Web Axe - Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips - Podcast and Blog

Speaking Special Characters - A Test

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:02:10 -0600

In the post Test case: Speaking Special Characters from Access Matters, the author explains that proper markup for special characters is very important for screen reader users.

There are two excellent pages provides for testing special characters, for the character types UTF-8 and ISO-8859. Feedback is very valuable, so if you are able to test and leave a comment, that would be much appreciated.

We are interested in knowing how theses things are announced by as many screen readers as you folks can use. Please listen to either or both of the following test cases. Take notes on what you hear, and respond to this posting with your results.

For more information on marking up code for ideal aural interpretation, go to the Web Axe Podcast #58: Aural Style Sheets.

Apple to Make iTunes Fully Accessible

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:12:26 -0600

So instead of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) having to sue the computer giant, Apple has agreed to make its dominant iTunes software accessible by next year. Here's a link to the press release from the NFB:

National Federation of the Blind and Commonwealth of Massachusetts Announce Agreement with Apple to Make iTunes Fully Accessible

Apple will make iTunes U (a dedicated area of the iTunes Store for content provided by colleges and universities) fully accessible by December 31, 2008, and will ensure the full accessibility of the iTunes software and the rest of the iTunes Store to blind people using both Mac and Windows operating systems by June 30, 2009.

Also, it seems that the iPod is not accessible. Only the newly released iPod Nano (generation 4) has accessibility features such as spoken menus and high contrast screens.

More:

iTunes U Accessibility Evaluation, Joe Humbert, Indiana University (PowerPoint presentation)
iPod Accessibility from Apple

Ajax and Web Accessibility Presentation

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:29:16 -0600

Here's the link to my presentation at the Accessing Higher Ground: Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference tomorrow in Boulder, Colorado. It's a Google Doc presentation.

Ajax and Web Accessibility Presentation

Addendum
Adding the PDF file: Ajax and Web Accessibility Presentation (PDF)

Podcast #67: WCAG2, events, CS4, John Slatin

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:14:01 -0600

Download Web Axe Episode 67 (WCAG2, events, CS4, John Slatin)

News & Events

Joe Clark wanted to be listed in Ross' typography blog post
Ross in the news (co-working style enviornment)
Refresh Detroit meeting November 19 will focus on web accessibility
Dennis to speak at Accessing Higher Ground: Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference; November 11-14, 2008; Boulder, Colorado

WCAG 2.0 nearing completion

WCAG 2.0 succeeds in test sites, moves to last stage
So near to the finish line by Accessify

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 was published as a W3C Proposed Recommendation on 3 November 2008. This means that the technical material of WCAG 2.0 is complete and it has been implemented in real sites. The next stage is the final publication, which is expected in December 2008.

Podcasts from Accessibility Conference last spring

put on by AbilityNet in UK
Download the podcasts, transcripts and summaries of Accessibility 2.0 presentations!

CS4 Accessibility

Adobe's Favorite CS4 Accessibility Features
Notably, Flash video playback controls are accessible by default.

John Slatin Fund Project

Matches accessibility experts with companies wanting a brief accessibility audit of their websites. In return for the audit, site owners will contribute a minimum of $500 to help fund the medical expenses incurred by John's family during his long illness."

Revisiting Screen Resolution

Should Web Developers Support 800×600?

WCAG 2 and Usability articles lack subheadings

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:09:43 -0500

Below are two articles on web accessibility. Unfortunately, both articles are lacking subheadings, which would make them much more scannable and usable, and therefore better accessible (see Understanding WCAG 2.0 Section Headings).

Organisation in the Spotlight - W3C: Global Standards Giant Gears Up For Battle

With the long-awaited appearance of version 2 of the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) now expected in December, the spotlight is set to fall once more on the workings of this key international standards body.

Accessibility in web design provides a high degree of usability

While the focus of this section is largely on design for blind users who access the web page via a screen-reader, if you make pages accessible in the ways suggested you will improve clarity for all users.

Deafness and the User Experience

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:35:27 -0500

In the article Deafness and the User Experience by Lisa Herrod, issues with Deaf web users are explored. And there are some excellent points for writing for web accessibility:

Use headings and subheadings.
Write in a journalistic style: make your point and then explain it.
Make one point per paragraph.
Use short line lengths: seven to ten words per line.
Use plain language whenever possible.
Use bulleted lists.
Write with an active voice.
Avoid unnecessary jargon and slang, which can increase the user’s cognitive load.
Include a glossary for specialized vocabulary, e.g., medical or legal terminology, and provide definitions in simpler language.

Fieldsets, Legends and Screen Readers

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:01:06 -0500

In the article Fieldsets, Legends and Screen Readers from The Paciello Group Blog, the author Roberto Castaldo provides some excellent insight into how the screen readers JAWS and Windows Eyes work with the Fieldset and Legend tags. (Fieldset and Legend tags are used to group elements within a form.)

