A generic term describing descriptive text attached to certain objects on a web page that can be read aloud by a screen reader, so that a person with a visual impairment can know the nature of such objects, too. Alt-text is therefore an accessible alternative to a potentially inaccessible item of content. For example, the object element may use text embedded within it as a fallback mechanism.
The most common alternative text is found as an attribute of the <img> element, and it describes the function of an image, or is blank in the case of purely decorative images.
It is evil and wrong to refer to this as an alt tag (there is no alt element in (X)HTML), and many hope that WCAG 3.0 will mandate the death penalty for such incorrect nomenclature.
designing authoring tools that produce accessible Web content and to assist developers in creating an accessible authoring interface" (www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10/). In other words, your blogging tool or CMS should not only produce accessible pages, but also be accessible itself so that users with disabilities can create content.
A free website accessibility assessment tool developed by CAST, and then acquired by Watchfire. The free version of Bobby was discontinued in April 2003.
Bobby had some utility in checking for things like missing alt-text, but, unfortunately, it lulled site owners into a false sense of security, as they believed that "passing Bobby" guaranteed accessibility. There are many other online "validators," such as Cynthia Says and the WAVE. Gez Lemon has a salutary article about the usefulness of such programs.
<b> and <font>. For a start, CSS formatting is more powerful and allows more flexibility. If you want to change a style, you need only change its definition in the style sheet, rather than changing every instance of it in the HTML. CSS has great uses for accessibility. For example, you can use an alternative style sheet to make the text on a website bigger for the benefit of people with visual impairments. See Chapter 9 of this book for more details.alt attribute. It'
s basically a hack, because most browsers don'
t cope with longdesc well.Defined by the W3C as "a reformulation of the three HTML4 document types as applications of XML 1.0. It is intended to be used as a language for content that is both XML-conforming and, if some simple guidelines are followed, operates in HTML4 conforming user agents
" (www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#xhtml).
XHTML is very much like HTML with a few extra rules. There are three main flavors. XHTML 1.0 Transitional allows many deprecated tags, and as the name suggests, was designed to help developers make the transition from HTML. XHTML 1.0 Frameset allows frames and therefore has attendant accessibility issues. XHTML 1.0 Strict is, well, strict (when compared with traditional HTML).
The idea that XHTML is "better" than HTML is subject to ferocious (but rather futile) debate, as it is largely a matter of personal preference, understanding the difference, and using the right tools for the job.
<title> element, or the <title> element is not meaningful, this can cause accessibility issues. In addition, some browsers do not support frames.An area of an image on a web page that has links to other areas of the Web. For example, an image map could take the form of a map of Europe, in which clicking the map of England could open a page about warm beer, rain, and world-renown cuisine; whereas the area corresponding to Belgium takes you to a page about great beer and a list of household names in all fields of human endeavor.
There are two types of image maps: client-side and server-side. In Chapter 7 of this book, you will read "If you want to use an image map, make it a client-side image map." A List Apart has a good article on building an accessible, standards-compliant image map.
The process of removing the cellular structure from a layout table and checking the cells' contents in their linear (source) order, left to right, top to bottom. Linearization takes the contents of row 1 column 1, then row 1 column 2, and so on. If any cells contain a nested table, all of those cells are linearized before proceeding to the next cell of the original table. The Lynx browser or Web Developer plug-in for Firefox is a good way to see the linearized structure. See Chapter 6 for a full discussion of how table linearization works.
The purpose of linearization is to see if the content still makes sense, as the linearized order is the order in which a screen reader will voice the web page to the user. If it does still make sense (and it generally does), both WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 say your layout is accessible. But no one has professionally used tables to lay out web pages since Mozart fell off his penny-farthing during a stegosaurus hunt.
Scoping cannot exclude a particular type of content (for example, images or scripts) since it would allow exclusion of individual success criteria" (www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/conformance.html#conformance-reqs).
alt-text (alt="").any software that retrieves and renders Web content for users" (www.w3.org/TR/WAI-USERAGENT/glossary.html#def-user-agent). A browser, mobile phone, screen reader, plug-in, or search engine' s web crawler may be considered a user agent.
provides a collection of free tools to assist both developers and designers in the development and testing of accessible web content." See www.wat-c.org/ for more information.
was formed in 1998 with the goal of promoting core web standards and encouraging browser makers to do the same, thereby ensuring simple, affordable access for all." See http://webstandards.org/about/ for more information.