Main content

Debra Kyles

I am an Accessibility Engineer,  working with accessibility for about ten years. I have also worked as a UX Designer for about fifteen years. I’ve worked with governments, enterprise businesses, educational institutions and small IT shops.

A few highlights of my work:

  • ·        Helped the University of Minnesota in their efforts to make a PeopleSoft site accessible using a Javascript overlay.
  • ·        Prepared an Accessibility Approach and Plan document for a T-Mobile redesign.
  • ·        Helped Getwell Network make their hospital-based platform accessible.
  • ·        Trained staff at CalPERS (California Public Employee Retirement System) and the Legislative Data Center to test, validate and fix accessibility issues.
  • ·        Served as SME for the State of California EDD modernization project
  • ·        Served as accessibility expert for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to define standards for accessibility in cloud computing.

I love making the web a better place for the 20% of the population who are challenged with disabilities. By including this population in our design, copy and coding decisions, we make the world a more compassionate, empathetic place to live.

The main language of the page must be specified.

Changes to language within the page must be indicated.

Rationale

Assistive technologies such as screen readers have support for different languages, allowing for appropriate pronunciation.

Techniques

Pass:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-GB">
<head>
    <title>Language techniques</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Techniques for language in HTML</h1>
    <p><span lang="es">Cinco de Mayo</span> is Spanish for "fifth of May"</p>
</body>
</html>

Fail:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Language techniques</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Techniques for language in HTML</h1>
    <p>Cinco de Mayo is Spanish for "fifth of May"</p>
</body>
</html>

Tests

Procedure Expected Result Type
Search source for <html>element <html> element must have a lang attribute with a value equal to the language code for the main page content language Manual
Validate the page against the W3C Internationalization Checker There must not be a ‘The html tag has no language attribute’ warning, and the Language HTML tag value should match the language code for the main page content language Tool
Search source for each instance of a language change Each instance should have a containing element with a lang attribute with a value equal to the language code for the language Manual



Page 18 of 18