NorthTemple.com recently published a very comprehensive Accessibility Checklist that you need to follow for your web site. The original post can be found here: NorthTemple.com : The Accessibility Checklist I V... .
The 30 items on the list (excluding the ones related to testing) can be classified in two different categories:
1) Considerations that require visual appreciation or understanding of the content to be enforced (19 items).
2) Considerations that are a property of the source code and do not require understanding of the subject matter (11 items).
The first category can be summarized as to make sure we write good content, that we have good description for things that are audiovisual and that we do not use any non accessible resource to guide the user through the navigation of the site. In general just keep in mind who your intended audience is.
On the other hand, the second category of consideration revolves completely around what I call properties of the source code, things that are coded in a way that can or cannot be accessible. For instance, make sure that all pages have a title, that all images have an alternate description, that form fields are ordered in the right way (tab index), that content and style are separated, etc. All of these considerations are automatically found AND fixed by Aggiorno, and believe me, finding and fixing these things manually IS a drag and this is the reason why many web developers don't do it.
It is also quite interesting to see how one of the 4 testing considerations to certify that a page is accessible is to make sure that the page is web standards compliant. Aha! WEB STANDARDS!
Once again, it is clear that following web standards certainly helps in making a page accessible. I would venture to say that making a page web standards compliant is the FIRST step that needs to be done, in fact, if you do nothing else I strongly suggest you make the page standards compliant and that you allow Aggiorno to help you in the process, you'll save tons of time. Download Aggiorno Beta now!