This link has been bookmarked by 18 people . It was first bookmarked on 11 Apr 2008, by Debra Hicks.
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However, the needs of the largest disability group in our community, those with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties, appear to have slipped through the cracks to a large extent when it comes to website accessibility.
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- How the presentation of page content can be modified to make it more accessible.
- Design of site navigation systems.
- Tailoring content to the needs of different audience groups.
The aim of this paper is to offer some ideas on how websites might more effectively meet the needs of people with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties. The paper will look at three issues:
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The focus of this paper however, is primarily on improving the web for people who have the functional capacity to independently access and use sites than contain some text content.
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"Web designers need to specialize the products for the cognitively disabled according to their needs".
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- Perception and processing
- Memory
- Problem-solving
- Attention
most common difficulties individuals with cognitive disabilities have to overcome and suggests these could be presented in the following categories:
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words should be clear and simple so that they may be more easily understood
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well organised
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Keep it short. People don't 'read' web pages in the same way they read printed documents. Website visitors rely heavily on skimming and scanning techniques to find areas of interest quickly.
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inverted pyramid" style
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small chunks, with one key idea per paragraph.
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related points in a list
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meaningful headings and subheadings.
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first reading
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spelling and grammatical mistakes
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diminish the integrity of a website.
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definitions/explanations of technical terms, abbreviations and acronyms.
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Line length
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Rivers of white
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Alternatives for non-literal text.
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W3C Ruby Technology [9] offers a potential solution to this problem since it allows literal translations to be provided for non-literal text
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clear understanding of the target audience or audiences for their material and the ability to determine the language level, or readability, of the document.
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literacy problems are likely to reduce the individual's ability to access and understand the written content on a website.
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Readability tests
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Readability tests
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Now, we would like to look at how recent advances in the use of cascading style sheets (CSS) can give users greater control over how that information is presented.
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CSS can now be used to give site visitors control over the way page content is presented, including:
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Increasing line height, or the space between the lines of text, which may make text easier for early-stage readers to read.
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Increasing the size of the 'clickable' area for links
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Mouse over highlighting of text paragraphs or table rows with changes in colour and/or underlining, which should help people who have difficulty negotiating lines of text.
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Change the background colour of the page.
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Colour inversion.
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A balance needs to be found however, between providing options and swamping people with choices.
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Providing web users with greater control over the way material on a website is presented is very much in keeping with one of the fundamental tenets of the web.
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There are obvious advantages in having the controls on all pages and in the same position on each page
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There are many ways to achieve style switching
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key elements:
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Clear labels and signs so the user can find and understand the options that are available.
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- Good feedback so the user can confirm their actions, see whether they made the right choice and recover from any mistakes easily
- Reliable functionality or performance so that it is easy to use and will function with different browsers and devices
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consistent positioning of navigational elements, including the search facility, on all site pages will assist in the short term memory required to acquire information about the navigation system and to use it. The consistent positioning of navigation elements within a site in a way that that conform to general web conventions is also likely to assist in
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However, all Web users, including those with disabilities, are assisted when the site navigation is where they expect it to be and performs how they expect it to perform.
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"Content: Long or Short", was developed so that users can determine the level of detail provided in the content of each page. The Short option provides an easy to read version of the information.
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way of quickly locating the information they required.
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As we have seen, it is now possible to make sites that can give users control over both the content of the information on a page and the way that content is presented. The next, and perhaps more challenging task, is to convince website developers and proprietors that this is worth doing.
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06 Jul 09
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Tero HeiskanenWeb accessibility and the notion of universal design are laudable and for many disabled people have resulted in significant benefits
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19 Mar 05
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