Section 508 Tips

Some tools to use:

• Web Developer plugin for Firefox
• Cynthia Says
• Bobby
• Opera version 9 Web Browser
• Firevox Plugin - Free speech reader (sim. to JAWS)

Other Sites of interest:

• Firefox Web Browser
• Adobe website for accessibility
• W3C site with accessibility guidelines

Opera does two things for us:

1. Lets us see HOW the screen reader will read the page (or linearize your table based layout) and
2. Allows us to view our site as it would appear on a small screen,
   like a Nintendo DS, a PSP, a PDA, or other smart phone or device (View - Small Screen)

Other Notes:

• Framesets require both a TITLE and a LONGDESC attribute
• Tables require a SUMMARY attribute ONLY if it is a data table.
  If it is a layout table (SO not recommended!), then you do NOT need a summary.
• Tables also require a CAPTION tag (this is visible onscreen; the summary is not)
• Your column headers in a table need to use a TH tag vs. a TD tag
• ALT attributes are used in the IMG tag, the AREA tag (for an image map)
  AND we use a TITLE attribute with an A HREF link tag/attribute

Examples:

Framesets

	frameset cols="50%, 50%"
	frame src="blah.htm" title="This is blah" longdesc="framesetdescrip.htm#blah" / 
	frame src="moreblah.htm" title="This is more blah" longdesc="framesetdescrip.htm#moreblah"  /
	/frameset
	

Tables

	table summary="blah blah blah yada yada yada this is my summary"
	caption
		blah blah blah
	/caption
	
	th col header1 /th 
	vs. 
	td col header1 /td
	

Alt Attributes

	img src="static.gif" alt="blah blah blah" /
	img src="animated.gif" alt="blah blah blah" /
	area shape=rect" coords="57,93,102,114" alt="blah blah"
	
	a href="link.htm" title="blah blah blah" 
	link text displayed in browser  
	/a
	
	a href="link.htm" title="blah blah blah -Opens new window" target="_blank" 
	link text displayed in browser 
	/a
	

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