How to Build an Accessible Curb Cut

Because this site gets a number of hits on accessibility specifications of actual curb cuts, I thought I would post a couple of resources for misguided visitors. Specifically I’ll outline the little that I’ve been able to find out about curb cuts and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Definition

First off a definition from the Wikipedia entry on curb cuts:

A curb cut (US) or dropped kerb (UK) is a ramp leading smoothly down from a sidewalk to a street, rather than abruptly ending with a curb and dropping roughly 10-15 cm (4~6 inches).

Where

Page 4 of the official Checklist for Existing Facilities (PDF) from the US Department of Justice Americans with Disabilities Act Home Page asks the question, “Do curbs on the route have curb cuts at drives, parking and drop offs?” From this I’m going to posit that these are the three places where curb cuts are required.

Slope

The next paragraph in a discussion on ramps discusses the slope ration and states that “the slopes of ramps (be) no greater than 1:12,” it then goes on:

Slope is given as a ratio of the height to the length. 1:12 means for every 12 inches along the base of the ramp, the height increases one inch. For a 1:12 maximum slope, at at least one foot of ramp length is needed for each inch of height.

More Information

For those who are looking for more information, the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration has a document entitled Designing Sidewalks and Trails for Access, including an entire chapter on “curb ramps” including information on how curb ramps impact different populations, different types, best practices and great diagrams.

If you’re looking for a basic checklist on facility accessibility, check out this Facilities Checklist from the National Center on Workforce and Disability.

Accessible Content Management Systems

I like the idea of using a content management system for on some projects. However, if accessibility is a priority then options are quickly go from many to far fewer. Fortunately, many of the larger open source content management systems have taken on a goal of achieving some level of accessibility, if only as a byproduct of being standards compliant.

The question of whether a content management is accessible is a complicated one, regardless of what measure of accessibility someone chooses to use. Every content management system has different areas which may or not be accessible. Here are some of those factors:

• CMS generated content When a user submits content to be included for display in a CMS, inaccessible tags/structure is sometimes used to present that content to the end user.
• Template System The template system controls how the content is presented. How much does the system allow the site administrator to define his/her own structure and tags? While all systems facilitate template customization to some degree, many will still require inaccessible tags or structure to be used.
• Administrative Features While the above points primarily reference what a site visitor would see, the tool used to input content also needs to be accessible, whether is is the backend of a website or a standalone application.
• Third-party Plugins The content management systems that I have worked with have all allowed people to develop modules or plugins to provide additional functionality to the system. What kind of guidelines are developers required to adhere to when submitting new modules?
• Anything Else?

That’s a short list that’s too general to really be useful for anything, but may be a helpful framework when looking at different content management systems. With all of the standards based design evangelism out there right now most of the major systems are at least discussing development in a direction that will lead to greater accessibility with some projects already claiming some form of standards compliance. That said, I know at least a couple of people who weren’t found existing systems lacking in the area of accessibility and opted to develop their own homegrown system to meet their needs.

I’m hoping to explore this issue in greater detail- do any of you have any experience with an accessible CMS? Here is a (very incomplete) list of links I’ve recently found on the topic…

• Content Management Systems Can Improve Accessibility (warning: one of his first recommendations is to “generate multiple sites”)
• Content Management Systems: Creating accessible content from a Content Management System (CMS) (good overview that mentions some specific things to look for)
• Mambo (now Joomla!) misc: Section 508 Compliance, Accesssible Mambo fork, Project Orange Mambo accessibility initiative
• Plone, “Plone is known as the content management system that was engineered for accessibility from the very beginning, and it has continued to be the world leader in accessibility compliance.”
• “Client output from phpWebSite is valid XHTML 1.0 and meets the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative requirements.”
• Accessible Xoops
• Any other links?

Sorry- comments were turned off earlier, they are on now- thanks.

Facts and Opinions About PDF Accessibility from A List Apart 4.0

As mentioned all around the horn tonight A List Apart is back with a new design and a great new article from Joe Clark appropriately called Facts and Opinions About PDF Accessibility.

Towards the beginning of the article he sets the first point of his summary:

Most PDFs on the web should be HTML

However, he then lists 14 instances where PDF may well be the appropriate file format. The article also goes on to debunk some popular myths surrounding PDF, explains how they can be made more accessible and an informative overview of how PDF files are handled by three popular screen readers (JAWS, Window-Eyes and Home Page Reader). Also, don’t miss out on the discussion.

Text to Speech Software and Voices

I’m trying understand a little more about Text to Speech technologies, and and came across a couple of helpful links: a Speech synthesis page from Wikipedia and a Text-to-Speech page at SNOW. It appears there are a number of different text to speech software packages available.

The issue seems to be further complicated in that at least some of the software/voice packages appear to require a license based on how many times a user distributes a voice recording.

My last concern is how to select a voice to use- it looks like a number of different options available. To save you some time, if you are looking for IBM’s natural voices the first page I came across was their AT&T Text to Speech Research Lab which took me to their official AT&T Natural Voices page and from there to Wizzard Software where you can actually purchase a product- although I still wasn’t sure exactly what…

Anyways, I am looking for some help on this one- does anyone know of any good resources, have a favorite piece of software of favorite voice? If not, I don’t know how updated this is, but it looks like a good place to start.

As a sidenote, I wasn’t even aware of the W3C Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) – looks really interesting.

Evaluating Websites for Accessibility with Firefox

From the intro to the article:

Patrick H. Lauke outlines how Mozilla Firefox can be used in conjunction with the Web Developer Toolbar to carry out a preliminary accessibility review

Web Accessibility Initiative

The Web Accessibility Initiative has released their new website for public consumption. It’s a cleaner, more professional look that facilitates easier location of the helpful resources available there such as an Introducation to Accessibility, Curriculum on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and a handy template for Accessibility Evaluation Reports. If you haven’t before, take some time to look around, there are lots more goodies where those came from!

Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust (POUR) Free Webcast from WebAIM

Paul Bohman from WebAIM is hosting a free webcast on “the next generation of Web accessibility work in which principles, rather than techniques, take the center stage” this Thursday, July 14. They have also published Part 1 of a great article on Constructing a POUR website. You can register for the webcast here.

Accessible Multimedia – Skills for Access

Skills for Access bills itself as The Comprehensive Guide to Creating Accessible Multimedia for e-learning. I haven’t had time to go all the way through the site, but it looks like it delivers with a lot of substantive content, complete with great case studies as well as in-depth instructions on how to create accessible multimedia using a variety of technologies. (via splintered)

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WaSP Forms Accessibility Task Force

This is exciting news from the Web Standards Project- a grassroots task force from a well established organization promoting web accessibility and it looks like they have a crack team of experts assembled to tackle the job. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this effort, it should do a lot to encourage awareness of accessibility issues.

There is lots of commentary going on around the horn on this with a good set of links to some of the discussions from Eric Meyer, including a some suggested places to start from Joe Clark.

Matt Baily’s Web Site Accessibility Blog

I have been wandering around online tonight trying to find I’ve missed in the last few months and came across the Web Site Accessibility Blog from Matt Bailey. Here are just a few examples of great posts from his blog: How To: Create Accessible PDF’s, IBM urges US senate for accessibility standards in information technology, and Are Blind Users Able to Blog?.

It looks like the Accessibility Blog is still fairly new so stop by and give Matt a welcome.