Accessibility Standards Checklist

• Use colours and icons where appropriate
• Keep colours to a minimum - only use 2 -3 for the site
• include pattern and contrast
• Enable text scaling
• Ensure web site is "readable" without the style sheet
• Ensure videos and audio have closed captions
• Ensure pages are able to be easily navigated
• No flicking images or the ability to turn these off
• Use plain everyday language
• Use short paragraphs 
• Use bullet points

Web development standards and the importance of their applications

Web standards are rules set out by the W3C. The documents outline  rules which benefit the majority of web users.

The benefits of web standards will mean your web pages are more accessible to all including those with a disability. They increase the chances of being found on google, are smaller to download (and are therefore faster to load). Special note to ensure that images are fully optmised.

Usability - A person is able to use the website for its intended purpose without problem

Accessibility - Conform pages to all (or as many as possible) abilities, enable text scaling, alt descriptions on images and text captions on videos/audio.

Compatibility - ensure websites are able to be viewed without issue across all browsers and devices

Speed - the speed in which the webpages load. To help a webpage load faster, ensure that images are optimised.

SEO - Enables your webpage to be found on google search results.

General Accessibility Standards and requirements.

General accessibility standards:

• Provide text equivalent for non text objects
• Ensure all information conveyed with colours is also avaliable without colour. 
• Ensure web pages can be read without style sheets
• Avoid screen flicker
• Use the clearest and simplest language
• Provide client side image maps instead of server side image maps
• Identify table rows and headers

User groups and their requirements.

Color Blindness -  The use of both colours and symbols can help  the  message. For example some people are colour blind to the colour red, which is often used to display error messages. If a black symbol is also used, they will be able to see what is going on. Another option is to make the colour palette minimal limiting to 2-3 colours in the design. Pattern and contrast can also help distinguish between items. Avoid the following colour combinations:

• Green & Red
• Green & Brown
• Blue & Purple
• Green & Blue
• Light Green & Yellow
• Blue & Grey
• Green & Grey
• Green & Black

Vision Impairment - Enlarged text - or the ability to increase the font size on the front end of the website. Contrast  - which helps to distinguish the different text rather than colours that are close in hue and blind together for vision impaired. 

Blindness - Screen readers can be used by individuals with Blindness to help access the website. This is a device that sends the information on the website to a speech synthesizer to either be spoken or to a braille display.  

Deafness - Closed captioning on any video or audio displayed on the site. Or a link to the script of the video. 

Motor difficulty - Ability to input information with voice/speech to text. Use clear and concise layout which are easy to navigate. 

Epilepsy - Avoid use of "flashing" objects or have an option to turn them off. 

Dyslexia - Simple, uniform layouts. Keep jargon to a minimum and use plain language. Avoid pages overloaded with too much information and avoid too many distractions. Text minimum of 12pt or text scaling ability. Avoid the use of capitalisation for emphasis, avoid italics, do not right justify text. Keep paragraphs shorts and use bullet points. Avoid columns. 

Cognitive disabilities - Simple, consistent and clear.