General resources

The following reference material is located on external sites and has not been localized for WIU. We appreciate your feedback regarding the accuracy, completeness, and helpfulness of any of the materials we’ve provided here. We also welcome suggestions for additional resources to include on this page.

Introductory material

Paul Bohman’s “Introduction to Web Accessibility,” written for WebAIM, provides ethical and technical arguments, as well as good background information.

For a slightly different approach, try the WAI site Getting Started: Making a Web Site Accessible.

If you’ve never worked with web standards of any kind before, see the MACCAWS web standards kit—it provides a terrific introduction.

Standards

Most of the following standards apply to WIU web sites. Standards are updated as new browsing and computer technologies emerge, so it’s a good idea to keep track of their evolution. As we further develop this site, we hope to include more commentary on all the standards listed here.

Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA)

The IITAA is now Illinois law. As of August 20, 2008, new or “substantially modified” Illinois higher education web sites must meet the IITAA Web Guidelines.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

The Web Accessibility Initiative has developed WCAG to help improve web accessibility, from the perspective of site managers as well as programmers who create web browsers. There is considerable overlap between WCAG and IITAA. Links here are to Version 1.0 of the standards; please note that version 2 will be published soon.

WCAG standards as web pages, PDF, or plain text.

Section 508

“Section 508” refers to a 1998 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 794d). This law requires that Federal agencies’ electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. Like WCAG, there is considerable overlap between Section 508 and IITAA. Full Section 508 standards and a summary are online.

Software

Screen reader and magnifier software is often quite expensive. For example, Freedom Scientific JAWS, the most popular screen reader, is US$1,095 per license.

Fortunately, there is free (and Free) software available which can help web developers build accessible sites. For the excellent Mozilla Firefox web browser, I recommend the following extensions: