June 12, 2005
Disability Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder presents:
8th Annual Accessing Higher Ground Conference: Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference. November 8 - 11, 2005.
Accessing Higher Ground focuses on the implementation and benefits of Assistive Technology in the university and college setting for sensory, physical and learning disabilities. Other topics include legal and policy issues, including ADA and 508 compliance, and making campus media and information resources - including Web pages and library resources - accessible.
Also, this year the Conference offers a special business track featuring accessibility workshops for commercial media designers.
Mike Davies again, this time providing us with an excellent write-up (well, a near perfect transcription, or an act of prestidigitation) of Joe Clark’s @media2005 presentation Simple facts about accessibility.
An insightful piece by Mike Davies, aka Isofarro, examining the all too familiar conflict between web developers – calling for a clear adoption of web standards and modern techniques – and disability organisations – concerned with what works at this point in time, in the light of current assistive technologies.
Read Iso’s article The bullhorns and short-term thinking for his (very sensible) suggestion on a way forward.
June 3, 2005
More and more businesses and public organisations in the UK are realising that having an accessible website is a benefit, and a competitive edge. Its common sense to realise that given the option between a website that works and a website that doesn’t, the working website will be the one that has a better chance of making a sale.
With this perspective, its not all that surprising that the number of accessible website announcements is rising rapidly. Almost every week, another government agency announces a new site that is more accessible and more usable, meets both the W3C accessibility guidelines and the UK eGIF standard. League tables, from organisations like Nomensa, are creating a competitive atmosphere geared toward more accessible websites.
May 2005 was a good month for the public announcement of accessible websites. Lancaster and Stockport councils are the latest to publically acknowledge accessible websites, catching up to East Sussex’s recent ‘RNIB See It Right’ accreditation.
Travel agencies, and publishing companies are commissioning accessible websites from web design agencies - and trumpting the fact in online media circles. Even two legal firms in Scotland are wrangling over the right to call themselves the first UK law firm to have an accessible website.
Its not the threat of legal action that’s behind these positive steps. The Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 has been in force since 1999 - along with the threat of legal action. No public legal challenge has been mounted so far. The drivers behind this surge is perhaps the active encouragement of accessibility-focused organisations, particularly the DRC and the RNIB. I wouldn’t rule out the gold at the end of the rainbow - gaining access to a new £50 billion a year market.
Its a refreshing sight, and one that benefits all people using the web.
May 23, 2005
RNID, the largest charity representing the nine million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, is offering free deaf and disability awareness training to smaller organisations in response to recent research revealing that over three quarters of small to medium sized businesses are risking court action under the DDA.
Deaf and disability awareness training gives businesses an understanding of disability issues to ensure they do not inadvertently prejudice customers or disadvantage employees, potentially putting employers at risk of litigation.
[...] Thanks to a grant received from the Big Lottery Fund, RNID is offering the training for free to SMEs and not-for-profit organisations with fewer than 250 employees and an annual turnover of less than £11.2 million. Otherwise it starts from £400 (half day) or £550 (one-day) although discounts may apply for bulk booking.
For further information, please contact training services on 0207 296 8060 or training.services@rnid.org.uk, Textphone: 0207 296 8050.
Small businesses only have until November 2005 to apply for free training. See the full RNID press release.
As an interesting side note, I contacted the RNID to check if this training would also be free for interested individuals (not necessarily working for an SME, or officially attending on behalf of their organisation). Here’s the reply I received:
Yes the training would be open to you as an individual. The RNID has set up what we call Training Access Points in London, Manchester and Mold. This is where we have our Deaf and Disability Awareness Training delivered to up to 16 people from all different organisations.
May 19, 2005
The Skills for Access site was launched today:
The aim of the project is simple - to create an online resource providing informed, practical and pragmatic advice and information on multimedia, accessibility and learning. This is supported by a series of general articles by experts in the field and case studies documenting real life experiences in creating multimedia to enhance the accessibility of e-learning.
Congratulations to Sarah Stone and the rest of the SfA team, and particular thanks to David Sloan for giving me the opportunity to contribute with my simple case study on captioning Zeldman’s WE04 keynote with SMIL.
April 20, 2005
Apple published new details of VoiceOver, the built-in screenreader component of OS X 10.4 which will be released at the end of this month. The video demonstration is particularly impressive. (Via: Einfach für Alle).
April 14, 2005
Bruce Lawson tells a sobering story:
So I get a gig writing an accessibility report for a big organisation that completely relaunched its website last year. They wanted an external opinion, but were completely confident that everything’s fine, as they didn’t use any old supplier; they used the same big company that implemented all their payroll systems, their CRM suite etc. Big guys. Big company. Got to be pros, right?
Can you guess what happened? Of course, the site didn’t even meet WCAG priority one (”A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document”).
The DRC has commissioned the BSI to produce new guidance [which] will take the aim of informing website commissioners and developers of their obligations and of good practice in [the area of web accessibility]. This guidance takes the form of a Publicly Available Specification (PAS). [...] A PAS is not a full British Standard but is developed using the same rigorous processes. [...] PAS 78: Guide to good practice in designing accessible websites will remind web developers of the vital importance of web standards. [...] It is due to be published this Autumn.
See the full press release from the DRC: Making websites accessible - new guidance planned. Hat tip to Julie Howell from the RNIB.
