Accessibility is the word used to describe whether a product (for example, a website, mobile site, digital TV interface or application) can be used by people of all abilities and disabilities.
For instance, a website is accessible if all people, including disabled and elderly people, can use it. At the BBC, we aim to ensure that all of our products are informative and entertaining to use as well as being accessible – this is called usability.
On a website, accessibility depends on how a person’s disability affects the way they perceive information on a page and how they navigate within and between pages. Elements that affect accessibility include:
- For people who can’t see very well: the colours and the contrast between colours; the size of text; the choice of fonts
- For people who are blind: how a screenreader interprets the elements on a page (for example, alt tags for images, and title tags for links); the inclusion of audio description for video content
- For people who can’t hear very well: how any audio content is represented graphically (for example, including subtitles or signing on video content)
- For people who find a keyboard or mouse hard to use: the ease with which someone can navigate to parts of the page (for instance, by tabbing); auto-completion of forms
- For people who find words difficult: the length of sentences and paragraphs; the complexity of the vocabulary; the choice of fonts and size of text; the availability of spelling checkers and word prediction; the opportunity to have text read out loud
http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/best_practice/what_is.shtml
The Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA) requires Illinois agencies and universities to ensure that their web sites, information systems, and information technologies are accessible to people with disabilities. While the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act already require the State to ensure accessibility, the IITAA establishes specific standards and encourages the State to address accessibility proactively.
Standards
- IITAA Standards
- IITAA Implementation Guidelines for Web-Based Information and Applications (formerly IWAS)
- IITAA Procurement Recommendations
IITAA Standards Update
The IITAA Standards Workgroup recommended harmonizing the IITAA Standards with the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and the pending updates to the Federal Section 508 Standards. Once the revised Section 508 Standards are released, we will update IITAA Standards accordingly. For more information, please see:
Source : https://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=32765
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more usable to users in general.
WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written as testable statements that are not technology-specific. Guidance about satisfying the success criteria in specific technologies, as well as general information about interpreting the success criteria, is provided in separate documents. See Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview for an introduction and links to WCAG technical and educational material.
WCAG 2.0 succeeds Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [WCAG10], which was published as a W3C Recommendation May 1999. Although it is possible to conform either to WCAG 1.0 or to WCAG 2.0 (or both), the W3C recommends that new and updated content use WCAG 2.0. The W3C also recommends that Web accessibility policies reference WCAG 2.0.
For more information, visit http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/