Contents
General readings
Description: Readings which can help you understand what accessible design means, how it differs for different people and situations, and some starting points in making your websites and other projects accessible.
Guidelines
Description: Guidelines that determine whether a website can be considered accessible. It’s important to know that following these guidelines don’t mean that the website will definitely be accessible to everyone, but it does provide solutions to common accessibility problems.
- W3’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Quick Guide – this is the set of guidelines on web accessibility. We’ve included the quick guide because the full guide is absolutely enormous (if you’re interested in taking a look, find it here).
Technical and how-to guides
Description: Instructional guides with examples that help you make web accessibility happen.
- W3schools’ HTML Accessibility Guide – provides clear, concise pointers with examples on making HTML accessible
- Mozilla’s Accessibility Guide – includes examples for HTML, CSS/Javascript, Accessible Multimedia, and Mobile Accessibility
- NC State University’s Web Accessibility Guide – includes an overview of laws pertaining to accessibility, plus information on ARIA landmarks, HTML hierarchies, and using skip links, among other topics.
- W3’s Techniques for WCAG 2.0 – a comprehensive guide to techniques you can use to meet WCAG 2.0 guidelines (the most current version is WCAG 2.1), plus common mistakes and how to fix them. Includes tips and tricks for HTML, CSS, ARIA, scripting, and more.
Useful software
Description: various tools that can help you check for accessibility and use
Accessibility checkers
Description: Software you can use to quickly check for accessibility issues. This software can’t catch everything, but it can be a good way to do a quick check during development.
Chrome
- Lighthouse – part of Chrome DevTools which scores sites for performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO. Important: doesn’t always work for local files.
- WAVE accessibility checker – a browser extension that audits sites for accessibility and gives you tips on how to improve it. Should work with local files! Chrome has been a bit finicky lately, so if it’s causing you problems, try it on a different computer or use Firefox.
Firefox
- WAVE accessibility checker – a Mozilla add-on that audits sites for accessibility and gives you tips on how to improve it.
Screen readers and how to use them
Description: screen readers you can use with various operating systems and technologies. NOTE: We are working on getting screen readers on all department computers! We’ll keep you posted.
Downloadable Software
All Systems
- NVDA makes a free downloadable screen reader that you can download onto your machine. Download it for free here.
Linux
- ORCA is a free downloadable screen reader for Linux. Find user guides and download instructions here.
Mac OS
Mac OS has a built-in VoiceOver utility that you can access via System Preferences.
- Find Apple’s VoiceOver User Guide here.
Accessibility in the news
Description: Current news articles about accessibility online and in the world.
- Time, September 12, 2019. 2020 Candidates Making (Some) Progress on Web Accessibility – a follow-up to an initial report that Time published in June 2019 about the candidates’ websites being inaccessible to blind voters
- Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2019. Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if their websites are not accessible – an article on a case between a blind user and Domino’s Pizza, whose website was not accessible to blind voters. This case clears the way for more web accessibility lawsuits.
Further reading
Description: Other resources and literature regarding accessibility, disability justice, and inclusive design.
Disability Justice
- Brown, Lydia. "Identity-First Language." via Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. – This is an article that discusses ways to refer to people with disabilities/disabled people (i.e. identity-first or person-first language). A great deal of debate surrounds this topic, so we encourage you to take a look!
- Berne, Patty and Stacey Milbern. "My Body Doesn’t Oppress Me, Society Does." Barnard Center for Research on Women, via YouTube. – This is a 5-minute YouTube video where Patty Berne and Stacey Milbern, two Disability Justice activists, discuss why our concept of “disability” is fundamentally linked to spaces whose design excludes disabled folks.