Aims
Abel Engineering aims to provide a rich and meaningful web
site that is accessible to all. Much of our web-based
marketing involves images and visual
representations of information and we pay particular attention to
making sure that such work is accessible.
We will monitor our work and others to ensure that
we are always achieving and setting best practice.
We will conduct feedback reviews with users to
ensure that diverse needs are being met.
We believe that an accessible site does not mean a
boring site, nor does it mean dumbing down to the lowest common
denominator. We deal with complex and challenging issues and
strive to do so intelligently, in ways that are satisfyingly
accessible.
Standards Compliance
We aim to make all pages on this site Bobby
approved, complying with all
the Bobby guidelines. This is is always a matter of judgment;
many accessibility features can be measured, but many can not. We
have reviewed all the guidelines and will strive to
comply.
We aim to make all pages on this site validate as
HTML 4.01 Transitional. This is not a matter of judgment; a
program can determine with 100% accuracy whether a page is valid
HTML.
Links
Most links have title attributes which describe the
link in greater detail, unless the text of the link already fully
describes the target.
Links are written to make sense out
of context.
Images
All content images used in this site include
descriptive ALT attributes. Purely decorative graphics include
null ALT attributes.
Visual design
This site uses cascading style sheets for visual
layout.
This site allows user-specified "text size" option
in visual browsers. In Netscape, select View > Text Zoom. In
Internet Explorer, select View > Text Size and adjust the
settings to your preferred size.
If your browser or
browsing device does not support stylesheets at all, the content
of each page is still readable.
Accessibility references
W3
accessibility guidelines, which explains the reasons behind
each guideline.
W3 accessibility
techniques, which explains how to implement each
guideline.
W3
accessibility checklist, a busy developer's guide to
accessibility.
Accessibility software
JAWS,
a screen reader for Windows. A time-limited, downloadable demo is
available.
Home
Page Reader, a screen reader for Windows. A downloadable demo
is available.
Lynx, a free text-only web
browser for blind users with refreshable Braille displays.
Links, a free
text-only web browser for visual users with low bandwidth.
Opera, a visual
browser with many accessibility-related features, including text
zooming, user stylesheets, image toggle. A free downloadable
version is available. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux,
and several other operating systems.
Related resources
WebAIM, a
non-profit organization dedicated to improving accessibility to
online learning materials.
Designing More Usable Web
Sites, a large list of additional
resources.
Dive Into
Accessibility - Mark Pilgrim's"30 days to a
more accessible web site" pages where much of this information was
borrowed, copied or made use of.
The
Disability Rights Commission have produced a
useful report following an investigation into the current state of
website accessibility in the UK.
