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Accessibility Handbook: Making 508 Compliant Websites
Get practical guidelines for making your website accessible to people with disabilities. With this handbook, you’ll learn how to design or develop a site that conforms to Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act—and in the process you’ll discover how to provide a better user experience for everyone.
The Accessibility Handbook introduces you to several audiences that have difficulty using today’s complex websites, including people with blindness, hearing loss, physical disabilities, and cognitive disorders. Learn how to support assistive technologies, and understand which fonts, colors, page layouts, and other design elements work best—without having to exclude advanced functions, hire outside help, or significantly increase overhead.
Develop solutions that
Complete blindness. Create a logical document flow to support screen readersLow vision and color blindness. Optimize images and color schemes, and ensure your site enlarges gracefullyHearing impairment. Provide video captions and visual alerts for interactive featuresPhysical disabilities. Make forms, popups, and navigation easier to useCognitive disorders. Adapt fonts and text styles for dyslexic users, and design consistent, well-organized pages for people with ADHD
The Accessibility Handbook introduces you to several audiences that have difficulty using today’s complex websites, including people with blindness, hearing loss, physical disabilities, and cognitive disorders. Learn how to support assistive technologies, and understand which fonts, colors, page layouts, and other design elements work best—without having to exclude advanced functions, hire outside help, or significantly increase overhead.
Develop solutions that
Complete blindness. Create a logical document flow to support screen readersLow vision and color blindness. Optimize images and color schemes, and ensure your site enlarges gracefullyHearing impairment. Provide video captions and visual alerts for interactive featuresPhysical disabilities. Make forms, popups, and navigation easier to useCognitive disorders. Adapt fonts and text styles for dyslexic users, and design consistent, well-organized pages for people with ADHD
100 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
15 people are currently reading
189 people want to read
About the author
Katie Cunningham
15 books25 followersKatie Cunningham is a Python and Django developer for Speak Agent
by day, and a technical writer by night. While she had always had an interest in programming, it didn't turn
into a career until she started to work at NASA. There, she slowly
transitioned from gathering requirements to developing full time,
advocating the use of more open source in the government sector.
It was at NASA that she gained an interest in 508 compliance. At
first, she was only interested in getting her applications through QA
faster. Over time, however, she gained a passion for a web that was
easy for everyone to use. Now in the private sector, she is
championing compliance even for websites that don't require it by law.
She currently lives just outside of Washington, DC with her husband and
two children.
by day, and a technical writer by night. While she had always had an interest in programming, it didn't turn
into a career until she started to work at NASA. There, she slowly
transitioned from gathering requirements to developing full time,
advocating the use of more open source in the government sector.
It was at NASA that she gained an interest in 508 compliance. At
first, she was only interested in getting her applications through QA
faster. Over time, however, she gained a passion for a web that was
easy for everyone to use. Now in the private sector, she is
championing compliance even for websites that don't require it by law.
She currently lives just outside of Washington, DC with her husband and
two children.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 26, 2012
review: Accessibility Handbook
Katie Cunningham’s Accessibility Handbook (O'Reilly, 2012) is a concise and specific introduction to accessibility (a11y) and 508-compliance. Cunningham provides a “walking tour” of the major types of disabilities that web developers need to consider when creating a site for a11y, illustrating how people with those disabilities will use a site, and then detailing easy solutions and best practices to craft a site with the necessary accommodations. Better yet, she makes strong cases for why many of these accommodations are actually “features” and not “compromises”.
The book is broken into chapters such that each one focuses on a specific disability. Some of these disabilities may seem obvious (e.g., blindness, deafness), while others may come as a surprise (e.g., color blindess, motion disorders). Having the book sectioned in this way was a smart choice, as it becomes easy to focus on that one type of disability, and to reason about the strategies necessary for accommodating it. The goal of each chapter is to get you (as a developer) into a headspace where you can easily understand how a person with one of those disabilities will approach your site, thus making it easier for you to understand the 508-compliance rules.
As a front-end developer without much experience in the realm of a11y, and with no knowledge of 508-compliance, I approached this book as a good place to start. Having finished it, I maintain that it was a good introduction to the subject. Though I got the information about the disabilities and how to accommodate them, there was almost nothing in here about WAI-ARIA–granted: Cunningham cites ARIA, and shows some examples when talking about “Complete Blindness”, but she also says that it’s too big of a subject to cover in her book. That being said, when I find a good resource on ARIA, I’ll be pleased to know that this book gave me a decent framework for thinking about those problems.
Lastly, as I mentioned before, Cunningham does a decent job of explaining why many of the accommodations that she describes actually become “features” of your site, and not “compromises”. For example: everyone can benefit from having good tabindex properties set on your form fields. For example: everyone benefits from well-labeled graphs and charts. For example: by making your menus, icons, and other click-targets “adequately sized”, you’re not only helping someone with Parkinsons, you’re also helping people accessing your site from a mobile device. And lastly, my favorite example: by paying attention to the source order of the elements in your site, you’re not only helping the blind (and/or anyone else using a screen reader) but you’re also making it easier to give your site a responsive design (and I hear it’s helpful for SEO, as well).
Would I recommend this book? Yes, to someone who needs a quick “walking tour” of a11y–but probably not to someone who is already familiar with the subject, and definitely not to someone who is looking for more on WAI-ARIA.
Full disclosure: I received an electronic copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for writing a review.
Katie Cunningham’s Accessibility Handbook (O'Reilly, 2012) is a concise and specific introduction to accessibility (a11y) and 508-compliance. Cunningham provides a “walking tour” of the major types of disabilities that web developers need to consider when creating a site for a11y, illustrating how people with those disabilities will use a site, and then detailing easy solutions and best practices to craft a site with the necessary accommodations. Better yet, she makes strong cases for why many of these accommodations are actually “features” and not “compromises”.
The book is broken into chapters such that each one focuses on a specific disability. Some of these disabilities may seem obvious (e.g., blindness, deafness), while others may come as a surprise (e.g., color blindess, motion disorders). Having the book sectioned in this way was a smart choice, as it becomes easy to focus on that one type of disability, and to reason about the strategies necessary for accommodating it. The goal of each chapter is to get you (as a developer) into a headspace where you can easily understand how a person with one of those disabilities will approach your site, thus making it easier for you to understand the 508-compliance rules.
As a front-end developer without much experience in the realm of a11y, and with no knowledge of 508-compliance, I approached this book as a good place to start. Having finished it, I maintain that it was a good introduction to the subject. Though I got the information about the disabilities and how to accommodate them, there was almost nothing in here about WAI-ARIA–granted: Cunningham cites ARIA, and shows some examples when talking about “Complete Blindness”, but she also says that it’s too big of a subject to cover in her book. That being said, when I find a good resource on ARIA, I’ll be pleased to know that this book gave me a decent framework for thinking about those problems.
Lastly, as I mentioned before, Cunningham does a decent job of explaining why many of the accommodations that she describes actually become “features” of your site, and not “compromises”. For example: everyone can benefit from having good tabindex properties set on your form fields. For example: everyone benefits from well-labeled graphs and charts. For example: by making your menus, icons, and other click-targets “adequately sized”, you’re not only helping someone with Parkinsons, you’re also helping people accessing your site from a mobile device. And lastly, my favorite example: by paying attention to the source order of the elements in your site, you’re not only helping the blind (and/or anyone else using a screen reader) but you’re also making it easier to give your site a responsive design (and I hear it’s helpful for SEO, as well).
Would I recommend this book? Yes, to someone who needs a quick “walking tour” of a11y–but probably not to someone who is already familiar with the subject, and definitely not to someone who is looking for more on WAI-ARIA.
Full disclosure: I received an electronic copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for writing a review.
August 17, 2016
Very good book for anyone who is interested in learning about web accessibility. After reading it, you will get some ideas for your next step in the field. Recommended. :)
June 10, 2019
A extremely useful book on accessibility guidelines, tools, rules and approaches. Especially useful for front end designers or those looking to ensure that their sites meet Section 508 accessibility requirements or wanting to avoid the nuisance lawsuit. Good for technical and non-technical readers alike.
October 19, 2012
A good starting point if you've only recently heard about accessibility and are wondering if (or were just told) it's something you need to worry about. Does a good job showing that (1) yes, you do (2) there isn't *that* much you need to do (3) everything involved will improve your website anyway. Convinces without overwhelming, and has good pointers to more specific resources if you have trouble in a particular area.
March 23, 2013
Even though I know a lot about accessibility and the tools that are available, this book helped answer some questions I had, such as how screen readers handle changing content on a web page. It also gave great tips/guidelines/reminders so that I can make better web pages in the future.
March 13, 2014
This book presents some practical considerations that could easily be overlooked when trying to implement web accessibility policies on a larger scale.
The code snippets were something that I personally found helpful for deeper understanding.
The code snippets were something that I personally found helpful for deeper understanding.
May 24, 2013
Very hands-on minded, just provide practical advice and direct knowledge.
Definitively worth reading.
Definitively worth reading.
August 17, 2016
Great book :)
August 26, 2016
No depth. Too simple and obvious. Is this book for amateurs or kids?
October 2, 2012
Unfortunately this book has less detail than one could have wished for...
April 25, 2017
This is a very slim but useful guide on making websites more accessible to disabled users. I'm very interested in the sources that they provide at the end of the book. I hope programmers see this and realize how important it is to make their websites as open as possible to all users and all assistive technologies.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews