documents

Have you spent hours after hours browsing the structure of your PDF document just to ensure that it is Section 508 compliant?

Did you ever get frustrated because it took you to patch it up longer than writing the original document?

You can save yourself some major time and headache when you get the legwork done in the source document.

Imagine yourself going to your favorite restaurant. You like the ambience and you immediately find a comfortable spot for your own. Everything is going well until you receive the menu but you can’t read it. Think about it. What would you do? Would you ask the waiter about the available meals? Would you get frustrated and just look for another restaurant?

This is actually a common scenario for blind people. Oftentimes, they would go to a restaurant and they do not get a menu they can read.

Making your website accessible to people with disabilities is a continuous process. When you have made your site as accessible as possible, you need to do certain steps to maintain its accessibility. These steps, however, are relatively easy and they do not cost much.

Here are the things you can do to ensure your web site maintains accessibility.

I receive documents of all formats on a daily basis. In many cases, these documents could easily be made much more accessible for people with disabilities with very little effort. I put together a checklist you could run through when you are done editing your document. See how much of a difference you can make in a matter of minutes. Better yet, once you get used to doing it, it will become second nature.

When posting documents on web sites, they have to follow the same accessibility requirements that the site does. For example, when the web site needs to comply with Section 508, PDF documents do too. There are a few things which I find are often overlooked when creating accessible PDF documents, in the following you can read about those and ensure that you address those issues as well.

On June 8, 2009 Apple has announced the new, iPhone 3G S it's newest iPhone. Instead of reviewing the features, I will discuss why is it a great advancement in the field of accessibility. Apple has implemented many accessibility features into it, which might become a large breakthrough for people to access mainstream, off the shelf products, without having to use extra assistive technologies.

Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, history is being made. For the first time in WIPO history, the body that creates the world's copyright treaties is attempting to write a copyright treaty dedicated to protecting the interests of copyright users, not just copyright owners.

At issue is a treaty to protect the rights of blind people and people with other disabilities that affect reading (people with dyslexia, people who are paralyzed or lack arms or hands for turning pages). This should be a slam dunk: who wouldn't want a harmonized system of copyright exceptions that ensure that it's possible for disabled people to get access to the written word?

On an increasing number of web sites you can find the phrase "accessibility statement". Sometimes it is very visible and hard to miss, in other cases we can barely find it. Did you ever read any of these accessibility statements? If you ever did, do you read it on all sites where you find them? In this article I will explain what is the accessibility statement, and give you a couple of points to decide if you need it on your web site.

Today the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative has announced that several authorized WCAG 2.0 translations are being developed. You can review the currently available translations.

A frequently asked question is if documents posted on the web have to be accessible, and follow web accessibility standards and guidelines.The quick answer is "yes", but read this article to find out why.