WebAxe - Practical web accessibility tips

Ross interviews web guru Jeremy Keith; Dennis and Ross discuss news, articles, and Google Wave.Download Web Axe Episode 75 (Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave) Chatter 15 Podcasts That Will Make You Smarter via Nancy White Interviewing Martha Lane Fox about Digital Inclusion by Sandi Wassmer (@SandiWassmer) News and Links Obama administration unveils Recovery.gov makeover (We reviewed original Recovery.gov site in Podcast #69.) New WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey Accessibility Review: PetsContained.com by Joe Dolson How Many People is Your Website Alienating? (Ross' article) Accessibility Review of Google Wave Google Wave Preview Accessibility Review by Jared Smith. Jared tactfully explains how web accessibility of Google Wave fails miserably. For example: Alternative text is not provided for any images. Background images are used to convey content. Roles, states, and other accessibility properties are not defined. There is no document or heading structure or semantics. Form elements do not have labels or titles. Keyboard focus indication is hidden, making keyboard navigation nearly impossible. Keyboard focus is often trapped. The application becomes unusable and unreadable when text size is increased only slightly. Jeremy Keith Interview Co-host Ross Johnson speaks with Jeremy Keith, Adactio.com, a web standards guru, author, and speaker. Here are some great Jeremy Keith links: Jeremy's articles Bulletproof Ajax book DOMscripting book Jeremy on Twitter: @adactio Clearleft - Web Design Agency Silverback - Usability Testing Software Related Links This Week in HTML5 – Episode 36 #Accessibility Building Accessible Flex and Adobe AIR Applications | MAX 2009 Develop | Adobe TVCreate a CSS3 Button That Degrades Nicely (Ross' article) UPDATEThe podcast was originally cut off by a couple minutes at the end. It is now fixed. Full running time is about 1 hour and 12 minutes.

The Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) is presenting a new conference this late October: ATIA Chicago 2009 "Showcasing Excellence in Assistive Technology".There are over 200 sessions planned. The list of exhibitors includes:Freedom ScientificHumanWareAbleNetDolphin Computer Access The conference will be held at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, in Schaumburg (Chicago), Illinois, U.S.A.DatesOctober 28: Pre-Conference SeminarsOctober 29: Leadership WorkshopOctober 29-31: Main Conference

Accessibility Review: PetsContained.com by Joe Dolson.In the United Kingdom, join the campaign for Offcom to increase audio description on TV from 10% to 20%.Wanted: Flash and Dojo accessibility experts for contract work. Contact John Foliot at the email address: jfoliot AT stanford DOT edu.Update on The Paciello Group's ARIA role support: how the Windows browsers stack up.Rate Accessible Twitter on oneforty.com.Interviews:Podcast interview with Victor Tsaran of Yahoo! Victor is a Senior Accessibility Program Manager.Interview article with IBM's Bill Curtis-Davidson, co-chair of Georgia Alliance for Accessible Technologies.Event reminders:Accessibility Camp in Washington D.C. on October 10.Accessing Higher Ground 2009 near Denver, Colorado, November 10-14.

A super special podcast:First time face-to-face recording between Dennis and Ross.In Santa Cruz, California.4-Year Anniversary for Web Axe.Download Web Axe Episode 74 (Awards, Events & Back to Basics) ChatterAffordable niche advertising! Web Axe Nominated in 2009 .net Awards (twice!) Accessible Twitter winner of the the ACCESS-IT 2009 awards. Articles Are PDFs More Important Than Web Accessibility? Interview with Jamie Knight: autism and accessible web design HTML5 Canvas element and Accessibility Google Chrome Frame - accessibility black hole If a page is viewed through Google Chrome Frame in Internet Explorer no content is available to the user of assistive technology (AT). This can be illustrated using the Microsofts accexplorer tool. Events/Conferences Attended OpenWebCamp at Stanford Fall Web Accessibility Events Two Free Events in October An Event Apart, San Francisco 2009 Future of Web Design 2009 NYC Main Segment WCAG 2: Remember P.O.U.R.: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust Perceivable - Interface elements can not be invisible to users. Operable - Users must be able to interact with the interface. Understandable - Users must be able to understand with information and the interface (cognitive). Robust - Must be usable by a wide range of user agents and assisstive technologies. Use P.O.S.H.: Plain Ol' Semantic HTML Use headings and properly. P is for paragraph. blockquotes for quotes (not indentation). Use lists for lists, menus, etcetera. Definition Lists. Use strong and em tags versus b and i. Other topics: Alt text for non-textual elements. Tables Forms JavaScript Device-Independence Visual impairments Audio

