Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites Observing Users …

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for good Web design, guidelines for writing for the web. 13. www.w3.org/WAI/ - the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web. Consortium …

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Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites:
Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers1
(updated December 2006 to fix broken links and first author’s contact information)
Mary Frances Theofanos
National Cancer Institute
Rockville, Maryland, USA
now at
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA
mary.theofanos@nist.gov
Janice (Ginny) Redish
Redish & Associates, Inc.
Bethesda, Maryland, USA
ginny@redish.net
The Communication Technologies Branch of the United States National Cancer Institute
(part of National Institutes of Health and Department of Health and Human Services) has
been conducting usability testing with people with disabilities, specifically blind and lowvision
users, to
?understand the relationship between accessibility and usability
?understand how blind and low-vision users work with Web sites
?develop research-based guidelines for accessibility and usability
?assess the usability of specific Web sites for blind and low-vision users
Since June 2001, U. S. federal Web sites must comply with Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. §794.d). This law requires that agencies provide access to
electronic information to people with disabilities. Section 508 identifies 16 specific
standards for Web site…