digital media access group
...excellent accessibility research and consultancy
This is a archived version of the DMAG website, but the information remains for reference. Please visit the new website for updated information.
Useful Literature
A disappointingly low number of general web design books mention accessible design. However, these textbooks are devoted to web accessibility:
- Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities, by Michael Paciello (2000), CMP Books. ISBN: 1929629087
- Building Accessible Web Sites, by Joe Clark (2002), New Riders. ISBN: 073571150X
- Constructing Accessible Web Sites, by Jim Thatcher, Cynthia D. Waddell, Shawn Lawton Henry, Sarah Swierenga, Mark D. Urban, Michael Burks, Bob Regan and Paul Bohman (2002), Apress. ISBN: 1590591488
- Maximum Accessibility, by John Slatin and Sharron Rush (2002), Addison Wesley. ISBN: 0201774224
Designing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen (1999), New Riders, deals with usability and web design, and devotes a chapter to designing for people with disabilities.
Here's a selection of some research papers and reports on web accessibility topics that we've found particularly interesting. This list will grow in time!
- hasLayout Property Characterizes IE6 Bug. Jim Thatcher (2005) An explanation of a bug in Internet Explorer that can reduce keyboard navigability of web page navigation, and how to overcome the bug.
- Facts and Opinion about PDF Accessibility. Joe Clark (2005). Published in A List Apart, an online magazine devoted to standards-compliant web site design .
- Formal Investigation report: Web Accessibility. Disability Rights Commission (2004). The findings of an accessibility survey of 1000 UK web sites, conducted by researchers at City University, London, on behalf of the DRC. The report's available in PDF or Rich Text format.
- Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers. M Theofanos and G. Redish (2003) The findings of research involving screen reader users interacting with web sites.
- Beyond ALT Text - Making the Web Easy to Use for People with Disabilities. Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice Coyne (2001). Published by the Nielsen Norman Group. Note that this report costs $US 190 to download.