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Restricted Access: Media, Disability, and the Politics of Participation

Accessibility Resources

This page offers a listing of resources that may helpful to individuals attempting to learn more about digital media accessibility and how to implement it, or those looking to better understand some of the primary documents and projects referenced in the text of Restricted Access.

Web Content Accessibility

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 - published by the World Wide Web Consortium in 1999
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 - published by the World Wide Web Consortium in 2008
WCAG Supplementary documents - explanation of principles; techniques for meeting WCAG 2.0; translations into other languages.
Web Accessibility Initiative, Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA) - accessibility measures for dynamic web content and advanced user interface controls.
Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure - an international coalition dedicated to ensuring that "that everyone who faces accessibility barriers due to disability, literacy, digital literacy, or aging, regardless of economic resources, can access and use the Internet and all its information, communities, and services for education, employment, daily living, civic participation, health, and safety."

U.S. Federal Accessibility Policies

Section 508 - a site that centralizes the standards used to enforce Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Section 508 Refresh - the update to Section 508 standards is ongoing, and the process is described here.
21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act
Telecommunications Act of 1996 - Standards for implementation of Section 255.
Americans with Disabilities Act - The ADA is believed to apply to websites, but standards remain in development.

Accessibility Initiatives and Resources

Fix the Web - a UK-based initiative that attempts to collect web accessibility errors and work with website owners to address them.
Google Accessibility - several Google Chrome extensions designed to provide accessibility features for users (including keyboard navigation and color adjustments) as well as developer tools.
No Coffee - a low-vision simulator, available as a Google Chrome extension.
Web Accessibility In Mind (WebAIM) - a consulting and resourcing group with the mission of empowering organizations to make their web content accessible to people with disabilities.
WebAIM WAVE - a web accessibility evaluation tool that highlights possible accessibility errors on a given webpage. See explanation in Web Accessibility Overview.

Social Media Accessibility

Blog Accessibility - Glenda Watson Hyatt's site, applying WCAG 2.0 principles to specific blogging contexts
Dreamwidth - a blogging and journaling platform with a commitment to inclusion, including accessibility
EasyChirp - an adaptation of Twitter for users using screenreaders or in otherwise limited situations

Streaming Media Accessibility Resources

Amara - part of the Participatory Culture Foundation, Amara allows people to create their own captions for existing videos, and uses crowd-sourcing to produce captions for client organizations.
YouTube Captioning - YouTube's captioning tools are explained in a video and in a help document. If no captions are provided, YouTube's automatic captioning feature may attempt to generate them from audio.
YouTube Video Description - A video explaining YouTube's integration of video description.
YouDescribe - a free accessibility tool for adding audio description to YouTube videos

Video Game Accessibility