I wanted to share a fantastic blog posting on accessibility that I just found by way of Coding Horror. As part of Michael Hunter’s DDJ blogging series entitled “YOU ARE NOT DONE YET,” Michael posted a great list of accessibility scenarios that should be checked for every application. One example includes:
Run in high contrast mode, where rather than a full color palette you have only a very few colors. Is your application still functional? Are all status flags and other UI widgets visible? Are your toolbars and other UI still legible? Does any part of your UI not honor this mode?
Possibly Related Posts:
- Irony in Accessible Design
- Accessibility Virtual Brown Bag Talk
- Suing for Accessible Surfing
- Blind Programming
- Web Usability Pet Peeve #37: label is your friend
3 Comments
The hardest part about having good accessibility, from my experience, is trying to convince the decision makers that accessibility isn’t a tax. If you go in talking about high contrast mode and screen readers, then the reaction is almost always “yeah, but that’s such a minority so we’ll work on something else.”
Thankfully, the US Census Bureau has a great fact book online about how many people in the US have various disabilities… if you can’t stun em with sensible needs, stun em with boring statistics.
Take a look at this essay on Section 508 published by Microsoft’s ATG. It should give you more ideas on how to get accessibility work done
Oooh, I like it! I was aware of Section 508 before (I’ve cited it as part of my boring statistics speech at work), but I’ve never had a concise document to point management to. Thanks for the link!