A Chapter Breakdown

Following is a detailed breakdown of the Table of Contents, including a brief description of what’s covered in each chapter.

Chapter 1, Introducing Universal Design

Our take on universal design and how it applies to the Web, accessibility, and the mobile market.

Chapter 2, Selling It

How to convince your boss (or yourself) that universal design is imperative to the success of your website.

Chapter 3, Metadata

The story of the building blocks of universal design; information on alt text, long descriptions, labels, document-level language and encoding, and link text.

Chapter 4, Structure and Design

What you need to know about HTML and HTTP, including semantic markup, the use of color, style, web-friendly fonts, avoiding flicker, and designing for HTML-based email.

Chapter 5, Forms

How to use the features of HTML to design full-featured and usable forms; tab order, error handling on both client and server side, and the problems with CAPTCHA are covered.

Chapter 6, Tabular Data

How to mark up tables with the information necessary for users of all stripes to navigate them effectively.

Chapter 7, Video and Audio

A history of video on the Web, including support for different formats across device classes; and HOW-TOs for captioning, audio description, and transcription.

Chapter 8, Scripting

The keys to building JavaScript into web applications: progressive enhancement, unobtrusive script, and proper use of events.

Chapter 9, Ajax and WAI-ARIA

An introduction to accessibility for Ajax-based applications, including the basics of the W3C/WAI Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specification.

Chapter 10, Rich Internet Applications

Universal design practices for Flash, Flex, and Silverlight.

Chapter 11, The Process

Tips on integrating universal design processes into the workflows of organizations of any size.