Congratulations to Accessible Twitter which was honored with the ACCESS-IT@Web 2.0 2009 award! Here is the link to the acceptance presentation on SlideShare which was given by Meera Tank at the event in London:Accessible Twitter presentation for ACCESS-IT@Web 2.0Slideshare provides a text version towards the bottom of the page, but here's a better version in HTML.Cool tidbit: The presentation made the Featured Presentations & Documents section of the SlideShare home page the day after it was posted, and it made it (briefly) to the Hot on Twitter section!Addendum:Read about the award on Dennis' personal blog.New page for winners of the ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards

Here's the info on two free web accessibility events in Washington D.C. this October. Thanks to Jennison Asuncion.Interagency Disability Educational Awareness Showcase (IDEAS) - IDEAS 2009October 5-6 Marvin Center, George Washington University.For anyone who wants to learn more about and network with folks whoneed to meet Section 508 requirements.Accessibility Camp D.C.October 10 at the Martin Luther King Library.Day-long barcamp for folks who work or have an interest in IT accessibility.

Web Axe has been blogging and podcasting for over four years now! Since September 2005, Dennis Lembree has been contributing to the web accessibility community with blogs and podcasts about techniques, news, and events around development of accessible web sites. Dennis started Web Axe as a member of the Detroit Podcasters Network. Co-host Ross Johnson of 3.7 Designs joined the following year. Dennis and Ross are also the co-founders of Refresh Detroit. The site continues to grow in popularity, and the number of RSS subscribers has doubled over the last year. Thank you readers and listeners!PS:Coming soon, a great interview podcast!

Web Accessibility Day is Tuesday, September 22 in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. It's a a one-day event teaching how to create web accessible content including PDFs and graphics, and how to use evaluation tools.The keynote speaker is Shawn Lawton Henry, Outreach Coordinator for the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Exhibitors include: Oracle, Knowbility, Nuance Communications, and Browse Aloud.Web Accessibility Day is presented by The National Federation of the Blind and the Maryland Technology Assistance Program. Support for the Web Accessibility Training Day is provided by the State of Maryland Deparment of Information Technology.

ACCESS-IT 2009 is a two-day event on Accessibility and Assistive Technology to be held September 22 and 23 at Microsoft (UK), Victoria, London. The event includes two workshops and an awards ceremony. It is hosted by Microsoft and will be located at its Cardinal Place location in Central London. You may register for ACCESS-IT 2009 at any time.The ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards program honors accessible technologies from a project, product or service in the following four categories: Home, Work, Living, Web 2.0. About 100 nominations have been submitted from 24 countries; there are 19 finalists and 44 have received a good practice label.Accessible Twitter has been named a finalist! All finalists will be rewarded at the ACCESS-IT 2009 event ceremony September 23.

In WebAIM's article Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility, the most varied and complex area of accessibility is addressed. Cognitive accessibility is more prevalent than all physical and sensory disabilities combined, but seems to be dealt with the least, probably because it's most difficult to pinpoint as well as to solve. Much needed general principles and specific guidelines (referred to as a checklist in article) are provided in the article.Here are the principles listed for cognitive accessibility: SimpleConsistentClearMulti-modalError-tolerantAttention -focusingImproving web accessibility for this audience will improve access for everyoneThe guidelines are categorized under:Assistive Technology CompatibilityConsistencyTransformabilityMulti-modalityF ocus and StructureReadability and LanguageOrientation and Error Prevention/Recovery

Here's a list of some conferences and events this fall relating to web accessibility. Please feel free to add more in the comments.Techshare 2009Workshops, presentations and exhibitions from organisations and leading figures representing the digital technology disability sector.16-18 September 2009ExCeL conference and exhibition centreLondon, EnglandStandards.Next - Cognition and accessibilityNorthampton SquareLondon, England EC1V 0HBSaturday, September 19, 2009 (1-4 pm)EdUI 2009 ConferenceFor web professionals in higher education.September 21-22, 2009Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A. (at the University of Virginia)Accessibility 2.0The UK’s only Web 2.0 accessibility conference.22nd September 09London, EnglandHosted by AbilityNetAn Event Apart, Chicago Two Days Of Design, Code, and ContentOctober 12–13, 2009Sheraton TowersChicago, Illinois, U.S.A.12th Annual Accessing Higher GroundAccessible Media, Web and Technology ConferenceNovember 10- 14, 2009Westminster, Colorado, U.S.A (near Denver)Keynote Speaker: T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc.Hosted by the University of Colorado at BoulderNOTEI just have to add, I'm pretty disappointed in some of the code on these sites, especially with the (lack of) alternative text, the most basic checkpoints for web accessibility. In the Accessibility 2.0 site, the logo is missing alternative text! And on the Ed UI site, the date and location in the header is also missing alternative text; there is repeated content (under Get Updates); and my pet peeve, redundant title attributes (in menu). Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is pretty careless and poor example.Addendum 27 AugClosing the GapChanging lives with assistive technologyMinneapolis, MNOctober 15-17, 2009Preconference Workshops - October 13-14Web 2.0 Expo New YorkNovember 16-19, 2009 at Javits CenterNew York, NYRegister by October 8 and Save $350

