Tools, wizards, articles and tutorials on Web Accessibility for the conscientious web developer
As pointed out by a certain web pundit the W3C have released a new beta version of the validator, and very nice it sounds too to make WCAG 1.0 Guideline 3.2 easier to comply with.
Michael started some discussion here.
Finally, after switching from PC to Mac, I've managed to get my copy of Virtual PC playing ball. As such, uploads are once again possible - deep joy!
Tale of Two Initiatives - Strangely, despite apparently seeking the same goals in the same region using the same approaches, EuroAccessibility.org and e-Accessibility/UKDeAN seem to be oblivious to each other’s existence. Dennis Kessler investigates why.
Attractive, Accessible Web Sites (AKA disproving the myth of ugly) - When you are selling the concept of web accessibility be sure to pick the good-looking sites when demonstrating the possibilities, otherwise you might as well not bother.
Well, I say personal rant, but it's a little more public than that now. Here is an excerpt from my piece featured over at Mezzoblue's Second Voice series:
How do you encourage unenthusiastic developers/mark-up authors to adopt forward-thinking web development methods?
How do you engage people who consider their work on the web as just that: ‘only work’, something that pays the bills but doesn’t exactly leave them beside themselves with excitement?
I am but one individual in a team of many (in my place of full-time employment) and I am from a strange breed - I have a passion for the web! What happens when you are part of a team that is not as uniformly enthusiastic to learn?
This is a problem that faces many IT managers and standards advocates working in the corporate sector. Though we’re doing good things in adopting accessibility practices and optimising our code, it’s still very difficult to get a site to conform to all the major standards in the real world. Why is this the case?
Add any comments directly to the page (no registration required). Here are some of the people who have linked to the article so far.
Sharron Rush over at knowbility has let me know about a discussion on Friday the 28th August (tomorrow) covering "digital divide issues as they affect people with disabilities"
.
The discussion will be hosted over at http://www.techsoup.org/.
That's it!
Yes that's right, Macromedia announced a new version of MX this week (should have posted this monday morning but I was away), just when most of you were probably getting round to buying the first MX.
This release marks the second release with a major commitment to Accessibility, showing their ongoing commitment to the cause.
On a side issue the software that was used to demonstrate some of MX 2004 to me was pretty cool, some form of Flash application server which provided a view of Bob Regan's desktop over the web. If you want more info let me know and I can find out but I don't have any currently.
Back to the topic in hand, Bob Regan's view on Accessibility is that there will be a lot more interest in and notice taken of Accessibility next year. This year being the European Year of People with Disabilities, he believes next year will be the year of implementation (or words to that effect).
CSS has been taken more seriously than ever forming a "core part of the design"
.
Slighly off topic again but wouldn't it be nice for XHTML 2 to have an attribute to the quote element <q> for defining the origin of a verbal quote, something like:
<q speaker="Bob Regan, Accessibility Product Manager, Macromedia">"core part of the design"</q>
The current spec allows a cite attribute for indicating the URL of a source document but no way of defining the name of someone for a spoken quote unless you add the name after the quote and mark it up with <cite>. I've done it with the title attribute above but that doesn't seem semantically correct, speach browser could say 'Bob Regan, Accessibility Product Manager, Macromedia said core part of the design'.
Back to MX 2004. I don't know how well this was provided in the first MX but MX 2004 provides a number of Accessibility Alerts to warn you when you may be commiting an Accessibility blunder such as missing out alt text <img alt=... /> and long descriptions <img longdesc=... /> or not adding labels <label> to form elements.
Macromedia Contribute has improved integration in MX 2004. Contribute is a New Accessible Macromedia Relase, a content creation tool that integrates with Dreamweaver nicely.
Another quick side issue, Macromedia appear to have dumped drop down menus for text links on a bar under the top level nav, I seem to remember drop downs at some point. Anyhow it's an interesting alternative and nicer to use I think.
Flash has an increased number of Accessible Interactive Components (form elements and such). MX had 2 of these, on release MX 2004 has 10 with a lot more not quite ready at launch which will be made available to download free soon. These controls work with the MSAA architecture. That's Microsoft Active Accessibility, not Mower Specialists Association of Australia. According to Bob it's a "tough API
".
While reading this remember that most Macromedia Accessibility options are not on by default, although I'm promised they're not hard to find.
Still on the subject of Flash, it now has an extensibility layer which allows for more contol and customisation of the software, including improving Accessibility such as adding Accessibility Validation tools which I'm told is available.
