Web Accessibility

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Questions & Answers

Where can I get information on web accessibility guidelines at UT?

Is there anybody on campus who can help me with accessible web design and learning materials?

Can you recommend good online tutorials?

What free online evaluation tools can I use to test my site for accessibility?

How do new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines differ from WCAG 1.0?

Where can I get information on web accessibility guidelines at UT?

The University of Tennessee Accessibility Guide is available at MyUT portal. To navigate to the file

• open the UT Home page http://www.utk.edu and login to my/UT Portal using your NetID and password,
• Select link "Web Template Home" in the left-hand menu,
• Select "University of Tennessee Accessibility Guide" in the left-hand menu.

Is there anybody on campus who can help me with accessible web design and learning materials?

A good place to start is the Innovative Technology Center (ITC) located at 400 Dunford Hall 915 Volunteer Blvd., Knoxville, TN. ITC provides free short-term consultation to UT faculty and teaching staff on all aspects of the development process for instructional technology projects. In addition, ITC offers free workshops on web accessibility to UT faculty, graduate students, and staff.

Refer questions about UT web accessibility guidelines to the Web Services Group, tel. 865-974-1594.

Can you recommend good online tutorials?

Here are a few online tutorials on accessible Web design:

• Accessible Web Design Tutorials - WebAIM
• Web Accessibility for Section 508 - Jim Thatcher
• Dive into Accessibility - Mark Pilgrim

What free online evaluation tools can I use to test my site for accessibility?

Below are just a few automated web accessibility evaluation tools. Use their reports in combination with functional testing of your website with other tools and manual check of conformity to web accessibility guidelines.

• Bobby, a popular tool that provides a report on conformity to HTML specifications.
• Cynthia Says reports Section 508 and the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) errors.
• Wave, popular tool providing icon-based accessibility report.
• W3C Markup Validator reports on the document's conformance to HTML standards.
• Web Page Analyzer reports on web page components sizes and download time.
• View a comprehensive list of evaluation, repair, and transformation tools compiled by W3C.

How do new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines differ from WCAG 1.0?

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) have been under revision for quite a while. The most recent draft of the guidelines at http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/ shows the direction in which the development is moving.

The guidelines are built around four general design principles aimed at creating perceivable, operable and understandable Web content that is compatible with a wide range of assistive technologies. The new guidelines are not HTML-specific and can be applied to various technologies. The guidelines will be supported by a number of documents: techniques, checklists, and test suites to help developers evaluate the accessibility of content.

WCAG 2.0 has introduced a new priority scheme, three levels of testable success criteria. Where WCAG 1.0 assigns a priority to a checkpoint, the WCAG 2.0 categorizes a success criterion into one of three levels. To make transitioning to the new guidelines easier, WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 have corresponding conformance levels.

Read "Constructing a POUR Website, Part 1: Putting People at the Center of the Process
(POUR = Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust)" by WebAIM to learn about the four guiding principles of accessibility in WCAG 2.0 http://www.webaim.org/techniques/articles/pour/people.