OhioLINK History of Philosophy Website

Speech-Friendly Website Design

In order to provide the greatest possible access to our project, we are incorporating speech-friendly website design principles into our web pages. This page provides a list of annotated hyperlinks to various web resources where you can learn more about writing speech-friendly HTML--and why you should want to.

This page will be continually updated during the life of this website.

Contents

Designing Accessible Web Pages

Links to resources explaining speech-friendly design principles.

Automated Validators

Submit your web pages to see if they conform to speech-friendly design principles.

Resources for Blind/Visually Impaired Users

Links to information for users with accessibility problems.

Designing Accessible Web Pages

Could Helen Keller Read Your Page?

This excellent resource, written by Terry Sullivan and Krystyn Manning, explains both why you should want to write speech-friendly code, and (more importantly) offers plenty of suggestions (with examples in HTML) for how to improve your pages.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

Version 1.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines was adopted as an official recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium on May 5, 1999. They provide suggestions for enhancing the accessibility of Web sites for people with disabilities, and were developed by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. The specification contains fourteen guidelines which are general principles of accessible design, where each guideline is associated with one or more checkpoints describing how to apply it to particular features of Web pages. An appendix to the guidelines, "List of Checkpoints for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" presents the checkpoints sorted by priority for easy reference.

Levelling the Road Ahead

Subtitled "Guidelines for the Creation of WWW Pages Accessible to Blind and Visually Handicapped Users", this a white paper written by Judith M. Dixon, Ph.D., Consumer Relations Officer of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. It is aimed at professional librarians interested in providing library services on the web.

Creating Web Pages Accessible to Visually Impaired People

Written by Matt O'Kane, this is a useful introduction to writing good, accessible HTML, based around the distinction between textual and non-textual visual information.

Designing Accessible Web Pages

This takes you to Gregory J. Rosmaita's list of hyperlinks to sources offering practical advice for designing accessible web pages. His list of sources on accessibility in theory and practice is also very useful.

W3C Web Accessibility Initiave Homepage

Get the news straight from the horse's mouth--this link takes you to the World Wide Web Consortium, which is committed to helping fulfill the promise inherent in the nature of the web for a high degree of usability by people with disabilities. The W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative is promoting accessibility of the web through technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development. It also has a useful list of hyperlinks to other accessibility-related materials on the web.

BLIND-DEV

BLIND-DEV is an unmoderated discussion list dedicated to the detailed discussion of issues concerning the development of computer products and adaptive equipment for blind and visually impaired computer users. This includes both hardware and software development on any system. The purpose of BLIND-DEV is to serve as a catalyst which will both spur and speed the development of software which will enable the blind user to use emerging technologies, platforms, operating systems, and applications as they are developed, so that access is built-in, rather than retrofitted. This link takes you to the BLIND-DEV Homepage, from which you can join the mailing list and examine the archives of past postings.

Speech Friendly Ribbon Award

Sponsored by Cathy Anne Murtha, this site allows you to submit your website for a review of its speech-friendliness and has hyperlinks to other sources concerning the design of accessible web pages.

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Automated Validators

The Kinder, Gentler Validator

This is a friendly and easy-to-use HTML validation service. Submit the URL of a web page, and it will be run through an SGML parser to check your document for compliance with HTML standards. The error messages try to be as friendly and specific as possible. If you're using HTML 3.2, it still works fine, but it hasn't been updated for more recent specifications of HTML. The KGV was the validator we originally used in creating this website; we've since switched to using the W3C Validator.

Bobby

Sometimes correct HTML syntax isn't enough to guarantee that your pages are accessible to people with disabilities. Submit your pages to Bobby, and he'll point out problems that could be encountered by screen-reading programs; he'll also find HTML compatibility problems that prevent pages from displaying correctly on different web browsers. Bobby was created at CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology), a non-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for all people -- especially those with disabilities -- through the innovative uses of computer technology.

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Resources for Blind/Visually Impaired Users

Lynx Help Menu

Lynx is the browser of choice for the blind/visually impaired user. This link takes you to information on Lynx: how to use it, but also general information about Lynx, including the Lynx FAQ.

Using Lynx to Learn, Design, and Edit HTML

This link will take you to a short, interactive tutorial explaining how to use the bare-bones Lynx browser as a vehicle for designing and maintaining your own web pages. Written by blind webmaster Gregory Rosmaita, it is very sensitive to accessibility issues, and is instructive to the sighted as well.

VICUG NYC: Educational Materials Pertaining to Past Presentations

The Visually Impaired Computer Users Group of New York City is maintaining a hyperlinked list of materials relating to presentations held at past meetings. If you don't live in the NYC area, or can't attend the meetings, this list of resources is the next best thing.

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KSU Department of Philosophy 
This page was last modified Fri 9 Jul 1999 at 21:35:26 EDT.