Micrsoft FrontPage is a very popular authoring tools for creating web pages, particulalry amogst inexperienced web developers. FrontPage does contain many accessibility features but not as many as some of the other popular web authoring tools such as Macromedia Dreamweaver. Any accessibility features not discussed on this page need to be manually coded in FrontPage. All of the features below are available in FrontPage 2003. The page does contains links to information about the accessibility features available in earlier versions of Front Page.
A web developer an create a skip navigation link by creating a normal hyperlink with the words “skip navigation”. Once that is done the web developer needs to put a Bookmark where the skip navigation link is going to jump to. They can do this by placing the cursor at the location where they want the link to jump to then select Bookmark from the Insert menu.
A web developer can use front page to create Cascading Style Sheets to control the layout of there web pages. Using CSS instead of tables to control the layout and presentation of the page can gratly improve the accessibility of a web page. The CSS page contains more information about how using CSS can improve the accessibliity of a web page.
FrontPage offers limited support for created XHTML web pages. FrontPage does incorperate sleectyed HTML elements. As well as allowing a web developer to create and edit XHTML documents in the code view, but it provides very little code generation support for XHTML web pages.
FrontPage contains an accessibility evaluator. This can be found in Tools and Accessibility. This evaluator will check a web page or whole web site for accessibliity against the WCAG 1.0 priority 1 and priority 2 guidelines as well as the Section 508 guidelines. However it does not evaulate a page or whole site against the WCAG 1.0 priority 3 guidelines. Once FrontPage has tested a web page ir whole website it will generate a report that will show any accessibility problems that exist on the webpage or web site, as well as a list of manual tests that the web developer will need to carry out.
Microsoft FrontPage allows a web developer to reuse templates on various pages. This allows a web developer to create an accessible template, which they can then use on other pages on the website. However the blank default template that FrontPage uses is not standard complient HTML to make it standards complient. A web developer will need to a numbner of things to make the default template standards complient. Firstly they will need to add a valid DOCTYPE at the begiinning of the HTML source code.
Using a DOCTYPE at the beginning of the HTML is reccomeneded because it tells the browser what version of HTML to use, this is needed on any accessible web page. It is also required by many testing tools such as the W3C’s HTML validator, so that they know what set of rules to test the HTML or XHTML code against. To insert a DOCTYTPE into a FrontPage document a web developer needs to place the cursor at the beginning of the HTML and then press control and enter. This will then bring up a list of DOCTYPES for the web developer to choose from. Once the web developer has selected the DOCTYPE that they want it is automatically inserted into the code.
Alternativly a web developer could manually edit the default template known as normal.htm. In mpst cases (depending on where FrontPage is installed on a users machine) this can be found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\ 1033\Pages\normal.tem. Once a web developer has located the file they can open it in a text editor and change the DOCTYPE of the template to something that is standard complient e.g. HTML 4.01 Transitional, before saving the template. Then next time the normal.htm page loads in FrontPage it will have a DOCTYPE that is standards complient.
If a web developer is going to be using mutiple HTML and XHTML standards then they will need to create a template that is complient with each standard. There are two ways a web developer can do this. They could create a template for each of the standards that a web developer want to use in FrontPage (using one of the methods described above), and then open the appropriate template rather than creating a new page. Alternativly a web developer could save each template as an HTML snippet rather than an HTML file. This can be done in Tools, Page Options and then select the code snippets tab.
A web developer can add an alt text to an image by right-clicking on the image and the selecting picture properties from the menu, or by selecting the image and then pressing alt and enter. A dialog box will then appear and a web developer can enter the alt text for the image in the alternative representations field. If the image does not convey information e.g. a spacer image then the alt text should be left blank. A web developer can assign a blank alt text to an image by leaving the alternative representations field blank.
If a web developer wishes to create a long description for an image then they will firstly need to create a new web page that will contain the long description for the image. Once the page has been created, the picture properties form contains a long description field which allws a web developer to enter the URL of the web page that contains the long description for the image.
