Accessibility in the News
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Employers Seeking to Fill Posts Through Online Hiring Should Be Wary of Antibias Laws, Letter Says
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/12/2005121201t.htm
Colleges and other employers that advertise job openings online may be violating federal antidiscrimination laws, according to a letter issued recently by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and posted Friday on the Web site of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The letter does not deal with a particular case of alleged discrimination. Rather, it responds to what appears to be an inquiry about whether different practices in online recruitment may be discriminatory under one or more federal laws, including the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Contributed on Fri, 06 Jan 2006 23:32:24 GMT.
Feature: Improving Usability for Screen Reader Users
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2577.asp
Simply ensuring your website is accessible to screen reader users is unfortunately not enough to ensure these users can find what they're looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner. Even if your site is accessible to screen reader users, its usability could be so incredibly poor that they needn't have bothered coming to your site. Fortunately, there are a number of simple-to-implement guidelines that you can follow, which not only drastically improve usability for screen reader users, but for all web users:
Contributed on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 01:36:46 GMT.
Launch of new websites of Agenzija APPOGG and Agenzija SAPPORT
http://www.di-ve.com/dive/portal/portal.jhtml?id=211449&pid=1
The Foundation for Social Welfare Services launched the new websites of Agenzija APPOGG and Agenzija SAPPORT in the presence of Hon. Minister Dolores Cristina, Minister for the Family and Social Solidarity. The domain names are www.appogg.gov.mt and www.sapport.gov.mt . This is not the first website of Agenzija APPOGG -- the website launched is a modern version of the previous one, with more information and accessibility to all browsers and also more oriented towards potential service users. Although the website is completely new, the same domain name has been kept. On the other hand, the website launched of Agenzija SAPPORT is the first website of this agency. This site, like the one for APPOGG, contains a list and description of all the services within the respective agencies. They give details of what these services offer and how contact could be made with the agencies through the respective websites. Both websites offer updates, press releases, information on any upcoming events and web links to any other interesting sites. Other material, such as past reports, articles and newsletters, could also be downloaded from these sites.
Contributed on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 01:36:05 GMT.
One Billion Internet Users
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/internet_growth.html
From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox: The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs. In addition to e-commerce and international usability, it is also important to ensure that accessibility requirements are also taken into consideration.
Contributed on Wed, 21 Dec 2005 01:35:25 GMT.
A color selection tool for the readability of textual information on Web pages
http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2005/HPL-2005-216.pdf
One of the issues in Web page design is the selection of appropriate combinations of background and foreground colors to display textual information. Colors have to be selected in order to guarantee legibility for different devices, viewing conditions and, more important, for all the users, including those with deficient color vision. In this paper we present a tool to select background and foreground colors for the display of textual information. The tool is based on the Munsell Book of Colors; it allows the browsing of the atlas and indicates plausible colors based on a set of legibility rules, which have been defined experimentally. (PDF Format)
Contributed on Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:41:02 GMT.
"Reading-Glasses" Of The Future
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v6i45_thiru.html
Sooner or later, as my aging eyes begin to fail, I will need the help of spectacles or glasses to read books, newspapers and other documents in print as well as in electronic formats. As I pondered the inevitability of having to wear glasses to read, I wondered what it would be like to wear what I call "reading-glasses" instead of reading glasses. By "reading-glasses" I mean glasses made in the future that can read to people, as opposed to reading glasses that people use to help them read. The technology needed to create such reading-glasses is already here. All that remains is for someone to put the different existing technologies into one device to make my vision of reading-glasses a reality.
Contributed on Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:40:18 GMT.
Disney Takes One Compliant Step Forward, Two Invalid Steps Back
http://www.pingwales.co.uk/2005/12/09/Disney-Store-UK.html
Last month, Disney Store UK confounded the web development community when it switched from its web-standards compliant website to a site which fails to meet even the basic accessibility needs of people with disabilities. Launched in October last year, the accessible site was created by Conwy-based website developing company, Stuff and Nonsense, in collaboration with brand agency, Akiko, and internet technology and innovation company, Karova, which provided the e-commerce functionality. Andy Clarke, creative director of Stuff and Nonsense and founder of Karova, says that Disney's decision was an internal one but had nothing to do with the site's technical performance. He recalls that the standards-compliant website was very well received and its performance extremely good. The company, which aims to develop accessible e-commerce solutions, worked with a wide variety of accessibility specialists around the world on the project. Clarke comments: "The site that we created for Disney was one of the first major accessible and standard based e-commerce sites within the UK. It was the only site within the Disney Empire which complied with the W3C guidelines and used a valid XHTML code and CSS for the layout." He adds: "It was undoubtedly a real example in showing large corporations that accessible and standard-based e-commerce site could be delivered without compromising on brand, design or visual appeal." Like many, Andrea Kennedy, web accessibility officer at Shaw Trust, the pan-disability charity which also provides web accessibility audits, was puzzled by Disney's decision. She says: "I do find it strange that such a large organisation as Disney that has such a 'warm and caring' image would give accessibility a seemingly low priority."
Contributed on Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:38:36 GMT.
Deja Vu All Over Again
http://blog.carrolltech.org/archives/51
From the All About Access Blog: You know, we've been here before. You might be too young - or too new to computers - to appreciate this fact, but we have indeed been here before. Remember the nightmare that was Windows? If you're using assistive technology to read this, you're probably wondering what on earth I'm talking about. Nightmare. How could I possibly call Windows a nightmare given what it enables users who are blind to accomplish? Thanks to Windows - and, of course, the assistive technology available to access it - individuals who are blind have the ability to independently and easily access, manage, create, and share information. So how could I call Windows a nightmare? Let me give you some more perspective then: Do you remember when the world switched from DOS to Windows? If you were a blind computer user at that time, I'm sure you find those days hard to forget. Here we were, happily using a text-based operating system when along comes a graphical replacement that required you to point and click on objects you couldn't see with this thing called a "mouse." "This can't be good," we all thought. And you know, for a while it most certainly was anything BUT good. Your office converted to something you couldn't use, which meant that you either had to use the old technology (assuming it was compatible with your office's new software tools) or you had to get another job, which is often more easily said than done if you have a disability. Those were some pretty bleak days indeed. But those days have come and gone. Though it took some time, effort, and advocacy to get to where we are today, makers of assistive technology products created the tools we need to access Windows and Windows-based software, and Microsoft took - and continues to take - the steps needed to ensure smooth interoperability between their products and the AT tools we use to access them. It's still not a perfect world by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a pretty nice one all things being equal. It is with this in mind that I approach the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' decision to migrate to software that supports OpenDocument Format.
Contributed on Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:10:07 GMT.
The Trouble With Accesskeys
http://accessify.com/2005/11/trouble-with-accesskeys.php
From the Accessify Weblog: When I first heard about the accesskey attribute in HTML I thought "Wow! What a great idea" and started to apply them willy-nilly to projects I was undertaking at work. Some time later, I started to read other articles that described problems with using accesskeys, problems that I would not discover by myself unless I were using a Screen Reader (something I'd do infrequently during testing cycles of sites at work) or some other assistive device. What's the problem? Well, in a nutshell, the key that you as an author choose to activate a link/form element/whatever could very well conflict with keys that are already assigned elsewhere. I then came to the conclusion that this great idea is flawed (as did many others) and stopped using them altogether.
Contributed on Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:07:13 GMT.
WCAG 2.0 and ATAG 2.0 Working Drafts - call for review
http://accessify.com/2005/11/wcag-20-and-atag-20-working-drafts.php
From the Accessify Weblog: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has released Working Drafts of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 and HTML Techniques for WCAG 2.0 and a First Public Working Draft of Understanding WCAG 2.0. Following WCAG makes Web content more accessible to the vast majority of users, including people with disabilities and older users, using many different devices including a wide variety of assistive technology. The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has released a Working Draft of Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 incorporating Last Call comments. The guidelines are written to help developers create accessible authoring interfaces that produce accessible Web content. Resulting content can be read by a broader range of readers including those with disabilities.
Contributed on Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:06:24 GMT.
Awareness of other web accessibility guidelines - survey
http://accessify.com/2005/11/awareness-of-other-web-accessibility.php
From the Accessify Weblog: David Sloan, Project Lead for the Digital Media Access Group at the University of Dundee, is looking for your input: I'm conducting a short survey of awareness of alternatives to WCAG as part of some research we're doing here in Dundee. I'd be very grateful if you could take a moment to reply to me directly with your level of awareness of each of the 6 sets of guidelines listed below, each of which either partially or totally focuses on web accessibility issues.
Contributed on Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:05:08 GMT.
1-Day Ajax Training Course - With Accessibility in Mind
http://accessify.com/2005/11/1-day-ajax-training-course-with.php
From the Accessify Weblog: I've just heard from Andy that the Clear:left chaps are holding a 1-day training session in London for Ajax. Now, I know that they know their stuff, but I was compelled to ask "will it cover accessibility?". After all, a poorly thought out Ajax application is a potential recipe for disaster where web accessibility is concerned. Here's what Jeremy had to say in response: Pretty much the entire thing will be based on "Think before you do anything!" with multiple warnings about the dangers of excluding people/devices that don't support JavaScript/Ajax ... It seems that most of the Ajax tutorials/workshops out there are based around using frameworks to accomplish cool techniques. This one will be different. It'll be about writing code for yourself and constantly asking if it degrades gracefully.
