Projects
TxReadability Project
Student Web Accessibility Project
Web Site Accessibility at UT
Austin
Audio Cues
UT Austin Community Web Preferences
UT Austin Web Developers Accessibility
Strategies
Accessibility and Usability:
What’s the Relationship?
Participatory Design
TX2K Living Museum
TxReadability Project
TxReadability 
is a multi-language readability tool that assesses the ease with which text is read. Analyzing readability in terms of educational levels at which text is written, this tool serves as a quantitative gauge for users to determine whether their written text or Web content is suitable for their target audience.
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Student Web Accessibility Project
The Accessibility Institute's Student Web Accessibility Project is an ongoing effort that supports the development of accessible instructional Web sites. The student team evaluates Web sites and identifies educational accessibility issues that present barriers to users with disabilities.
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Web Site Accessibility at UT Austin
Accessibility Institute researchers continually evaluate UT Austin Web pages. Forty-five percent of 407 top UT Web pages passed automated checks for Section 508 accessibility criteria; however, only 25% of the same Web pages passed the 508 criteria that required manual checks. The most common error was not providing a text equivalent for every non-text element.
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Audio Cues
Audio cues can convey structural information about Web pages to users with visual impairments. Accessibility Institute’s audio cues study indicates that non-speech audio is an effective way to present hierarchical structure, however, care must be taken so that the sound metaphor fits the information structure.
UT Austin Community Web Preferences
Accessibility Institute researchers interviewed UT Austin faculty, students and staff to determine their Web site preferences and their specific needs for accessibility resources. Respondents indicated strong likes for simple design, a good search tool, and site map; dislikes included pop-up windows, scrolling and clutter. Respondent wanted Web accessibility how-tos, code examples, and best practice information.
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UT Austin Web Developer Accessibility Strategies
Accessibility Institute researchers interviewed UT Austin Web developers to find out how they incorporate accessibility into their development process. Results indicate that developers new to accessibility tend to add accessibility features to the end of design and development. As developers become more experienced with Web accessibility, they recognize the difficulty of retrofitting and begin to incorporate accessibility strategies into the early stages of the Web design process.
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Accessibility and Usability: What's the Relationship?
Accessibility Institute researchers conducted user testing with participants with and without visual impairments. The user feedback about the Web sites from the UT’s 2001 Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR-UT) indicated that users with visual impairments encountered significantly more accessibility and usability barriers than users without a disability even after the site was retrofitted for accessibility.
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Participatory Design
Accessibility Institute researchers used participatory design methods to obtain direct feedback from students and teachers about accessible computer technology. Accessibility Institute staff and teachers and 6th-9th grade students, with and without disabilities, designed prototypes of accessible Web sites. Students and teachers have definite technology preferences and expectations. These preferences are effectively integrated when users directly contribute to the design of their educational software.
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TX2K Living Museum
As curators of the TX2K Living Museum, students from Texas K-12 schools created online exhibits representing their communities' past, present, and future. TX2K featured carefully structured research activities that enabled students to combine local materials with digital resources from UT libraries and UT’s museum collections.