An increasing awareness of accessibility issues suggests that designing web pages that are usable and accessible by all users is ever more important. This is true both in terms of good practice as a design principle, and also to satisfy the UK legal requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and more recently the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Act (SENDA). A tendency to focus on the graphical web browser, and also visual impairment, overlooks the variety of differing physical and cognitive abilities, and equipment and techniques that are available to support these. The "Design for All" principle, which underpins this workshop, encourages designers to develop a single accessible web site that does not impose barriers to usage.
This workshop is aimed at anyone who produces web pages and wishes to understand and explore the principles and practice of producing accessible content.
The workshop comprises presentations, demonstrations and hands-on sessions with opportunities for questions and discussion. Participants each receive a workbook which contains workshop exercises, presentation slides and other relevant materials.
Topics covered will include:
By the end of the workshop participants will have:
Participants should have previously used the World Wide Web through a browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape, and MUST have authored web pages using HTML. Knowledge of HTML tags such as those for creating headings, tables and hypertext links is essential. Some knowledge of cascading style sheets would be helpful although not essential. Experience of using Microsoft Windows for opening and saving files and opening and closing applications such as a web browser would also be helpful.
See the comments from workshop participants
© Netskills, University of Newcastle Last Updated: 18 July 2003