at least 800 x 600 pixels resolution. But can you be sure that they have JavaScript enabled? Should you assume that all users can read the 10-point font that you are using? What if some users are color blind (10% of the male population has some form of color blindness)? How about those users who are unable to use a mouse - have you enabled them to navigate your Help easily using the keyboard? These are issues that may affect the way you plan, write and implement your user assistance. For instance, the way in which you define the font size for your Help within a cascading style sheet will impact on the users' ability to control the font size to suit their own needs. If you define the size of your base font in absolute terms (let's say 10pt) then your users will not have this control. If, however, you specify a relative size (for example 80%), then your users can change the size of the Help text by using their browser's Text Size setting. W3C GuidelinesThe World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published a set of guidelines for making accessible web content. Here are 10 of their top tips. For a complete set of guidelines and checklist, visit the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative site.
Other Useful Accessibility LinksMicrosoft's Accessibility site. The site for the BBC Education Text to Speech Internet Enhancer (Betsie). This is a simple Perl script that is intended to alleviate some of the problems experienced by people using text-to-speech systems for web browsing. "Designing More Usable Web Sites" - site of the Trace Research & Development Center, which is a part of the College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Founded in 1971, Trace has been a pioneer in the field of technology and disability. Site of the Federal Information Technology Accessibility Initiative (FITAI). Section 508 requires that Federal agencies' electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. The FITAI is a Federal government interagency effort to offer information and technical assistance to assist in the successful implementation of Section 508. Article entitled "What Internet Companies Must Know about the Americans with Disabilities Act" by lawyer Douglas M. Towns. 
Matthew Ellison
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