1. Web Accessibility
ARIA and HTML5 Landmarks – v 0.1
Domenico Monaco – monaco.d@gmail.com
Attribuzione - Condividi allo stesso modo 3.0
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2. Why accessibility is important
• Blind and visually impaired make up 285,000,000 people according to
the World Health Organization (June 2012) with 39,000,000 categorized as
legally blind and the remaining 246,000,000 visually impaired. Deaf and
hearing impaired make up 275,000,000 (2004) in the moderate-to-
profound hearing impairment category.
• To put these in perspective, the population of the United States of
America is 315,000,000 (January 2013).
• Disabilities can also be conditional. A broken arm, a loud restaurant, harsh
glare, not speaking the local language—all are examples where someone
may benefit from accessible practices.
• A11Y Projects ⇢ IS Collaborative easy to use guidelines
• https://a11yproject.com/
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3. Type of disabilities
VISUAL AUDITORY MOTOR COGNITIVE
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4. WAI -Making the Web Accessible
• "Strategies, standards, and supporting resources to help you make
the Web more accessible to people with disabilities"
• https://www.w3.org/WAI/
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5. Overview of Web Accessibility
• Initiative and Organization
• WAI is the web accessibility initiative of the W3C:
• covers a lot of standards, guidelines, rules and techniques
• Guidelines and rules
• WCAG are the content accessibility guidelines. They are not specific "rules". Are only general rules to follow when trying to make a
web site or application accessible
• WCAG 2.0 are more specific rules organized into different compliance levels: A, AA and AAA
• Section 508 refers to the US Government accessibility standards which are, for the most part the same as WCAG but also
somewhat stricter and are also enforceable by law in some cases.
• Technology
• ARIA is the Accessible Rich Internet Applications standard and is a set of techniques and additions to HTML that allow you to add
additional markup to a web page that can be interpreted by accessibility devices such as screenreaders used by the blind
• Source [1]
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6. Others guidelines
• WCAG is part of a series of accessibility guidelines, including the
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) and the User Agent
Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG). Essential Components of Web
Accessibility explains the relationship between the different
guidelines.
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) Overview
• https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/atag/#who-atag-is-for
• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) Overview
• https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/uaag/
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7. Accessibility for mobile?
• Mobile accessibility is covered in existing W3C WAI accessibility
standards/guidelines. There are not separate guidelines for mobile
accessibility.
• W3C is developing updated requirements and more specific guidance
on mobile accessibility.
• WAI’s Mobile Accessibility Task Force work includes:
• Mobile Accessibility: How WCAG 2.0 and Other W3C/WAI Guidelines Apply to
Mobile
• WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria and Techniques
• Integrating mobile accessibility in future W3C standards
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8. How People with Disabilities Use the
Web: Diverse Abilities and Barriers
• Cognitive and learning disabilities impact how people process information. For example, they can affect people’s perception,
memory, language, attention, problem solving, and comprehension. Terminology for categories and conditions varies, and includes
intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, dementia, dyslexia, and
more.
• Technology provides opportunities for people to interact with content and to process information in ways that are more usable to
them. For example, people can:
• navigate web content using different strategies
• access information in text, audio, or other formats
• change the presentation of the content according to their individual needs or preferences
• There are many things that designers and developers can do to:
• avoid accessibility barriers that exclude people from using their products
• optimize the user experience of people with cognitive and learning disabilities
• Specific examples of cognitive and learning disabilities and of accessibility barriers are in this section of “How People with
Disabilities Use the Web: Diverse Abilities and Barriers”: Cognitive and learning.
• Existing and developing standards from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) address many aspects of cognitive accessibility.
For example, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) includes requirements that address cognitive accessibility. The
requirements (called “success criteria”) are in these and other guidelines:
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9. Tools and projects
• A11Y Project (http://a11yproject.com/) as a more *ahem* accessible
resource to learn about web accessibility. It's a fantastic site that gathers a
range of great resources on the subject and aims to explain things in a
straightforward, easy to understand manner.
• Firefox extension "AInspector" (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/ainspector-sidebar/). It will give you an idea of what your
application is missing to be WCAG 2.0 AA compliant, while providing debug
tools and links to more information. I also recommend installing and using
a screen reader (JAWS, NVDA, ChromeVox, VoiceOver, etc) to get a rough
understanding of how your app performs with them.
• Source [1]
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10. Evaluation Standards Overview - ACT & EARL
• Support the development of web accessibility evaluation methods
and tools. They are primarily for evaluation tool developers.
• Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT)
• Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) establishes and documents
rules for testing the conformance of web content to accessibility
standards.
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11. Harmonization and standardization
• W3C introduces the concept of harmonization and causes of
fragmentation in the area of Web accessibility standards, and
examines the impact of harmonization and fragmentation on Web
developers, tool developers, and organizations. It also suggests action
steps for promoting Web accessibility standards harmonization.
• https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/harmonization/
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12. Microdata and Accesibility
• What relationship are between Schema.org and WAI/ARIA ?
• There is no relationship. Neither is a sub-set of the other.
• Schema.org is intended to provide search engines with additional information about content, via microdata,
RDFa, and JSON-LD. Within HTML you would use microdata. You can read more on using microdata at
schema.org. There is no formal standards body behind it, it is defined by the major search engines.
• ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a bridging technology that allows authors to add additional
information to HTML so that assistive technology can make better use of it. Ideally it will go away as browsers
catch up. It has no bearing on search engines. It is maintained by W3C, where you can read an overview on
ARIA - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37754258/is-there-a-relationship-between-schema-org-and-wai-
aria
• But people with disability Use the search-engine and they must "understand" what is accessible and what are
not accessible
• http://epubsecrets.com/accessibility-schema-org-microdata-and-publications.php
• Schema Dot Org
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15. Accessibilità dei siti web secondo AdID
• “Per accessibilità si intende la capacità dei sistemi informatici, ivi
inclusi i siti web e le applicazioni mobili, nelle forme e nei limiti
consentiti dalle conoscenze tecnologiche, di erogare servizi e fornire
informazioni fruibili, senza discriminazioni, anche da parte di coloro
che a causa di disabilità necessitano di tecnologie assistive o
configurazioni particolari” (art. 2, comma a, Legge 4/2004).
• Un sito web è, quindi, accessibile quando fornisce informazioni fruibili
da parte di tutti gli utenti, compresi coloro che si trovano in situazioni
di limitazioni fisiche, tecnologiche o ambientali.
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