Dreamweaver And Website Accessibility

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.

Dreamweaver has a number of features which enable web developers to ensure that content on their pages Is accessible. There are useful dialogs which appear automatically when content added to a page can be made accessible. Dreamweaver also allows web page creators to check their pages for any accessibility issues.

Dreamweaver's program settings contain two main features relating to accessibility. To access these settings, choose Edit - Preferences (or Dreamweaver - Preferences) on a Mac. Next, click on the Accessibility category and activate the options which to display attributes for form objects, media (which refers to such things as video clips, audio and Flash) and graphics. It is also useful, in the General category, to switch on the option to use CSS instead of HTML tags.

The result of activating these elements is that when you apply formatting attributes to text or to the body of the page, Dreamweaver will create CSS tags to achieve the formatting since CSS makes web pages more accessible by separating formatting information from the actual page content. Another consequence will be that, each time you add certain elements to a page, a dialog will appear prompting you to choose which of the relevant accessibility attributes you wish to associate with that element.

With the accessibility options activated, whenever you insert an image onto the page, Dreamweaver will display a dialog asking you to enter alternate text (alt text). The alt attribute provides a description of the image which can be seen by anyone waiting for the image to load on a slow internet connection. Anyone browsing your site with a screen reader will rely on your alt text to know what each image contains.

In addition to the alt text, Dreamweaver also allows you to browse for or enter a path leading to a long description file. This option relates to HTML's longdesc attribute which should be used for images whose content is too detailed or too important to be described in the short alt text.

When the accessibility options relating to forms are active, Dreamweaver will display a dialog of options every time a form or form element is added to the page. The first set of options relates to the addition of the LABEL tag which serves to associate descriptive text labels with the form control to which they relate. The dialog also allows you to specify the order in which elements will be accessed by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard.

When a media element, such as a Flash movie, video or sound clip is inserted on a page, Dreamweaver will prompt the user to enter a title, access key and tab index. The title provides information regarding the media element in much the same way as alt text does for images. Access key offers users who find use of the mouse difficult an alternative method of accessing the media element using a keyboard shortcut. The tab index allows the creator of the page to specify the order in which elements on the page can be activated by using the Tab key.

Dreamweaver not only gives you help in making your page content accessible, it will also check your pages to see if they contain elements which are not accessible. To use the accessibility utility, click on the File menu then on Check Page and finally on Accessibility. The utility runs and then displays a list of elements on the page which are not accessible. If you double-click on any of the items in the list, the code representing it will be instantly highlighted allowing you to edit it.

By: Andrew Whiteman

Author is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver training courses in London and throughout the UK.

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