He concludes that support in JAWS is better overall than Windows Eyes, and that even there are issues in both screen readers, developers must continue to implement these standards tags and other accessibility practices.

Some tips from the article include:

Fieldset and Legend tags must be used together, never independently of each other.
Keep the content of the Legend tag brief (the Legend may be read when each of the controls contained in a Fieldset receive focus.)
In Windows Eyes, the option to read the Legend tag is off by default.
Fieldsets may be nested.

Paul Boag wears reading glasses and gloves

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:11:49 -0500

In Boagworld podcast episode 130, I discovered that in order to help test web accessibility, Paul Boag wears glasses (that he doesn't need) and gloves and attempts to navigate through a site. Excellent idea!

In order to better understand [the elderly's] experience I have bought a pair to ski gloves and some reading glasses (I don't need reading glasses). Every now and again, I surf the site I am designing wearing both the glasses and gloves. The glasses make the screen hard to read while the gloves hamper my use of the mouse and the keyboard. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to select something from a drop down menu wearing ski gloves!

Podcast #66: Target, YouTube, Fangs, and more

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:14:29 -0500

Jammed-packed episode on several web accessibility topics with special co-host Jared Smith of WebAIM.

Download Web Axe Episode 66 (Target, YouTube, Fangs, and more)

NFB vs. Target Lawsuit

Participate in The Helen Project

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:24:55 -0500

You can now use a free toolbar application to rate web sites on web accessibility. The toolbar is part of The Helen™ Project, hosted by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). The project is in a public beta so AFB is asking for feedback. All internet users, especially people with disabilities, are welcome to use the toolbar.

From the AFB:

We offer you a free downloadable, fully accessible, web site rating toolbar application (which we affectionately named "Helen™") that will enable you to have your voice heard as you experience problems and/or success in using any web site. And, most importantly, Helen™ will enable the collective voice of the user community to be heard by web site providers...

If you are already a registered user of afb.org, you are ready to participate. Simply download the Helen Toolbar Application. Not a registered user? Register with afb.org and The Helen™ Project for free.

NFB vs. Target Lawsuit is Settled!

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:35:27 -0500

Big news! The NFB versus Target lawsuit is settled! As expected, there are good points and bad points to the settlement. You may read an excellent summary of the settlement by Jared Smith of WebAIM in the blog entry Target lawsuit settled. Some of the wins from the lawsuit are:

Target will pay NFB $90,000 for the certification and first year of monitoring and then $40,000 per year thereafter.
Target’s web developers will receive at least one day of accessibility training, to be provided by NFB at a cost of up to $15,000 per session.
Target will respond to accessibility complaints from web site users.
Target will pay damages of $6,000,000 to the class action claimants, or at most $7000 per claimant, and will pay $20,000 to the California Center for the Blind.

If you're really interested, you may read the actual NFB vs. Target Settlement from the Northern District of California. (I find it ironic that the HTML title of this page doesn't pass accessibility guidelines; it says "Untitled Document".)

Addendum:
Here's a press release from NFB from last year (October 7, 2007) with more background on the lawsuit:
Court Ruling Says California Disabled Rights Law Applies to the Web

Addendum:
More on this subject from Accessify, Bruce Lawson, and Access Matters:

Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:47:01 -0500

The 11th Annual Accessing Higher Ground conference, subtitled Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference, will be November 11- 14, 2008.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is hosting the event at the beautiful Millennium Harvest House hotel in Boulder, Colorado.

I may be speaking at this conference so I hope you can attend!

More about Accessing Higher Ground, in their words:

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.

Podcast #65: Top 10, SXSW, Nikita, and Joe

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:53:21 -0500

Dennis and Ross discuss a variety of topics including web accessibility news and events, a top 10 list, SXSW 2009, Nikita the Spider validator, and our friend Joe Dolson.

Download Web Axe Episode 65 (Top 10, SXSW, Nikita, and Joe)

Chatter

Dennis' Trip to MI
TimeTracker - accessible time-tracking web application
Inaccessible AT&T web site

News

Top Ten Tips?

Ten Top accessibility developer tips from Epic (UK)

SXSW Panels 2009

Vote for SXSW panels
March 13-17, 2009 in Austin, Texas
SXSW Interactive Festival
SXSW Panels about accessibility with Adobe

Nikita the Spider

Nikita the Spider
Validation statistics from Nikita the Spider (456 Berea St)
The most common validation error is neglecting to specify an alt attribute for img elements

Joe Dolson

50 Useful Tools for Evaluating Your Website

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:14:06 -0500

Some good web accessibility tools are listed in the post Is Your Site Hot or Not? 50 Useful Tools for Evaluating Your Website. Look under the heading "Accessibility & Usability". Other good tools are listed for SEO, stats, performance, and code validation.

