Girl with her guide dog
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    Web accessibility was introduced to me last semester and I wanted to ensure access to the web pages I create much as I want access to public places.  I never thought about a person with a visual impairment would be using the web.

    Needless to say I was wrong.  So here is an effort to do a little web accessibility for people like me who are just learning.  To incorporate these features into our web pages.

Since there are already some very good sites that all ready explain web accessibility for people who are blind or visually impaired, I decided not to try and re-invent the concept but to draw some notice to these sites and this topic of importance.  So go to the links page or page 2 for the sites that I think will be useful to you as a new web page builder.

    These are some of the first steps that can be made to ensure access to your web pages.  When you put in an image into your web pages make a strong effort to use alternative text or Alt. Text options in Netscape composer it is under, Image properties, which are found by right clicking on a highlighted image.  It is at the bottom of that menu as captured below. 

This is an image from Netscape Composer's features for Alt.Text

Alternate text image box this is where to type in your Alt.Text

This is an example of the Alt.Text image when it shows up when it has been used.
By choosing this you are able to put a title behind your image or in the case of a screen reader it allows the reader to read that text instead of just running across something like...jpg, or ...gif, that doesn't have a good descriptor of your image.  A fairly uniform design and layout of your pages can also aide in their accessibility.  Navigation bars are also often helpful.  Clarity in the navigation through your site is also important.
 

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