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Check the following:
General techniques
Make judicious use of colours, fonts, and graphics. Restraint is the key word.
As a general rule:
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Avoid the use of more than two or three colours (plus white) and three font sizes
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Use bold and italic sparingly (for titles and occasional emphasis). Don't underline
plain text, people often mistake underlined plain text as a link
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Remember that 8 to 12% of the population is colour blind. The most common form
of colour blindness is red-green where the colours red and green can appear as
a shade of brown. Red text on green, or vice versa, won't work for 10% of your
visitors. Also watch out for red, green, and brown in graphics (pie charts, graphs,
maps, etc). Instead, consider using textures and fill patterns. Otherwise, use
colours with a good measure of contrast (light tones vs. dark tones)
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Be careful with textured backgrounds. If you must use them, make sure they are
very low contrast
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Avoid animated gifs. If you really must have them, loop the animation once. They
are distracting when you try to read text on a page. For some people with certain
learning disabilities, animated gifs may be very difficult to ignore
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Avoid absolute font sizes. If someone has poor eyesight, he or she may need to
adjust the browser to a larger font size to be able to read the page
Consistent layout
Decide on a layout for your all of your web pages and stick to it. This helps users
navigate your pages and, for some, may determine their ability to understand the
organisation of your pages.
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The title, logo, navigation and content should be in the same place on every
page
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Navigational links should be visible without the need to scroll to find the links
No Frames compatibility
There are two options for those of you with web pages using frames:
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Maintain a text-only or non-frame version of your web site in parallel with your
framed version and keep it up-to-date. This means you have two versions of your
web site. A non-starter in my book
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Redesign your site so that you don't use frames
Viewable with any browser
Your site needs to work with all types of browsers, including text-only browsers
like Lynx, and screen-reader technology for the visually impaired.
Use evaluation tools and text-only browsers to check that the page is accessible.
Lynx gives you a good idea of how some of the new technology for the disabled reads
a web page.
If you are using CSS on your web pages, make sure your practices are in line with
the recommendations by the W3C's Accessibility Recommendations.
Offer alternatives to online forms, PDF, JavaScript
All information in non-HTML file formats, newer technologies (such as Flash, Shockwave,
Real Audio, QuickTime, etc.), HTML forms, PDF, JavaScript, and the like, should
be available in plain HTML or text formats.
Failing that, make a method of communicating with the information provider and
obtaining the information in alternative formats (for the visually or hearing impaired)
easily available.
For visually impaired or blind users
Supply descriptive text attributes (alt, longdesc, title, map, etc.) for images,
links, graphs, charts, tables, image maps.
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Images. Include alt attributes
for all images. The descriptions should be short but understandable to someone
who is visually impaired
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Links. Don't link a whole sentence. Link only a couple of key words or a short
phrase. It is tiring to reading a sentence (or several sentences) of bold, underlined,
or coloured text even if your eyesight is good
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Graphs, charts, maps. If a graph, chart, or map is integral to your message or
content, include a link to a separate page holding a text description of the
information presented in the graphic. This is true of other important images
as well
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Tables. Tables can be tricky. Some screen readers read only from left to right,
regardless of table borders
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Image maps. For image maps, either use the alt
attribute with <area>
tag, or use the <map>
tag with <a> tag (and
other text) as content
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Audio and video. If you have video clips on your web pages, you must have text
which describes the video information for the visually impaired
For users with hearing loss
Provide text or visual cues for all auditory information (voice, sounds, etc.).
If you use sound, provide a link to a page that contains a text version the auditory
information.
Caption all videos. Likewise, make a text version of the information available.
For users with motor impairments
Make the site easy to navigate. Have the menu in the same location on each page.
Limit the number of clicks you need to navigate through the site.
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More information
Web site accessibility
Some accessibility tips
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