Handouts for "Teaching Web Accessibility at the Source"

1. Note: This course will be offered in an online version in fall of 2010. Contact Howard
Kramer at hkramer@colorado.edu or 303-492-8672 for more information or directions on
how to register.
1Course Title: Universal Design for Digital Media: Where
Usability & Accessibility Meet
(listed as Univ. Media Design, ATLS 3519-010/011)
Schedule: Mon, Weds, 11:00 – 11:50 a.m., Fri Lab: 11:00 – 12:50
p.m. (Spring 2010 Semester)
Course Description: Many web and media designers believe that the
design process begins and ends with information architecture and visual
design. Though these elements are important, other factors are equally if
not more crucial for the design of successful web sites and other digital
media. This course will examine the standards and methods for designing digital material which
is not only accessible for persons with disabilities – a particularly important requirement for the
web sites of public entities – but also effective and usable for all users.
This course will review standards for both usability and accessibility, using
resources and texts from media design experts such as Jakob Nielson, Donald A.
Norman and Alan Cooper and accessibility experts such as Wendy Chisholm,
John Slatin and Jim Thatcher. Demonstrations of persons with disabilities using
the Web, some live, some conducted through video or web conferencing, will be
conducted in order to provide students with specific and real examples of alternate
access methods and how the design of media affects access and usability for
different populations. Teleconference guest lectures, pending availability, will
also be provided by experts in the field of accessibility such as T.V Raman
(Google Research Scientist) and Wendy Chisholm, former Web Access Initiative project
manager and author of Universal Design for Web Applications (2009).
Course Objectives/Methods: Through labs, lectures and demonstration, students will learn
media design methods, along with the implementation of guidelines and tools to test the usability
and accessibility of web pages and other electronic media. A class project will be assigned to
plan and construct an accessible web site. A team teaching approach will be used to draw on the
expertise of individuals from Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Web Design and
Disabilities. (See below for more information on team members).
3 Track theme throughout course: Technology; Design & Testing; & Current Topics (e.g.
Legislation, Case studies)
Teaching Team: Howard Kramer, Access Specialist, Disability Services; Dr. Mike Lightner,
Professor & Chair, ECE-Eng-Elecl/Comp Admin; Dr. Clayton H. Lewis, Professor, Computer
Science; Vijay Patel, IT Professional III, Housing.
Main Contact: Howard Kramer, Disability Services, 492-8672, hkramer@colorado.edu

2. Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all
people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized
design – Ron Mace, Architect.
Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other
technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In
recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing
a set of standardized best practices for building web sites, and a philosophy of web
design and development that includes those methods.
Semantic Web is a term coined by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) director Tim
Berners-Lee[1]. It describes methods and technologies to allow machines to understand
the meaning - or "semantics" - of information on the World Wide Web[2].
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the
presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup
language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and
XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including
SVG and XUL.
CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in
HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation, including elements
such as the layout, colors, and fonts.[citation needed] This separation can improve
content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of
presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce
complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as by allowing for tableless web
design).
Metadata - Data about data on the Web, including but not limited to authorship,
classification, endorsement, policy, distribution terms, IPR, and so on. A significant use
for the Semantic Web.
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