Boagworld and Lauke on WCAG 2.0

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:35:54 -0500

In Boagword podcast #120 (June 4, 2008), Paul Boag speaks with Patrick Lauke on WCAG 2.0. It's a lengthy discussion that's definitely worth a listen.

Excellent web site re-launch from Web Axe listener!

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:17:42 -0600

Therese Nielsen, a veteran Web Axe podcast listener, has been a major contributor to the relaunch of the University of Michigan's Services for Students With Disabilities web site earlier this year. The following is a portion of a message she sent:

I just wanted to let you know that listening to Web Axe helped me out a great deal as I created the site!...It has received a lot of really positive feedback, and a visually disabled student who is reviewing UM sites for accessibility recently raved about how much she likes using the site, calling it 'wonderful'.

Thank you for the kind words Therese and congrats on the fine work!

Podcast #64: Language, Abbreviations, and Quotes

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:20:46 -0500

This podcast covers the markup for Language, Abbreviations, and Quotes; CSS is a whole other issue which may be covered in a future podcast.

Download Web Axe Episode 64 (Language, Abbreviations, and Quotes)

News

Update on the ADA (WebAIM)
Web Accessibility. Life In the Post-Guideline Age
Andrew Kirkpatrick's slides for presentation "Webmaniacs Talk on Flex Accessibility"
Easier YouTube from Chris Heilmann
Flash now can be indexed by Google, etc.

Announcements

Web accessibility consulting now offered by Dennis & Ross; contact them at webaxe [AT] gmail NOSPAM dot com
The next Refresh Detroit meetup is Wednesday, July 30.

Main Segment

General Guidelines

Language in HTML tag

<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-us" />

Code Examples: Blockquote

<blockquote>
<p>Dennis and Ross are highly recommended for web design!</p>
<cite>Jane Doe</cite>
</blockquote>

<blockquote cite="Jane Doe [or URL]">
<p>Dennis and Ross are highly recommended for web design!</p>
</blockquote>

Code Examples: Inline quotes

<p>A customer for web accessibility consulting said <q>Dennis and Ross are
highly recommended for web design!</q>, and that was pleasing to my ears.</p>

<q lang="en-us">Dennis and Ross are highly recommended for web design!</q>

As <cite>Jane Doe</cite> said, <q lang="en-us">Dennis and Ross are
highly recommended for web design!<q>

Code Examples: Abbreviations & Acronym

<acronym title="California" lang="en-us">CA</acronym>
<abbr title="California">Cali</abbr>

Also, the abbr attribute can be used in table headers:

<th scope="col" abbr="colors">colors selected currently</th>

CSS + Aural Style Sheets

acronym {speak : normal;}
abbr.initialism {speak : spell-out;}
abbr.truncation {speak : normal;}

Language Codes

List of language codes; the Representation of the Names of Languages. From ISO 639, revised 1989.

Post-Guideline Age for Web Accessibility?

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:34:22 -0500

Are we entering a Post-Guideline Age for web accessibility? It's an interesting new argument being made in the article Web Accessibility. Life In the Post-Guideline Age from the E-Access blog.

I believe there is a good case for this:

Too many different guidelines and laws.
Too many different technologies are being developed.
Just because a site passes web accessibility, doesn't necessarily mean it's usable (this is what the article focuses on).

Here's a good excerpt from the article:

I think of this as a pyramid. Web accessibility is the foundation. Usability by disabled people is the next layer. And both of these underpin the ultimate goal: excellent user experiences by disabled people (and everyone).

Web Accessibility Conference (Nov 11-14, Boulder, CO)

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:26:08 -0500

The University of Colorado-Boulder is hosting the 11th Annual Accessing Higher Ground Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference, November 11- 14, 2008.

The main topics include:

implementation and benefits of Assistive Technology in the university and college setting
legal and policy issues, including ADA and 508 compliance
campus media and information resources, including Web pages, accessible

The web site describes the event as:

Disability Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder presents Accessing Higher Ground: Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference for Education, for Businesses, for Web and Media Designers

Acrobat 9 and Accessibility

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:11:55 -0500

As you may know, Acrobat 9 has recently been released. Fortunately for all, making PDFs accessible is even easier than ever.

There's some good information on the Acrobat 9 accessibility FAQ page, and many accessibility features are explained. Here are the highlights:

Acrobat has an OCR text recognition feature that allows you to apply OCR to the scanned pages.
The form tools in Acrobat 9 Pro and Acrobat 9 Pro Extended allow you to automatically recognize form fields in PDF files and Microsoft Word documents.
Several tools can create tagged PDF files automatically, including: Microsoft Office applications when Acrobat is installed; the most recent versions of Adobe FrameMaker®, InDesign®, LiveCycle Designer ES, and PageMaker®; the Web Capture feature in Acrobat.