To create an accessible client-side imahe map in FrontPage a web developer firstly needs to insert the image that they are going to use as there image maps once they have inserted the image they need to create some hopspots these are the areas of the image where there are going to be links to other pages hot spots can be crated using the retable, circle and polygon shapes that are available on FrontPage these should be placed on the area of the imaage where the web developer wants the link to be placed.
when a hotspot is added to the image a create hyperlink window will appear this allows the user to enter an alt text for that part of the image alt texts can be added to exisitng hotspots by double-clicking the hotspot, the create hyperlink box should then appear which will allows a web developer to enter the alt text Leaving the alt text for a hotspot blank is not reccomended however giving the whole imahe a blank alt text is reccomended
A web developer can create redundant text linkss for server-side image maps by creating a set of text hyperlinks, (by entering the text and then making that text a hyperlink) that are equivilant to the set of links available on the server-side image map.
The web developer is able to easily to control the contrast and other presentational elelemts on the page. So therefore it is the web developer resonsibliity to choose the most appropriate colour schemes and fonts etc for the page. This will require human judgement.
A web developer will need to markup quotes manually as Frontpage is unable to automatically generate ABBR and ACRONYM tags.
A web developer can use FrontPage to created bulleted and numbered lists. However if a web developer needs to use an indented list then they will need to code this manually.
Frontpage allows a web developer to choose from two relative fonts percentages and pixels, percentages are reccomended. It is considered very important that a web developer use relative fonts on a website. If absolute fonts are used then a visually impaired user would be unable to increase the size of the text.
FrontPage only provides support for assigning table headers to tables. It does not provide support for using both row and column headers e.g. the scope attribute, nor does it provide support for complex data tables. A web developer can define a table header in FrontPage by selecting the cell or cells that are to be used as the table headers. the the web developer then needs to right-click on those cells and select cell properties. Alternativly a web developer could select tables, proporties and then cell from the menu.
Once the dialog box appears the web developer needs to check the header cells check box, so that FrontPage knows that the selected cells is a table headers. FrontPage will then automatically assign the TH element to those cells.
Layout tables should not be used to control the layout and presentation of a web page. The tables page contains more information about how to make tables accessible.
A web developer can create a new form in FrontPage by sleecting Insert and then Form. Each elements on a form e.g. data entry field, check box, radio button etc should have a label. A web developer can add lables to these elements in FrontPage by selecting the form element and the label and then by going to Insert, Form and then Label. Once this is done FrontPage will automatically associated the selected label and form elements together.
This method will only be accessible if the form element and label are next to each other on the form. It is reccomended that a web developer use the for attribute to associate labels with a form element. If a web developer wishes to use this mathod then they will need to code it manually, as FrontPage does not support the for attribute. The forms page contains more information about how to make forms accessible.
Adding a title to each frame on a frames page can help improve the accessibility of frames pages. However frames pages are discourages as they can cause a number of problems for blind or visually impaired users who use screen readers. A web developer will automatiacally be prompted to enter a meaninigful title for a frame as it is created. If a web developer wishes to add a title to an exisitng frame then all they need to do is right-click the frame that they want to add a title to, and then select frame properties. A dialog box will then appear and the web developer will able to enter a frame title in the title field.
The different heading types available in FrontPage can help struicture a web page. They also make it easier for a screen reader to diffferentiate headings from body text on a web page. Some screen readers allow users to tab between headings on a page, however in order for the user to be able to do this the web developer needs to specified the headings on the page using the different headings that are available (H1-H6). A web developer can create a heading in FrontPage by highlighting the text that is going to be used as the heading with the cursor. Once that is done they need to select the heading that they wish to use (H1-H6) from a dropdown which is at the far laft side of the formating toolbar.
More information about the accessibility features of FrontPage 2003. More information about the accessibility features of FrontPage 2000.