United States Access Board Webinar on Accessible Web Sites

Accessible websites will be the subject of the next webinar in the United States Access Board's free monthly series to be held on July 11, 2013,  from 2:30 - 4 pm (ET). This session will review requirements in the internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, also known as WCAG 2.0, issued by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The Board, which is updating its Section 508 standards for information and communication technology, has proposed referencing the WCAG 2.0 to address web accessibility.

The webinar series is made available in cooperation with the ADA National Network. For more information, including registration instructions, visit http://www.accessibilityonline.org/ . Questions for the webinars can be submitted in advance through this website. Archived copies of previous Board webinars are also available on the site. Webinar attendees can earn continuing education credits (CEUs).

Easy Checks - A First Review of Web Accessibility

The Web Accessibility Initiative at the W3C has published Easy Checks - A First Review of Web Accessibility. Easy Checks help you assess the accessibility of a web page. With these simple steps, you can get an idea whether or not accessibility is addressed in even the most basic way.

These checks cover just a few accessibility issues and are designed to be quick and easy, rather than definitive. A web page could seem to pass these checks, yet still have accessibility barriers. More robust evaluation is needed to evaluate all issues comprehensively.

It addresses the following issues that need to be checked and addressed to ensure your web site is accessible to people with disabilities:

• Page title 
• Image text alternatives ("alt text") (pictures, illustrations, charts, etc.) 
• Text: Headings, Contrast ratio ("color contrast"), Zoom 
• Interaction: Keyboard access and visual focus, Forms and errors, Multimedia (video, audio) alternatives