Podcast on creating accessible PDFs

[update June 6] Refresh Detroit's next meetup will feature a presentation on this topic. Acrobat: Features, accessibility, and version 9 - June 18, 2008

Five Most Common Accessibility Errors

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Sat, 24 May 2008 21:35:04 -0500

In the blog post Web Accessibility - The Power of Five, E-Access Bulletin Live reports on a web accessibility study completed by the Society of IT Management (Socitm). The study cites the five most common web accessibility errors, which reportedly make up 76% of all website accessibility failures.

no alternative text for images
inappropriate use of JavaScript
errors in simple data tables
errors in complex data tables
use of features with a lack of accessible alternatives

Writing for Accessibility Article

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:13:37 -0500

In his article Writing for Accessibility, Joe Dolson explains that accessible copy is more than making non-textual elements available, it's also about the main content! He continues to explain how tone and puncuation are very sensitive and important issues when writing for accessibility. Joe suggests:

Keep your sentences on the short side
Avoid excessive parenthetical statements
Avoid excessive subclauses
Read the sentence without giving any particular emphasis to the terms and see how easy it is to understand the statement

WCAG 2.0 published as Candidate Recommendation

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:36:17 -0500

Today the WCAG 2.0 has been advanced to Candidate Recommendation status. This is a big step in the long W3C guideline development process. What this means is that most people agree on the technical aspects of the much needed update to WCAG 1.0, and we can start using WCAG 2.0 as a guideline as it's "Ready to Test-Drive".

In the words of WCAG:

We are excited to announce that Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
(WCAG 2.0) was published as a W3C Candidate Recommendation on 30 April 2008. The Candidate Recommendation stage means that there is broad consensus on the technical content, and W3C invites you to implement WCAG 2.

Section 508 and Higher Education

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:19:12 -0600

In his article 508 and Higher Ed., Jon Whiting at WebAIM has blogged about his findings on college web sites meeting (or not meeting) Section 508 requirements. It's pretty sad how even college web sites, in the most part, do not meet even the most basic web accessibility requirements of Section 508. Jon states that "only three of the one-hundred pages complied with Section 508".

Podcast #63: Reviewing Accessible Ajax Recommendations

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:55:04 -0500

In Webcredible's article AJAX accessibility for websites, a list of recommendations is presented for creating accessible Ajax web pages. In this podcast, Dennis and Ross discuss the accessibility issues and benefits of Ajax, and the recommendations from Webcredible which are:

Inform users early in the page that dynamic updates will occur
Highlight the areas that have been updated
Don't change the focus
Offer the option to disable automatic updates
Ensure the site works if JavaScript isn't enabled

Download Web Axe Episode 63 (Reviewing Accessible Ajax Recommendations)

News & Events

Refresh Detroit meeting April 23 (demo night)
Accessible Online Learning
Accessible Data Visualization with Web Standards
Guide to semantic use of HTML elements / Why use semantic XHTML
Everything I know about accessibility I learned from Star Wars (MP3) (Derek Featherstone at SXSW)

Web Axe - Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips - Podcast and Blog

Speaking Special Characters - A Test

Apple to Make iTunes Fully Accessible

Ajax and Web Accessibility Presentation

Podcast #67: WCAG2, events, CS4, John Slatin

News & Events

WCAG 2.0 nearing completion

Podcasts from Accessibility Conference last spring

CS4 Accessibility

John Slatin Fund Project

Revisiting Screen Resolution

WCAG 2 and Usability articles lack subheadings

Deafness and the User Experience

Fieldsets, Legends and Screen Readers

Paul Boag wears reading glasses and gloves

Podcast #66: Target, YouTube, Fangs, and more

NFB vs. Target Lawsuit

Other Topics

Participate in The Helen Project

NFB vs. Target Lawsuit is Settled!

Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference

Podcast #65: Top 10, SXSW, Nikita, and Joe

Chatter

News

Top Ten Tips?

SXSW Panels 2009

Nikita the Spider

Joe Dolson

50 Useful Tools for Evaluating Your Website

Boagworld and Lauke on WCAG 2.0

Excellent web site re-launch from Web Axe listener!

Podcast #64: Language, Abbreviations, and Quotes

News

Announcements

Main Segment

General Guidelines

Language in HTML tag

Code Examples: Blockquote

Code Examples: Inline quotes

Code Examples: Abbreviations & Acronym

CSS + Aural Style Sheets

Language Codes

Other Links

Post-Guideline Age for Web Accessibility?

Web Accessibility Conference (Nov 11-14, Boulder, CO)

Acrobat 9 and Accessibility

Five Most Common Accessibility Errors

Writing for Accessibility Article

WCAG 2.0 published as Candidate Recommendation

Section 508 and Higher Education

Podcast #63: Reviewing Accessible Ajax Recommendations

News & Events