Web Access Centre Blog

The RNIB Web Access Team will be host to Shawn Henry, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), and author of Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design who will be presenting on “What’s New, WCAG 2.0, and Current Issues”.

In this session Shawn will highlight recent developments in accessibility guidelines for Web sites, Web applications, evaluation tools, authoring tools, and browsers. Learn how these impact your Web projects now and how they provide flexibility for the future.

Shawn will answer your questions about Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG), User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG), and the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA). She’ll talk about how WAI develops accessibility guidelines through the W3C process, upcoming milestones for 2.0 versions, and how you can contribute to W3C’s work.

She’ll also touch on the relationship between accessibility and usability, the role of accessibility standards, and designing positive user experiences for people with disabilities.

Date:Tuesday June 5th
Time: 6.45 so we can start at 7pm
Venue: Department of Electronics, Communications and Software Engineering, Westminster University, New Cavendish Street campus
Getting there: The campus is a short walk from Goodge Street tube - map of the venue

The event is free but places limited so don’t miss out and sign up online.

If you have any questions ahead of time then email us at wac@rnib.org.uk

A big thank you to Stuart Colville and the University of Westminster for helping out and hosting the event.

Victor Tsaran, Accessibility Program Manager over at Yahoo! is filmed here explaining what screen readers are and how people interact with them. As he carries out tasks such as navigating his desktop and browsing the web he describes what he is doing and how e uses the keyboard to navigate. This is a great video and introduction to screen readers.

View Victor’s screen reader demo

Much has been said about the WCAG 2.0 Guidelines and the large amount of information bundled with it, with many people asking, “where do I start?”. When the draft WCAG 2.0 Guidelines were published for comment last year by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) this seemed to be a big talking point and one that got me thinking: what is the best way to be working with WCAG 2.0 and where do you start?

Now that a new a call for review has been announced for the updated WCAG 2.0 Working Draft I thought what better time than now to share a few thoughts on the second version of the guidelines.

Continue Reading »

A new version of the Colour Contrast Analyzer has been released and is now available for download.

This version implements the updated contrast algorithm and provides results based on Guideline 1.4 of the May 2007 working draft of WCAG 2.0.

Please note: there was an issue with some text labels and the results for color deficits, this has now been resolved, please take the time to download another copy of the software if you have downloaded it in the first hour of its release, 13.30 GMT.

Latest news from the Web Accessibility Initiative

Dear All, for your interest:

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG) invites
you to comment on an updated draft of the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0), published on 17 May 2007. WCAG 2.0 addresses
accessibility of Web content for people with disabilities.

The updated WCAG 2.0 Public Working Draft incorporates changes in response
to comments received on the 27 April 2006 WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft.
Because there were a number of substantive changes, WCAG 2.0 has returned
to Public Working Draft status. We expect to advance WCAG 2.0 to a second
Last Call Working Draft after this Public Working Draft.

W3C/WAI encourages you to review this document and submit comments on any
issues which you feel could present a barrier to adoption and
implementation of WCAG 2.0. The Working Group seeks feedback on the
following points for this draft:

- Are the guidelines and success criteria clear? If not, can you
suggest clearer wording?

- Are there any success criteria that you feel are not
implementable or testable? If so, how could they be improved?

- Are there any success criteria that you feel would not improve
accessibility as written, or that might hinder it? If so, how could they
be improved?

Comments on this Working Draft are due by 29 June 2007. The Working Group
requests that comments be made using the online or downloadable comment
form available at http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/comments/

If this is not possible, comments can also be sent to
public-comments-wcag20@w3.org. The archives for this list are publicly
available. (Please note that if you submitted comments during the 2006 Last
Call Working Draft review period, you will be receiving an email with a
response to your individual comments.)

The following document provides an overview of all the WCAG 2.0 documents:
Overview of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Documents

The primary document for review is: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

A key tool for reviewing and working with WCAG 2.0 has also been updated: WCAG 2.0 Quick Reference

These supporting documents have been updated as well:
Understanding WCAG 2.0
Techniques for WCAG 2.0

A summary of changes to WCAG 2.0

Information on how WAI is developing WCAG 2.0 is available: How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process

Additional information about the WCAG Working Group is also available.

Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you in advance for your
comments.

Loretta Guarino Reid, Co-chair of WCAG WG, and Computer Scientist, Google Inc.
Gregg Vanderheiden, Co-chair of WCAG WG, and Director of Trace R&D Center,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Michael Cooper, W3C Team Contact for WCAG WG
Judy Brewer, Director, Web Accessibility Initiative, W3C

Time to vent some steam about the TITLE attribute. This, almost more than any other item in the web author’s toolbox, seems to be misunderstood and overused.

The TITLE is an essential attribute for some elements, such as ACRONYM or ABBR, and is a required attribute for FRAME elements where it provides contextual information that wouldn’t otherwise be obvious to screen reader users.

Unfortunately though, it can be applied to almost any HTML element. Most often we see it on links and images, where it can confuse or even mask essential information. It can create issues on other elements, but for this article we’ll concentrate on the damage it can do to clear link text and images with good ALT attributes. Often creating classic examples of too much accessibility.
Continue Reading »

Having had a year off RNIB’s annual Techshare conference returns this year and is bigger and better than before.

Techshare highlights the role of technology in the everyday life of people with disabilities looking at not just the web but also software, mobiles, standards, compliance and much more. Techshare offers not only workshops and presentations but also an opportunity to meet with other professionals in your field from all over the world as well as browse the exhibition space.

In previous years we have had keynote speakers from the Web Accessibility Initiative, Adobe, Microsoft and Apple as well as presenters from American Foundation for the Blind, British Computer Association of the Blind, AbilityNet, Dolphin, BrailleNet and the IBM Accessibility Centre.

Want to get involved? The call for papers and submissions for workshops is currently open alternatively you may want to showcase your company or organisation and become an exhibitor.

Venue: Novotel London West in London, UK
Date: 4-5 October with pre-conference workshops held 3 October

For more information contact the Techshare team at techshare@rnib.org.uk

The Web Standards Group is hosting an evening looking at the hot topic of the moment JavaScript and screen readers. Christian Heilmann, well known for his articles and books on accessible JavaScript will be presenting on “Of Bloat and Generic Code” while Steve Faulkner from The Paciello Group and Director of the Web Accessibility Tools Consortium, will be looking at how screen readers present content to the user and how this raises issues in relation to the use AJAX and other methods of updating content.

Not to be missed!

Venue: Westminster University
Time: 19.00 - 21.00
Date: 16th May, 2007

Here we go again, we’ve organised another series of dates for our ever-popular training courses, Demystifying accessibility and Accessibility, beyond the basics.

Apart from offering a bunch of new dates to choose from, we also offer a “bulk” training service for clients who have several people that they want trained at the same time. We can arrange an exclusive training day to deliver either of the courses, or we can bring the Demystifying accessibility course to your door.

Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force member Jared Smith interviewed Judy Brewer on WCAG 2.0 status and upcoming drafts. They talked about upcoming responses to WCAG 2.0 comments; progress on baseline, coverage of cognitive issues, and understandability of WCAG 2.0; and additional opportunities to comment on WCAG 2.0 working drafts.

Read the interview with Judy on WaSP,