About

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design is available online at www.uiAccess.com/JustAsk/
It's also available as a printed, bound book.

This page includes:

Reference Listing
Copyright and Reprints
More Fine Print
About the Author
Acknowledgements and Dedication
Sponsors and Supporters

Reference Listing

Henry, Shawn Lawton. Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design. Madison, WI: ET\Lawton, 2007. ISBN 978-1430319528 www.uiAccess.com/JustAsk/

Copyright and Reprints

Limited physical reprints of the web pages (for example, to be included as handouts for a course) are permitted under the following conditions:

The original web page is reprinted in its entirety, including any printed notices, navigation elements, sponsor logos, and footer with copyright notice.
The URI (web address) for each original web page is included on the reprint.
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Physical reproduction of more web pages requires explicit permission.
Content may not be reproduced electronically without permission.

In legalese: No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, with the exceptions listed above.

More Fine Print

Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark.

Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. The information in this book is distributed on an "as is" basis, without warranty.

About the Author

Shawn Henry focuses her personal passion for accessibility on bringing together the needs of individuals and the goals of organizations in designing human-computer interfaces.

Shawn leads worldwide education and outreach activities promoting web accessibility for people with disabilities at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Prior to joining the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), she developed and implemented strategies to optimize user interface design for usability and accessibility with Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit organizations, education providers, government agencies, research centers, and international standards bodies.

Although Shawn holds a research appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and has a Massachusetts phone number, she isn’t a super-geek and she lives in Madison, Wisconsin. When not typing on her little laptop, she is often out paddling her long sea kayak.

More at: www.uiAccess.com/profile.html

Acknowledgements

To Don and Elise, my dad and mum, for who I am

Thanks to those who reviewed the first version of this book, listed in the next section, and especially to the following contributors to this version.

For source code review and overall design of online version:

Patrick H. Lauke has been involved in the discourse on web accessibility since 2001. He works as Web Editor at the University of Salford and is a member of the Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force.

For cover design:

Michael Duffy, graphic artist and illustrator, Duffco

For amazingly intuitive voice recognition and typing:

Karl Henry, husband and so much more

For anecdotes and edits:

Andrew Arch manages the Web Accessibility Consulting team at Vision Australia, which provides a range of services to people who are blind and have low vision. Drawing on the organization's expertise, he provides practical consultancy and training services across Australia and internationally to government and corporate clients to improve the accessibility of their web services.
Ann Chadwick-Dias is a Principal User Experience/Accessibility Analyst at Fidelity Investments where her focus the last year has been on a corporate-wide accessibility initiative as part of Fidelity's User Experience team. This includes incorporating feedback from people with disabilities throughout the design and development process. Prior to that, she conducted strategic research on how to improve the online experience for older users.
Chris Hass is a human factors researcher who routinely incorporates people with disabilities into studies of web- and software-based applications, commercial electronics, medical devices, and human services. He is a usability consultant with the Bentley College Design and Usability Center, and previously was a WWW specialist for Harvard Medical School and a senior research scientist for the American Institutes for Research.
Liam McGee is managing director of Communis Ltd, web accessibility consultancy, providing site development, training and testing services to blue-chip, charitable and governmental clients in the U.K., Europe and the U.S. Liam works on 'max-reach' websites and online applications where accessibility to (and user-testing with) disabled users, usability to all users, support for minority-language users, and machine-readability ('search engine friendliness') are all essential parts of the mix. (Liam also notes: "My arms are a bit dodgy. So I really dig this accessibility thing.")
Marguerite Bergel is a Senior User Experience/Accessibility Analyst at Fidelity Investments where her focus the last year has been on a corporate-wide accessibility initiative. This includes incorporating feedback from people with disabilities throughout the design and development process. She is currently works as part of Fidelity's User Experience team and has also been involved with Fidelity's open source research.
Mary Frances Theofanos is a Computer Scientist in the Visualization and Usability Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology where she works on the Industry Usability Reporting Project developing standards for usability and studies the usability of biometric systems. Previously, she was the Manager of the National Cancer Institute's Communication Technologies Research Center, a state-of-the-art usability testing facility including an extensive research program on the intersection of accessibility and usability.

Much of Part II of this book is based on Accessibility in the User Centered Design Process [1], and is used with permission. It was sponsored in part by Information Technology Technical Assistance and Training Center (ITTATC) at Georgia Institute of Technology's Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access, funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research of the U.S. Department of Education under grant number H133A0000405. The following individuals contributed their time and expertise in reviewing it:

Kitch Barnicle, Wisconsin Center for Education Research
Sheryl Burgstahler, Ph.D., University of Washington, Seattle
Deborah Bursa, ITTATC
Rebecca Conrad, Web consultant, JAWS user
Kara Pernice Coyne, Nielsen Norman Group
Brad Fain, ITTATC
Laura Farah, Law, Health Policy and Disability Center; University of Iowa College of Law
Holly Hancock, Electronic Systems Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute
Nan Hawthorne, DO-IT Program, University of Washington, Seattle
Mimi Kessler, Director, ITTATC
David Kline, Accessibility Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Chris Law, Maskery
Kay Lewis, Ph.D, Accessibility Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Kevin Schartz, Accessibility Institute, University of Texas at Austin
James Schmeling, Accessibility Institute, University of Texas at Austin
Mary Frances Theofanos, National Cancer Institute
Jim Tobias, Inclusive Technologies
Gregg Vanderheiden, Ph.D., Trace R&D Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison

I've saved the best for last. For keeping the initial project going and co-writing the first edition of Accessibility in the User Centered Design Process, my immense thanks to:

Mary Martinson Grossnickle

Sponsors and Supporters

Many thanks to Just Ask Sponsors and Supporters:

PowerMapper Software - Sponsor
Loop¹¹ - Sponsor
Adobe - Sponsor
HP - Sponsor
Mitsue-Links - Sponsor
Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) - Sponsor
SAP - Sponsor
Technosite - Sponsor
Saving Money: billeater.com - Supporter
TecAccess - Supporter

To join in supporting Just Ask, see Sponsorship Opportunities and Be a Just Ask Supporter.

References

Henry, S.L. and Grossnickle, M. Accessibility in the User Centered Design Process. Atlanta, Georgia, USA: Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Inc., 2004.