MARTA
MARTA Public Website Redesign
The criteria for the MARTA Web site were based on access guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. Accessible sites offer significant advantages that go beyond access. For example, those with "text-only" options provide a faster downloading alternative and can facilitate transmission of web-based data to cell phones and personal digital assistants. Many of these provisions ensure access for people with vision impairments who rely on various assistive products to access computer-based information, such as screen readers that translate text content on a computer screen into automated audible output, and refreshable Braille displays. Certain conventions, such as verbal tags or identification of graphics and format devices, like frames, are necessary so that these devices can "read" them for the user in a sensible way. The standards do not prohibit the use of web site graphics or animation. Instead, the standards aim to ensure that such information is also available in an accessible format. Generally, this means use of text labels or descriptors for graphics and certain format elements. (HTML code already provides an "Alt Text" tag for graphics which can serve as a verbal descriptor for graphics). Most of the work done by PearlNet for MARTA related to extensive modification of the website HTML to meet the minimum requirements for Section 508. This work was completed in 2004.