Action Scripting has been imporved, instead of being forced to use the Accessibility panel to help produce Accessible scripts these features are now available through the text interface, that's the way I understand it, although I have not seen or used it.
The current Flash Player(6) has a problem with holding onto the screen focus and causing Accessibility upset, well the new version of the player takes a new approach and resolves this problem.
That's it for now, if you have anything to say about this head over to the forum. If any of this information has errors feel free to mail me, my notes aren't as good as they could have been and it's been a busy couple of weeks since I took them.
That is all ...
Dreamlettes is drawing together a petition as follows:
"Starting at $ 895, JAWS is too expensive a testing tool for us, freelance web designers, who wish to test our designs, as the intended audience would experience it. We have to rely on making our websites conforming to the existing Section508/WCAG Guidelines and assuming that the audience will have a usable experience on the site designed. Since the free download for JAWS is time limited, it is of no use to the designer after expiration date.
We, the undersigned, request that the developers of JAWS® for Windows please provide us a free/cost effective, stripped down testing alternative. This will lead to more websites being tested to suit your software, resulting in an increased audience and hence increased requirement for JAWS."
If you agree with the sentiment, go on and add your name to the list, or perhaps you think that this is a new form of discrimination? If so, have your say in the forum
As reported on a few sites today, there's a new tool out there that aims to emulate a Pocket PC's behaviour, but on further investigation, it appears to me to be doing nothing of the sort. In fact, as far as I can tell, it's little more that a bunch of sliced images with a floating frame that contains the web site thrown at in a smaller window, for example, this is how accessify looks on the tool:
However, when I view the site on my real iPaq, this is what I get:
A no-frills, text-only version of the page that fits on the screen and is totally usable. And this is precisely what it is supposed to be - the CSS is ignored by Pocket PC 2002, and so you get something simple that does work for handhelds. This is no accident.
So, am I missing something here? Is this emulator running something other than Pocket PC 2002 (I hear that 2003 does support some CSS). Or am I right in thinking that this emulator is doing anything but emulation? If it's not working as it should then it's harmful (and misleading) to put this out for people to view. If you want to comment publicly, go on over to the forum.
From PC Mag a couple of days ago, an interesting article about the use of CAPTCHAs to stop spamming, and how they affect accessibility.
Chances are, you've been CAPTCHAd. Since the Internet spam problem reached epidemic proportions several months back, an increasing number of Web-based e-mail services and antispam applications have started using CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) against the online bots spammers so often use to carry out their dirty deeds.
I received this e-mail today that I tought I would share:
We had some e-mails months ago, and your accessify site was a major resource in making our site accessible. I'm pleased to say I got there in the end, and London Canal Museum has now become the first museum to be awarded the RNIB's "See-it-Right" logo.
The audit process was as exhausting as it was exhaustive! Many thanks for your help earlier, thought you would like to know the outcome.
If I'm completely honest, the design of the site doesn't exactly inspire me, but here the content is king. And now that content has been made accessible to a wider audience. It's great to know that this site was able to help in some way to achieve that goal :)
Has Levin Alexander achieved the best variant yet of the Fahrner Image Replacement technique? Go judge for yourself now, then comment on it in the forum. [Note this has already been mentioned in the forum, but not on this page before, so perhaps this method is new to you]
Apologies to anyone who has e-mailed me in the last few weeks and not had a response - I am moving from one laptop to another and there are some messages that have blackholed or have been left on the old PC with notes to follow up. So, this post is a general list of things people have informed me about that I need to post up here, in no particular order (and likely to grow in next couple of days!).
For the People ("Bringing our world together, one voice at a time.") is a voice chat service that's worth checking out, not least because tomorrow they will be having a presentation by Gary Moulton from Microsoft's accessibility division. You will need to join to take part (and hopefully there's still time to do this, as the page reads "Most membership requests are processed within hours of their receipt, but please allow 72 hours to receive your confirmation of membership via Email before contacting us."). This is a great opportunity to ask someone from Microsoft about the issues that matter to you.
Just got an email from Watchfire regarding an upcoming free on-line seminar.
We thought your might find this seminar of interest, and wanted to extend you an invitation. This is a free hour-long webinar; all you need is a phone and a browser. To register, please click below.
Website Compliance with the UK's DDA
August 21st, 2003
2:30 PM British Summer Time (BST)
9:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) North America
Did you know that if your website is not accessible you could be losing customers. Millions of disabled people, both in the UK and abroad, have billions of pounds to spend and they will go elsewhere if your site is inaccessible to them.
