The Accessible University mock site was developed by the National Center on Accessible Information Technology (AccessIT) as a tool for demonstrating web accessibility principles. Although good and bad examples of accessibility abound in the real world, few sites were developed specifically for this purpose. Most pages in this site demonstrate only one or two accessibility issues each.
Anyone using these materials in a presentation is expected to have a solid understanding of web accessibility issues, particularly the Access Board's Section 508 standards, but a good understanding of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 is additionally helpful. Also, since many web accessibility problems have code-level solutions (i.e., cannot currently be repaired with a graphic web authoring tool), the presenter using these materials should have a strong understanding of HTML.
The Accessible University site may be used simply as a demonstration tool, allowing audience members to witness firsthand the common barriers inaccessible web pages in education can create for persons with disabilities. It may also be used to demonstrate accessibility to more technical audiences. For these audiences, we have taken great care to keep the HTML simple and have provided comments throughout the code. This will allow presenters to easily and comfortably examine and discuss accessibility issues at a code level with more technical audiences.
Since many of the issues demonstrated with this site affect people with visual impairments, it is helpful to demonstrate Accessible University with a screen reader. However, since some presenters may have no access to a screen reader or little or no experience using one, we have provided a captioned video to accompany each Accessible University page, in which AccessIT staff demonstrate the page and where relevant do so using assistive technology.
This Companion Guide is available in two versions: frames and non-frames.
Both versions consists of a separate Guide page for each page of the Accessible University site. In the frames version, the user's screen is divided into two frames so that the instructions and corresponding AU page are visible simultaneously. This approach works best at high screen resolution. Otherwise, you'll have to do quite a bit of scrolling.
The nonframes version presents all instructions on a single page and includes links throughout to relevant AU pages. When users click on any of the links to AU pages, an AU page is opened in a single separate browser window. Navigating in the nonframes version will require multitasking between the two open windows.
To continue, please select either the Frames Version or the Non-Frames Version.