One of the projects I am working on, is a website and app service for disabled users with varying degrees of accessibility issues (visual through to physical impairment). The project is being run by a small team of people working within a transport company.
My role will be to help test and design the site and application. Over the next few weeks I am hoping to do some research into accessible design in terms of required levels of clarity, sizes, colours, interface and so forth.
The Web Accessibility Initiative
The WAI and readability guidelines on the w3schools suggest a number of things:
- Use an adjustable font size
- Include the alt function on the images
- Use contrasting colours
- Well spaced letters and line heights
- Don't use italics
- Use a clear font
- Don't use alt function on 'decorative images'
- Accessible forms - flashing cursors and prompt text
- Check the website in Lynx
- Check the site can be navigated without a mouse
- Include a site map
- Descriptive link text
- Use WebXACT and Wave to test the site
Useful article on typography for those suffering with eyesight problems.
According to the ADA (The Americans with Disabilities Act) the following serif fonts are suggested:
- Bodoni Book
- Times Roman
- Garamond semi-bold
- Century schoolbook
- Glypha Roman
San-serif:
- Futura heavy
- Helvetica bold
- Univers 65
- Frutiger bold
- Syntax bold
Body weight = 60%-100% of character height
Stroke width = 10%-20% of character height
