In the General Preferences category, select "Use <strong> and <em> in place of <b> and <i>." Select "Use CSS instead of HTML tags."
Tagging elements with semantically meaningful tags such as strong or em is important for accessibility. The idea of using semantically logical elements to create content is a foundation concept that applies to other element choices as well.
Accessibility requires that you separate content from presentation. In order to do that, you must use HTML to structure the document with logical semantic elements that are clearly organized into headings, paragraphs, lists, and other logical content blocks.
In the Accessbility Preferences category, select every option.
With these preferences selected, Dreamweaver will help you by reminding you to include labels on form objects, alt text with images, and other important accessibility attributes.
On the day I took the following screen shot, Macromedia Exchange offered up 46 extensions related to Accessibility in Dreamweaver. Not all are free, but they are all worth checking out to see if they will help with your particular needs.
Smart Link is one of many helpful extensions available from Macromedia Exchange. In Dreamweaver, the Smark Link dialog box gives you the following options.
Smart Link converts an existing link so that the target page opens in a new browser window. It works in a similar way to the Dreamweaver Open Browser Window behavior, or using target="_blank", but gives you far more control over its look and position. Although it uses JavaScript, it is smart enough to work even if JavaScript is disabled (by opening the page in the same window) — keeping your site accessible to everyone, and far more user-friendly than a link that doesn't work at all. It also has the advantage of keeping your pages valid, unlike target="_blank" which has been deprecated by the W3C.
In order to be accessible, pages must work if JavaScript is disabled. In most browsers, you can deselect the JavaScript option quickly, as in this Firefox preference option.
Test your pages with JavaScript disabled to be sure your navigation and other functions are usable.
Two valuable tools are available from UseableNet.