Web Axe is nominated for Podcast of the Year in The 2009 .net Awards by .Net Magazine (@netmag).There are 17 categories, but you don't have to vote for all at one time. Categories include best web app, mobile site of the year, and standards champion.Voting closes 12th October 2009. The judges will then decide the winner from the top 3 in each category. Winners will be announced December 8th.The awards have an excellent group of judges including: Jeffrey Zeldman, Paul Boag, Andy Budd, Christian Heilmann, Jason Santa Maria, Jon Hicks, Ryan Carson and Jonathan Snook.Web Axe was also nominated last year (2008). Boagworld won the award.

Web Axe is now offering audio ad space in each podcast. Additionally, you get a link on the blog. Standard rate is $150 (U.S. Dollars) per podcast.Anyone interested may contact me by:Email to: web axe [at gmail] NOSPAM! dot com Direct message on Twitter (@webaxe)Leave a comment on this blog post.More DetailsValuable, unique niche market. Target this highly specialized audience! (accessibility advocates, web coding gurus, etc.)PayPal is preferred.Rate may vary depending on length and placement.$150 rate is for an audio ad under 20 seconds.

Dennis and Ross provide nearly an hour of news, knowledge, and fun!Download Web Axe Episode 73 (Bandwidth & Download Time)Michigan and Web Dudes, Lab, and Accessible Twitter Dennis' vacation including visit to Michigan Met creators of BongoTonesMet creator of Twilk Visit to Yahoo! Accessibility Lab Accessible Twitter updates. Future of Skype Web Accessibility News WebAIM - Colors and Links and WCAG 2.0 ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards Nominations will be submitted online only. Submission deadline of nominations: 25th August 2009. CVS Accessible Web Site and Point of Sale (nice sub-heading). Misunderstanding Markup: XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip by Jeremy Keith @adactio. Accessible drag and drop using WAI-ARIA on Dev.Opera by Gez Lemon . Don't Just Tick Boxes - Meeting the diverse needs of your site’s visitors is likely to mean a great deal more than ticking off individual accessibility checkpoints. AccessibilityWatch.com - fairly new accessibility blog (more than web). Main Segment The Issue & Statistics Web accessibility is about providing content for everyone; even if the user is unable to have access to a broadband internet connection.Economic issue; many people simply can't afford broadband. Mobile--light and fast web sites can be more easily viewed on you phone! Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 (study from 2003-2008 data) In the U.S. in March 2008, users connecting at 56Kbps or less now make up 11.18% of active Internet users.CWA Communications reported that the "median real-time download speed in the U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). The best available estimates show average download speeds in Japan of 63 mbps, in South Korea of 49 mbps and in France of 17 mbps. Chart shows that from January 1995 to January 2008, there was a tremendous growth of average page size and average number of objects. The average page file size went from 14.1k in 1995, to 93.7k in 2003, to over 312k in 2008. The average number of page objects went from 2.3k in 1995, to 25.7 in 2003, to nearly 50 in 2008.Related WCAG Guidelines WCAG 2.0 Principle 4: Robust Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. WCAG 1.0 Intro states:user may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection and users may have turned off support for images (e.g. due to a slow Internet connection) Greatly outdated web portion of Section 508 doesn't mention internet connection speed. What You Can Do Use progressive enhancement. Optimize images; use sprites. Write clean code. Use external CSS and JavaScript files. For CSS, use <link> not @import. Combine multiple CSS files into one. Same for JavaScript. Use media domains. Minify CSS and JS files. Setup your server to send pages and files compressed. PHP Speedy (Apache/Gzip) How gzip compression works Cache dynamic data and Ajax when appropriate. More from the Big Boys More at Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site from Yahoo! And now, Let's make the web faster from Google, with fun little videos.

Web Axe host Dennis Lembree will be speaking on "Twitter and Web Accessibility" at the 12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground conference in Colorado this mid-November. The conference is November 10 thru 14. The labs are scheduled for a Tuesday and Wednesday, then the main conference is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. (One day longer than last year!) Dennis is scheduled to speak on Thursday at 9:15am.The keynote speaker is T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc. Dolphin Computer Access, LTD will sponsor one of the conference computer labs. They will also present 2 hand-on sessions on alternate format conversion.The location of the conference is the Westin Hotel in Westminster, which is about 30 miles from the Denver International Airport (DEN). The hotel, or resort I should say, looks very nice!You may register here. The shortened URL is tinyurl.com/ahg2009. Hope to see you there!