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Tools, wizards, articles and tutorials on Web Accessibility for the conscientious web developer

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Archive for July, 2007

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

Boagworld - Ask The Expert - Screen Reader Screencast

It’s taken me a while to get around to posting this here, but only because I wanted to make sure that I had everything in place. If you are already a subscriber to the Boagworld podcast, you’ll probably already have heard this, but a couple of shows ago they included a 14-minute audio clip of me using a screen reader demonstrating some common problems. But it wasn’t just audio, there was also a video to go with it (the audio was simply lifted off the screencast).

I didn’t post anything here just yet as I was missing one essential ingredient – a transcript. Finally I’ve got around to typing that out, so if you’re interested, here are all the links you’ll need:

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

A Glimmer of Hope with AJAX for JAWS users?

I may be reading too much into this, and admittedly the source is one who’s quoting rumours, so it’s hardly a basis of a solid claim, but it still piqued my interest:

Rumors are starting to form about the upcoming JAWS 9.0 release. So far, Blind Confidential has only heard that it will do “revolutionary things on the Internet" … FS [Freedom Scientific] had included language about support for AJAX in JAWS in some of its 8.0.xxxx release notes but this was later removed so, perhaps, they have found a way to provide really cool access to some of the new dynamic web pages in a manner that would be meaningful to a screen reader user.

Like I said, only a snippet, taken from an after word of a post on Blind Confidential about how screen readers perform on Vista, but it’s the first time I’ve read something halfway encouraging on that front.

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

Audio and notes for Joe Clark’s @media2007 session When web accessibility is not your problem

The audio from Joe Clark’s thought provoking session, delivered at @media2007 Europe, is now available — When web accessibility is not your problem (MP3, 28MB). Make sure to also grab his extensive notes for the session over on his site.

Everyone at this conference will have a working knowledge of Web accessibility. At this point, it would be hard to surprise you with the facts. But that’s just what this session sets out to do. We’ll explore the question of what the Web designer or developer definitely does not have to worry about in making sites accessible - and what the designer or developer should not have to worry about in an ideal world. Get ready for an entertainingly scathing indictment of browsers, screen readers, and so-called authoring tools. In a working environment where we always seem to be given one more thing to worry about, this session will give you a whole set of things to stop worrying about.

Controversial? Perhaps, but Joe’s thoughts certainly resonate with my own view on who’s responsible for web accessibility … it’s not good enough simply to dump all responsibility to web designers/developers. The onus has to also be on user agents, and end users themselves.

As an aside: skip forward to 43:48 of the audio file to listen to Joe calling me up on stage…

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

Adobe Flash captioning free online seminar, 10 July 2007

Andrew Kirkpatrick will be delivering a free online seminar on Flash captioning on Tuesday, 10 July 2007, 11:00 PDT (19:00 GMT).

Adding captions to video in Flash is essential to ensure that users who are deaf or hard of hearing can access Flash video content. Adobe Flash CS3 includes a new component to make captioning easy and effective, and a variety of captioning tools are available to help developers define a process that fits into their existing workflow. This session will share best practices for Flash 9 swfs, Flex applications, and older Flash 8 swfs and will show you how to get captions in your video step by step.

Sign up for the event over at the Adobe website.

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Real World Accessibility – Presentations in London

Real World AccessibilityFollowing a very successful event in Birmingham a little while back (despite Bruce’s vivid imagination), the people behind Public Sector Forums have recalled the same team to put on another show in London . That team includes Bruce Lawson, Ann McMeekin, Patrick Lauke, Grant Broome, Dan Champion and myself. We’ll be speaking at the Barbican on the 8th of August and would love to see you there.

Don’t be mistaken by the ‘Public Sector’ part of Public Sector Forums – this time around the organisers are opening the event up to anyone – you don’t need to be working in some dingy council office to apply for this one, anyone’s welcome!

I will be doing a general show and tell, finishing up the day’s events with plenty of real world examples of people getting things wrong-diddly-wrong, including many web sites you know and possibly love.

Interested? Find out more on the PSF site and you can book your place here (and please mention Accessify in the booking form when asked how you heard about it - thanks!).

Site Navigation

Outside reading

Jeremy Keith does an excellent write-up of the Accessibility 2.0 conference (which I was unable to attend)
Sharepoint and Web Accessibility
Bruce Lawson describes the disparity between Sharepoint/MOSS developed web sites and the level of accessiblity that the tool offers to users (summary - it really is not good!)
How does a screen reader user really hear your web site?
Interesting post on Beast Blog about how a screen reader user - a real one! Not one of those fake web developer tester types! - uses the tool to read a web page. A few surprises were waiting in store for author Mike Cherim.
Web Accessibility Toolbar now available in simplified Chinese
The Web Accessibility Tools Consortium (WAT-C) release a simplified Chinese version of the Web Accessibility Toolbar.
Web 2.0 vs Web Accessibility
1-day seminar in London, 25th April, brings together experts in the field to discuss/demonstrate the accessibility issues faced by web 2.0.
Leading accessibility technologists form new alliance to fix problems
The Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA), comprising (among others) Adobe, HP, Microsoft, Novell, and from the assistive tech industry Dolphin, GW Micro and HiSoftware forms to work together "to create and harmonize standards for accessible techn
Fieldsets, legends and screen readers
An excellent run-down of how fieldsets and legends can improve accessibility and how the various screen readers cope with this useful markup.
CAPTCHAs explained - WacBlog
Another really good post on the RNIB\'s Web Access Centre blog explaining captchas, why they\'re bad for accessibility and what the alternatives may be.
Making WCAG easier to read
Derek Featherstone has created some fancy style sheets to make reading WCAG documents a little easier on the eye.
Top Tips for the title attribute
Ann McMeekin provides a set of simple tips regarding when - or rather when not to - use the title attribute. \'Cos sometimes you can try *too much* to be helpful
California court tilts towards mandating web accessibility
Outlaw.com reports (on behalf of The Register) on the Target California class action lawsuit, digging a little deeper into what Target have been doing of late to address matters.
Screen Readers and display:none
Juicy Studio, aka Gez Lemon, investigate some quirks whereby screen readers announce content that they should not be. Perhaps this could be used for good rather than evil?
Google Developer Podcast: The status of accessibility on the Web
An interview with Google research scientist TV Rahman (and Hubbell, his seeing-eye dog!). Lots of talk about CAPTCHAs and accessibility, but no sign of a transcript for this interview as yet.
Transcript of Shawn Henry's talk from Jun 5th 2007 in London on RNIB's Web Access Centre Blog
Virtual worlds open up to blind
"Online virtual worlds could soon be accessible to blind people thanks to research by students at IBM in Ireland" states BBC News

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