The UK Government estimates that there are 8.6 million people with some form of disability in Britain, with an estimated annual purchasing power of £40-£50 billion. By the year 2010, 40 percent of the UK population will be over 45 - the age at which the incidence of disability begins to increase significantly. However, many websites, most unwittingly, are discriminating against this large and potentially profitable group. What business can afford to ignore such an opportunity?
Companies providing services online in the UK are subject to new accessibility laws, following the publication of a Code of Practice. This Code of Practice addresses discrimination against people with disabilities in the UK and removes the uncertainty surrounding Web site accessibility.
Until now there has been ambiguity over the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, because the wording of the Act does not specifically mention Web services. The Code of Practice makes it clear, however, that any company providing services through a Web site has the same responsibilities as a company providing services any other way. And recently, the Disability Rights Commission has launched its first formal investigation in to Website accessibility.
Join Watchfire in this free seminar and learn:
This will be a 50-minute presentation, followed by a 10 minute Q&A session.
Register now for this free web seminar
Discussion of: Website Compliance with the UK's DDA - Free Seminar
A new feature over at Dave Shea's Mezzoblue, A Second Voice kicks off with an enjoyable article by disabilities rights activist Nic Steenhout entitled build it, and they will come. Good stuff...
Fahrner Image Replacement and its even more accessible and semantically clean variants are certainly a huge step in the right direction when it comes to taking the separation of content and presentation almost to its very limits. However, for those who are not prepared to completely abdicate the use of the humble <img> tag for pretty headings, but who want to still maintain their documents' structure semantically correct, here's an intermediate solution: wrap the image in the correct heading tag.
Example: if you're using a graphic as a heading, you could do far worse than writing it like so:
<h1><img src="blah.jpg" width="100" height="100" alt="I am a heading"></h1>
Of course this does not have the "purity" of markup of the CSS solutions, but it's certainly better than merely sticking an <img> tag in your documents when it is more than "just an image"...and it can be used for more than just headings...
![[Digital Web logo]](/images/dw_accessify.gif){kind=small}
Folowing on from the post the other day regarding Image Replacement, Digital Web features an article by Dave Shea - In Defense of Fahrner Image Replacement.
"The number one problem is that screen readers render display: none, hiding the content which the image is meant to replace. We can’t even do so much as provide alt text to compensate. Any accessibility advocate worth their copy of JAWS would tell you something’s fishy, and they’d be right."
Congratulations to all the authors of Separating Content from Presentation whose book is to be given a re-print with revised content - and special congratulations to Dave Shea at Mezzoblue whose CSS Zen Garden will be a featured case study.
I read about this moments after explaining to someone in my place of work about how much we could do regarding style switching if our web pages were table free, using the Zen Garden as a case in point. The strange thing is I said to my colleague: "I guarantee, this will be featured in the next batch of design/markup books released as a perfect example of separating style/structure".
I'm off to buy a lottery ticket, I'm feeling lucky.
AccessifyForum.com is now live, head on over and discuss anything and everything related to Web Accessibility, or use the Coffee Break forum for general chat and get to know others in the Accessibility community.
If you look at this site using a CSS-compliant browser, you will see a logo at the top of every page. If your browser does not support CSS, you will get a standard heading - an <h1> (as in this example, Netscape 3). The technique relies on some hacks which can fail under certain circumstances (if you have images disabled but CSS enabled, you will not see the image, nor will you see that hidden <h1> text).
Spotted at Simon Willison's site today - some alternative ways of doing this that seem to offer a less hacky approach (they negate the need for a superfluous <span> tag), but we still have an issue if images are disabled - you don't get the text to fall back on, and because the images are generated as background images, not inline, you have no alt attribute to rely on.
Take a look at the alternatives - but think, can you solve this last puzzle? Can you think of a way that allows this level of device independence while not causing the accessibility issue under those circumstances? Winner receives a sticky bun.
Many people have commented on the use of certain techniques employed by some free e-mail providers to stop spammers abusing the service and how they affect blind (or visually impaired) users. On Cookiecrook today, James Craig gives another example - a service called Knowspam. However, it's not all doom and gloom. Read the update at the bottom and you'll find a refreshing attitude from the people (or person) at Knowspam about a potential solution. If only the big boys would do the same thing ...
The DRC have published a demonstration showing the different ways that web sites can be inaccessible . [Ian comments: This is really well worth a visit, as it demonstrates difficulties with using a mouse, how a blind user hears the site with a screen reader, how it might look to a visually impaired user and then finally how the web page should be built for accessibility. A good one to bookmark. PS - back from Crete and getting back in to the work ethic. Bummer, eh?]
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