Internal USGS Access Only

Assignment Set 5

Accessibility

You may find the course bibliography section on accessibility helpful.

1. Use Bobby, the web based accessibility tool, to analyze your site and evaluate the results. At a minimum Section 508 checklist items should be remedied (check U.S. Section 508 Guidelines).

   Bobby will show your page followed by the page report, with question marks () linked to the specific section of the report describing the potential problem.

2. Look at your site using various tools to simulate various accessiblity challenges.

   • Use lynx to view the your site and check navigation and understandability without graphics.

     Run Lynx from the following path (Asumming the AFS is mounted to network drive X):
     X:\usgs.gov\i386_nt40\Program Files\Lynx\lynx\
     and type the letter G to go to your webpage
     http://webclass.usgs.gov/~userid/pagename.html

     Press the down-arrow or up-arrow to select a link, the right-arrow to follow a link, and the left-arrow to return. Use (G)o to browse additional sites

   • Look at your your site through the Colorblind Web Page Filter. Look through the grayscale color filter and at least two others to see if you meet the criteria at the bottom of the page.

   • Resize your browser to 544 pixels wide and look at your site (use this 544 pixel wide bar to resize). This is the maximum width for some browsers which cannot scroll horizontally.

   • View your page as if you had limited vision.

     Set your font size to 12 or lower and reduce your monitor's brighntess and contrast to 25-50%. After looking at your site, chage your font size to 28 or higher and look again.

     Disable your images and see if this makes a difference. (To disable images in Netscape, close your web page (leave Netscape open). Click on Edit --> Preferences. Under Advanced --> Cache, click on Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache. Under Privacy & Security --> Images, select Do not load any images. Press OK. )

     (Ideas for simulated browsing came from 5/28/01 edition of Government Computer News article, "Get access-friendly") http://www.gcn.com/vol20_no12/news/4330-1.html

3. The exercises in Step 2 are more interesting if you look at more complex webpages. Look at other pages, such as the USGS home page or your district/region/project home page, through these tools. Can you still navigate these pages? Could you find information on them if you were unfamiliar with their resources?
4. Restore your preferred browser settings. If you have time:
   • Look at the screenshots from another text-only browser, Links, and compare them to the graphics enabled version of the sites (linked at the top of each screenshot)
     Links Screenshots || Links homepage
   • Use the Color Laboratory to look at various color combinations with various types of color blindness. Click on "show simulation controls" or click on the color palette to begin. In the simulation, you can switch between color simulation controls (to select the vision type) or color selection controls (to select specific colors or start over).

assignment 5

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"Mastering a Website" online course Created and maintained by Lorna Schmid and David Boldt. Last modified: Thu Oct 16 11:59:25 EDT 2003