Contributed on Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:03:56 GMT.
Legal advice from automated testing tools?
http://accessify.com/2005/12/legal-advice-from-automated-testing.php
From the Accessify Weblog: As has already been noted on previous occasions, automated accessibility testing tools can be useful ... but only if their results are not merely taken at face value, but backed up by human testing and plain common sense. All too often these tools simply follow accessibility guidelines by the letter, adding their own arbitrary (and often secret) heuristics to test what can't be tested programmatically, and give a report containing false positives or false negatives (see for instance Isofarro's excellent article on SiteMorse). In this light, I find the accessibility check carried out as part of SilkTide's sitescore quite amusing.
Contributed on Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:03:06 GMT.
This is Accessible
http://juicystudio.com/article/this-is-accessible.php
From Juicy Studio: WCAG 2.0 has a concept of a baseline to cater for the fact that the web is continually evolving, and has to remain technology agnostic to remain useful. I don't have a problem with the concept of a baseline; I think it's a good idea. I will write more about the baseline concept at a later date. The following is a conformance claim, along with the script and markup referenced by the conformance claim. Would you consider this accessible?
Contributed on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:38:36 GMT.
WCAG 2.0 Baseline Concept
http://juicystudio.com/article/wcag-baseline-concept.php
From Juicy Studio: In order to encourage vendors of non-W3C technologies to include accessibility features in their technologies, and in recognition of emerging technologies that are beneficial for the Web, WCAG 2.0 is technology neutral. Rather than list each technology that the guidelines cover, WCAG 2.0 introduces the concept of a baseline. This post attempts to explain what is meant by this baseline concept.
Contributed on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:37:54 GMT.
WCAG 2.0 23 November 2005 Working Draft
http://juicystudio.com/article/wcag-20-20051123-working-draft.php
From Juicy Studio: The new public draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 has just been published, along with two supporting documents; Understanding WCAG 2.0, and HTML techniques for WCAG 2.0.
Contributed on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:37:20 GMT.
Firefox 1.5 Accessible Widgets
http://juicystudio.com/article/firefox-accessible-widgets.php
From Juicy Studio: Firefox 1.5 supports dynamic web content accessibility to help the advancement of Rich Internet Web Applications. To help illustrate how this, I've developed a simple keyboard accessible colour selection widget. The widget only works with Firefox 1.5 with scripting enabled, as the purpose is to demonstrate the accessibility features of Firefox 1.5.
Contributed on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:36:46 GMT.
Accessibility is Optimization
http://www.accessibilityblog.com/2005/11/16/accessibility-is-optimization/
From Matt Bailey 's Accessibility Outlook Blog: Andy Hagans published an excellent article recently, "High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization." I would highly recommend that anyone wanting to optimize their site read this article first to get a sense of how important search engine optimization can be for accessibility, and how important accessibility is to search engine optimization. My take on this: Is I'll always say, search engine optimization (SEO) is more than just rankings. Those SEO's that claim that as the goal need to grow and understand that simply gaining rankings does not create a successful web presence. True SEO understands that the user is the most important factor in the web site planning, and accessibility is one method of ensuring that you are taking care of all users, regardless of access level or device.
Contributed on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:33:00 GMT.
Non-Usable Accessibility
http://www.accessibilityblog.com/2005/11/21/non-usable-accessibility/
From Matt Bailey 's Accessibility Outlook Blog: Jacob Neilson's latest Alertbox article, "Accessibility is Not Enough," details his criticisms of marketing accessibility. Just because a program or a web page strictly adheres to a 508 "scorecard" or meets all of the accessibility guidelines does not imply that it will be understood or easy to use. Simply meeting accessibility criteria is not sufficient for building a successful web site or application.
Contributed on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:31:59 GMT.
W3C Formally Dislikes the CAPTCHA
http://www.accessibilityblog.com/2005/11/29/w3c-formally-dislikes-the-captcha/
From Matt Bailey 's Accessibility Outlook Blog: The W3c has created a formal document on the inaccessibility of CAPTCHA (Turing Test) as a security device on sites as a means of keeping automated bots from registering as users. The main criticism of CAPTCHA has been the inability of blind, dyslexic or other vision-impaired users to use pass the test of identifying characters in a low-contrast or difficult-to-read bitmap. Search engines and blogs are primary culprits in this area, as many people would like to use services offered by search engines, such as instant messaging, and blogs use the CAPTCHA to prevent automated comments.
Contributed on Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:30:54 GMT.
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