Title: Take the #NoMouse Challenge
Course: Web Accessibility MOOC for Educators > Section: What is Accessibility and How Does it Apply to my Job?

According to the World Health Organization, there are more than one billion people in the world who have some sort of disability, including nearly 200 million people who experience considerable difficulties in functioning. People with disabilities use a variety of tools and techniques for using the computer and accessing the Web. However, they're dependent on people who create digital content (e.g., websites, Word docs, PDFs, video, audio) to create these materials in ways that are accessible.The methods for creating accessible digital content are well established and in many cases very simple. However, if people who produce digital content are unaware of these methods or choose not to apply them, people with disabilities are shut out, unable to access content and excluded from participating in our digital society.

The #NoMouse Challenge

If you or your organization has a website, try using it without a mouse. Use the keyboard instead. If you don't have a website, try a few of your favorite websites without a mouse, just using the keyboard.

Tips for using the keyboard to access web pages

- Press Tab to move to the next link, form element or button.
- Press Shift+Tab to move to the previous link, form element, or button.
- Press Enter or space bar to activate the current link or button.
- Use arrow keys, Escape, or other keys if it doing so would seem to make sense.

As you do this, ask the following questions:

1. Can I access all features?
2. Can I operate all buttons, sliders, and other controls?
3. Can I easily tell where I am on the page?

NoMouse.org is a project of The DO-IT Center at the University of Washington, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .