Digital Accessibility 101

Accommodating People with Disabilities

• People with low vision or blindness
• People with limited use of their hands
• People who are deaf or hard of hearing
• People with learning disabilities

Low Vision or Blindness

• Large Fonts
• High Contrast
• Screen Magnifiers (ZoomText, MAGic)
• Screen Readers (JAWS, Window-Eyes)

Limited Use of Hands

• Alternate Keyboards
• Alternate Mouse Devices
• Speech Recognition (Dragon NaturallySpeaking)

Deaf or Hard of Hearing

• Captions (Flash Video)

Learning Disabilities

• Reading Aids (BrowseAloud)

Your Customers, Your Staff, Your Students, Your Self...

• 10-20% of Americans have or will have a disability
• An aging population has increasing accessibility needs
• Accessibility and usability go hand-in-hand

The Law

• Americans with Disabilities Act
• “Section 504” of the Rehabilitation Act
• “Section 508” of the Rehabilitation Act
• Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act

The Lawsuits

• America Online
• IBM (Olympics.com)
• Priceline & Ramada.com
• State of Arkansas, State of Pennsylvania
• Target.com

Target.com

• Repair web site
• Monitoring by the NFB
• Original plaintiff → $20,000
• Class-action fund → $6 million

Accessibility Standards

• Federal Section 508 Standards section508.gov
• W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20
• Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act Standards www.dhs.state.il.us/iitaa

Testing Tools

• Web Accessibility Testing Checklist www.msfw.com/accessibility/tools
• Functional Accessibility Evaluator fae.cita.uiuc.edu

Keys to Success

• Be Proactive
• Get Training/Find the Right Resources
• Don't be Overwhelmed

• Illinois Department of Human Services www.dhs.state.il.us/iitaa
• DBTAC: Great Lakes ADA Center www.adagreatlakes.org
• UIC Disability Resource Center drc.uic.edu
• UIUC Center for Information Technology Accessibility cita.uiuc.edu
• MSF&W Accessibility Solutions www.msfw.com/accessibility