Techniques

We have learned a lot in fifteen years of working to make information systems work for people with disabilities. Here are a few of the things we figured out the hard way:

• Accessible Presentations with Adobe Captivate 3 - Captivate 3 is a powerful tool for creating accessible Flash-based training presentations. Unfortunately, many of the accessibility features don't work as advertised. The good news? We've found a number of work-arounds that can help get the job done.
• Accessible Form Instructions - Making web forms accessible for people who use screen readers can be trickier than it seems. Making form instructions readable for screen readers in "forms mode" is one such challenge, and this technique provides the best solution.
• Accessible Read-only Forms - See this example of how unobtrusive JavaScript can be used to make "disabled" form fields accessible.
• Internet Explorer Same-Page Links - Just when we thought we had "skip navigation" techniques perfected, we discovered that they weren't working for keyboard users in Internet Explorer. Turns out it had to do with an insidious Microsoft invention called "hasLayout". This technique provides a painless work-around.

(We are working on getting more techniques written up. Please watch for more to come....)