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Bobby Approved Accessible
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Bobby approved designs power a practical, pragmatic approach to web accessibility. And accessible web site design enhances Internet business website performance.
Being "Bobby Approved" supports the mission of Accessible.Org, which is to make accessible web designs for nonprofits, small businesses and government departments in the most practical and pragmatic ways possible, such that they are able to display a Bobby approval symbol.
This implies a harmonious blending of the objectives of the site owner with the recommendations of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the Web Accessibility Initiative and of the U.S. Section 508 Standards for accessibility adopted by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) of the U.S. Federal government.
For conceptual purposes, we've split website accessibility issues into two main streams:
disability-related - making web sites or anything having to do with the Internet as accessible as possible for people with disabilities
non-disability-related - making web sites viewable by as many browsers (and browser settings) as possible, in other words assuring browser compatibility
A Short Bobby History
Bobby is the name CAST gave to the free public service it launched in 1996 to automatically analyze accessibility features of web sites. It cleverly capitalized on the iconic British Bobby policeman and became an instant hit.
In addition to the automated analysis, it also offered easy-to-follow suggestions for the manual interpretaton of the extensive WAI guidelines, for which an automated check is not so practical.
For nearly 10 years, Bobby helped make the World Wide Web more accessible to individuals with disabilities. Novice and professional web designers alike analyzed and made improvements to millions of Web pages.
This work won CAST numerous awards and international recognition. CAST no longer supports the Bobby accessiblity testing software, and in fact, sold the application to Watchfire in 2004.
Watchfire further developed Bobby and included it as the Accessibility Module of its Watchfire® WebXM™ application. WebXM™ was designed to help the online business better manage its brand by complying with accessibility guidelines and best practices.
With Watchfire's acquisition of Bobby in 2004 and then the later acquisition of Watchfire by IBM in 2007, Bobby ceased to be available as a free service or standalone product.
However, as a testimony to the true value of Bobby, it's now one of the tests included in IBM's Rational Policy Tester Accessibility Edition software, the enterprise application for testing websites.
This Site Is Bobby Approved
Priority 1, 2 and 3 issues do not apply to pages on this site, thus qualifying it to be AAA Bobby Approved and entitled to use the AAA Bobby Approval icon. Bobby's accessibility analysis is an implementation of the May 5, 1999 version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the Web Accessibility Initiative.
Bobby analyzes Web pages in accordance with these guidelines and, where possible, automatically checks guidelines. There are a variety of important accessibility guidelines that Bobby, like any other accessibility tool, cannot check automatically.
For example, the requirement for text transcriptions for audio files to help people who are deaf requires you to manually look at the Web pages to confirm that the transcripts exist.
Section 508 issues do not apply to pages on this site, thus qualifying it to be Section 508 Bobby Approved and entitled to use the Section 508 Bobby Approval icon.
Bobby's Section 508 accessibility analysis is an implementation of the U.S. Section 508 Standards for accessibility adopted by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) of the U.S. Federal government.
Accessible Website Design Services
We offer practical and pragmatic accessibility-related resources for nonprofit and small business website designs in the form of advice, products and services from our own experience, as well as a variety of other sources. Our services generally consist of:
- site tune-up for accessibility
- accessible website designs and development
- site promotion geared to small business accessibility
We also provide resources for small businesses and nonprofits seeking government aid in the form of government grants and loans to help finance accessible website designs. Appearance of a resource on this site does not imply endorsement by Accessible.Org.
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