Macromedia Contribute offers a unique set of tools that allows website administrators to establish and maintain site accessibility. With accessibility directly integrated into Contribute, website administrators can now specify accessibility settings. Once these settings have been activated, website content contributors must provide text descriptions for images and identify data-table headings. In addition, as a website administrator you can also specify whether to use HTML or CSS for text formatting, making it easier for content contributors without any advanced technical knowledge meet rigorous standards (such as the Canadian Common Look and Feel Standard).
This brief document explains how to build and maintain an accessible site using Contribute, and is intended for website administrator use. We also provide a separate document for content contributors.
Selecting an Accessible Template
Contribute supports macroplates to meet accessibility standards. Macroplates are Macromedia Dreamweaver templates that Contribute users can use to create and edit pages. based on. The first step in creating an accessible website using Contribute is making sure the templates themselves are accessible.
Templates are created and edited in Dreamweaver MX 2004. With the powerful accessibility tools included in Dreamweaver MX 2004, it’s easy to both ensure template accessibility and retrofit existing templates.
Download the following files for more information and resources on authoring accessible templates in Dreamweaver MX 2004.
Download dw_templates.zip (2.4 MB)
Setting Administration Options in Contribute
After you have set up a site, you can modify its’ accessibility options. To begin, select Edit & Administer Websites, and then click the name of your site.
Figure 1. Setting Administration Options in Contribute
After you have entered the site password, the Administer Website dialog box appears. Select the Users permission group or other appropriate group for your site. Click the Edit Group button.
Figure 2. Administer Website dialog box
The Permission Group dialog box will appear. On the left side of the dialog box, select the Editing category. Make sure you also check the Enforce Accessibility Options box listed under Other Editing Options.
Figure 3. Permission Group dialog box
Checking the Enforce Accessibility Options box activates a prompting system for content contributors thatrequires them to enter important accessibility information when they insert images and tables on a page. The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG) require alternate text descriptions for images, as well as markup identifying table headers. Content contributors often either forget to add these elements or simply don’t know how. Macromedia Contribute makes adding this information easy, while helping website administrators maintain overall site accessibility.
A second set of important accessibility options fall under the Styles and Fonts category. Macromedia Contribute provides you with the option of formatting text using HTML or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and also enables you to select the type units used to modify sizes on the page.
Figure 4. Formatting text using HTML or Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
This feature is especially useful in helping sites meet W3C Priority 2 checkpoints where sites must use CSS to format text and use relative units for text sizes. Sites using CSS allow visitors to view content in style sheets that have been tailored to meet their specific needs. A site built using relative sizes in CSS also allows site visitors with low or impaired vision to easily increase and decrease font sizes within the browser. Content contributors won’t even notice when these options are enabled, since the modification is made in the underlying HTML.
Adding Accessible Images
Once site accessibility preferences have been set, Contribute will ask content contributors to provide a text description for any images that are added to a page. These helpful prompts ensure that both designers and content contributors don’t forget to include text descriptions. With this kind of automatic setting, you can rest assured that site accessibility will remain intact.
Figure 5. Adding Accessible Images
Adding Accessible Tables
When a data table is added to a page, Contribute prompts the author for information describing the table structure. The author must then identify whether a table has a row of headers, a column of headers, both row and column headers, or no headers at all. Header identification helps make tables easier to read for people using screen readers, and is also required by nearly every accessibility policy in the world. Header identification typically requires hand coding from the author. Macromedia Contribute makes creating accessible tables much easier.
Figure 6. Adding Accessible Tables
Formatting Text
Macromedia Contribute 3 has been enhanced to provide industry leading support for Cascading Style Sheets. When a site must meet W3C Priority 2 checkpoints, Cascading Style Sheets should be used to format text. Macromedia Contribute includes options that make this process transparent for content contributors. When an author wants to modify the page font, Contribute generates the necessary CSS.
