W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
is holding a 2-day Web Accessibility Best Practices Exchange Training on 9-10
February 2004 in Madrid, Spain.

Participation is open to anyone interested in Web development. There is no
registration fee; however, pre-registration is required.

See the Education and Outreach Working Group’s event page for further details.

P.S.: I’ll almost certainly be there, so give me a shout if you fancy meeting up at the conference.

Rob Tunnacliffe (Tunna)

We were sorry to hear today that Rob Tunnacliffe, the man behind Tunna Resources and a member of the forum, died on the 2^nd of December 2003. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, he will be missed.

Research into making Math Web Content Accessible

LONG BEACH, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dec. 9, 2003–Design Science announced today it has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to research ways of making mathematical content accessible to people with vision disabilities. Section 508 of The Rehabilitation Act mandates that federal agencies make Web content accessible to those with visual disabilities, including blindness, low vision, dyslexia, and other learning disabilities. While assistive technologies exist today that make textual content accessible to such people, making the same technology work for mathematical content has been problematic. With this grant, Design Science hopes to make significant progress toward the goal of making math accessible.

Plans to Bring Math Web Content under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act

Thanks to Matthew Ogston of AccessibleNet.org for the link.

New Blog, New Article

There’s a new Accessibility blog on the scene, and a new article from WATS.ca:

Accountability in Accessibility Testing.

Thanks to Chris Philips for letting me know about his blog and to Michael for letting me know about the article.

UK Draft Disability Discrimination Bill: Initial Briefing by the Disability Rights Commission

The Government has published the draft Disability Discrimination Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The DRC is delighted to welcome the publication of the draft Bill which will offer long awaited rights for Britain�s 8.6 million disabled people.

Draft Disability Discrimination Bill

Thanks to Kajun for pointing this out, join the discussion.

Contributions

Well Ian is heading off on his travels today, which leaves me in charge of Accessify for the next 12 months. It also means that there is one less person digging around for the latest news, so now more than ever your contributions via email would be very much appreciated, and full credit given for any that I use.

If you have or have found some Web Accessibility news now or in future please mail it to me: nigel@miswebdesign.com.

Visionary Design Award - And the Winners Are…

Last night I attended the National Library for the Blind’s Visionary Design Awards. Unfortunately, I’m strapped for time right now and can’t give this event the full write-up that it deserves, but suffice to say that it was very well attended, the food was great, the conversation also great, and the wine wasn’t bad either. It was good to meet up with some people who I already knew quite/very well from email or forum conversations in the past (and I was able to put a face to names like Nigel Peck - whose face was about a foot higher than mine, very tall man - Matthew Ogston and Guy Carberry to name but a few). The strangest thing, though, was when people whose names were either not known to me, or only vaguely familiar, would come up to me and start a conversation with phrases like "So, how are your teeth now then?" or "You still here then, I thought you were heading off on your travels?". That’s what happens when you jabber on on your personal blog to all and sundry, eh?

Anyway, enough of all of that, what about the winners? Here is the complete list of shortlisted nominations and the winners (or at least, what I remember as being the winners - if I’ve got it wrong on any of the categories, let me know, as I wasn’t taking notes!)

• Youth and Education
  • WINNER - The friendly duck
  • Your money be wise
  • Trakkies
  • Coventry University
  • London School of Hygiene
  • Open University (exam + revision section)
• News and Information
  • Patient Talk
  • Accessible Net
  • WINNER - Citizens Advice Bureau
    
• Government
  • Hampshire fire service
  • The Pension Service
  • Scottish Road Safety
  • Arts and Humanities Research Board
  • WINNER - Rushcliffe Borough Council
    
• Commercial - Large Organisations
  • Waitrose Supermarket
  • WINNER - Manchester United Football Club
    
  • BT Age and Disability
  • Nationwide Building Society
• Commercial - Small/Medium Organisations
  • WINNER - The Bradshaws
    
  • Accessibility Group
  • Accessible Property
  • Screenreader Company
• Voluntary Sector
  • Abilitynet
  • Legal Action Group
  • Thomas Pocklington Trust
  • Webequality
  • WINNER - Birmingham Focus on blindness
    
  • Working Abilities in Glasgow Explored

Discuss the Visionary Design Awards over at the Forum

Update: BBC article covers the awards

GAWDS is Open for Business

The Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS for short) is now open for business. The guild is seeking as many enthusiastic, members as possible
during the ’soft launch’ (with the official launch date early in 2004).
Not sure what the guild is? Founder Jim Byrne describes it thus: “A
world wide organisation of web designers and developers committed to
helping each other, and promoting the message that accessible web
design is ‘good for business’.” Check out the launch statement for more
information about the guild (or discuss the future direction of the guild over at Accessifyforum)