Creating Accessible Websites With Dreamweaver CS3

Accessibility, in the context of websites, refers to the degree to which the content you add to your web site can be accessed by your audience; all of them, not just the able bodied ones and those with 20/20 vision. Accessible websites offer good support for screen readers, cater for users who browse the web without viewing graphics and who wish to magnify the text on your pages to a level comfortable for their eyesight.

Creating accessible web pages is the responsibility of the person developing the web site. However, Dreamweaver has a couple of features which assist web page creators in ensuring that their pages are accessible. Firstly, the program can be asked to display a dialog with relevant accessibility options whenever you add an element to a page. The program also has an accessibility check feature which looks for elements on the page which are not accessible.

When you install Dreamweaver CS3, there are a couple of program settings which relate to accessibility which you should ensure remain activated. To check that these settings are active, you should choose Preferences in the Edit menu then click on the Accessibility category on the left of the screen. Make sure that the options "Show Attributes For..." "Form objects", "Media" and "Graphics" are all switched on. Also, click on the General category and activate "Use CSS instead of HTML tags".

So what is the result of switching on these various preferences? Well, firstly, Dreamweaver will use CSS tags whenever you format text or the background of the page. The CSS tags contain the formatting information and will be placed in the head area of the page away from the content which will be in the page body. The program will also display a dialog box with accessibility options each time you insert an image, form field or media element such as a Flash movie or video clip.

Thus, whenever you add an image to a page, a dialog will appear prompting you for alternate (alt) text. This attribute makes images more accessible by providing a description of the images to users accessing the web with a slow connection as they wait for the image to load or who have disabled the display of images. The alt text will also be spoken by the screen readers commonly used by web surfers with impaired vision.

Dreamweaver will also prompt for the insertion of a link pointing to a long description of an image. This option should be used for complex images whose content cannot be adequately described in the brief alt text attribute. Examples of such images would be charts, diagrams, paintings or photos containing groups of people.

Just as the alt text describes the function of images, the label attribute describes the function of each form field. When the accessibility preferences are active, Dreamweaver will prompt you to enter a descriptive tag for each field. In addition, you can specify the tab order of each element. This is the order in which elements within the form can be accessed by users by simply pressing the Tab key.

Similarly, if you add a media element to a page, the accessibility dialog pops up and prompts you to enter up to three elements: a title, an access key and a tab index. The title should be a description of the media element and serves a similar function as the alt text which is used with images. The access key is an optional keyboard shortcut which can be used to make the media element active. The tab index is a number which indicates the position of the element in the tab order for that page. The tab order is the order in which elements are accessed when the user presses the Tab key.

As well as these useful prompts, Dreamweaver will also produce a report of any items on the page with possible issues relating to accessibility. To access this feature, first save the page then choose File - Check Page - Accessibility. Dreamweaver analyses the page then produces a list of items which might need attention. Double-clicking any item in the list activates Dreamweaver's split screen view (showing both code and preview) with the relevant item highlighted in each pane.

By: Andrew Whiteman

Author is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver Classes at their central London training centre.

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