Developer Tools

Basics

Texas Health and Human Services (HHS) Accessibility Center for Electronic Information Resources offers a one-stop shop for standards, guidelines, policy, and procedures relating to accessibility.
The federal government’s 508 Universe offers tools and resources to help implement Section 508 standards.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center offers comprehensive best practices for accessibility development and testing.
Accessify.com offers useful accessibility tools and wizards, including a quick page accessibility test, form builder, and YouTube caption creator.
The Illinois Center for Information Technology and Web Accessibility provides a wide range of accessibility-related information including events, training, and best practices.
Webaim.org features a number of accessibility-related articles on topics such as HTML, rich media, and training.

Consumersearch.com compares major web browsers and list top picks for speed, compatibility with older computers, and more.

Get detailed how-to information from Adobe.com on using Dreamweaver CS4 to create accessible forms.
Accessify.com’s quick form builder combines two older tools: the form builder and the form element generator.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed a comprehensive glossary and dictionary of all web-related terms.

The Illinois Center for Information Technology and Web Accessibility provides a detailed list of HTML best practices for developing accessible sites.

WC3 presents FAQs on making multimedia accessible—it's easier than you might think.
The Audio Description Coalition has compiled Standards for Audio Description and Code of Professional Conduct for Describers (requires free registration).
Skills for Access provides a comprehensive guide to creating accessible multimedia for e-learning.
W3C has a summary of extended audio descriptions with examples, techniques, and related resources.
The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media offers two versions of the Media Access Generator (MAGpie) for creating captions and audio descriptions for rich media.

Go to PlainLanguage.gov for the benefits of plain language, examples of government documents in plain language, a checklist to see if your document meets plain language standards, and a section on writing for the web.
Washington State’s Plain Talk website supports the use of simple and clear language when communicating with citizens and businesses.
The National Institutes of Health offers plain language online training.

Purple Dogfish (a UK-based web design firm) has information on creating accessible CAPTCHAs with user-definable questions and answers.

Comprehensive how-to articles on creating accessible tables in HTML from WebAIM.
Accessify.com’s quick table builder creates accessible tables using a wizard as a guide.

The Adobe Flash Platform is an integrated set of technologies that helps you create and deliver applications, content, and video.
The Web Accessibility Toolbar, provided by the Accessible Information Solutions (AIS) team of Vision Australia, streamlines the process of testing web pages for accessibility.
Adobe Flex 3 includes 28 accessible components that simplify the process of creating accessible rich Internet applications.
The Dreamweaver Developer Center is a rich source for Dreamweaver CS4 users with tutorials, resources and discussion forums.
The Web Developer extension for Firefox adds a menu and toolbar with various web developer tools.
Microsoft Visual Studio offers accessibility best practices.