Web Access Centre Blog

Podcasts are getting ever more popular on the web and for good reason. They’re a portable easy way for many of us to keep up with what’s going on whilst on the move as well as a welcome alternative to wasting trees by printing things off to read on the train. Listening to podcasts from South by Southwest 2007 (SXSW), Web Axe and Equal Access to Software and information have provided a welcome distraction for me whilst wedged in between disgruntled commuters on the way home (and also a lot easier than reading a paper). For many people it’s also their preferred format when sourcing information. When meeting with Hidden Differences last week, an organisation that represents people with cognitive and reading problems, they talked about how when canvassing a large organisation’s employees recently on their preferred format for internal communications around a third opted for audio. Interesting.

However for some of us listening to podcasts it is not an option. If you’re deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind, do not have a soundcard or speakers you’ll be locked out of content if it is only provided in audio format. Not only that so too will search engines. The guidance therefore, according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, is to provide a transcript of what’s being said.

Continue Reading »

We all know that when an abbreviation or initialisation is used, that it should be expanded at it’s first use. We know too, that there are two ways this can be achieved:

Unfortunately web authors often use both together. This is awful for screen reader users, if they have expansions enabled, they will get both the full plain text and the fully expanded acronym. Continue Reading »

In forms that have fairly long implicit labels, the BR element is the worst way to control where the text will wrap. Screen readers may only read the text that comes after the BR element, because of course, it’s perfectly legitimate to have a line of instruction, followed by the BR element, followed by the implicit lable.

For example, if a label were: “If you have more than 14 chickens,
how many do you own?” Many screen reader users will hear only “how many do you own?”

There are two simple ways to avoid this issue.

Here’s another series of articles, designed to uncover techniques or practices that create difficulties for a wide range of disabled people. These are all techniques we’ve found in use on the web, on professionally run sites.

Some of the hidden barriers are created by coding errors or ommissions, others are due to too little or (conversely) too much thought being given to the needs of screen reader users. Continue Reading »

Latest news from the Web Accessibility Initiative about progress of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0:

Here is Here is a brief update on WCAG 2.0 work to let you know how things are coming along since the May 2007 Working Draft release.

The WCAG Working Group received many constructive comments on the May 2007 WCAG 2.0 Working Draft. They separated the comments into about 450 issues, ranging from minor edits to technical issues. In the first two weeks of July, the Working Group had eight half-day worksessions where they addressed about 150 of those issues and started work on another 100. It will likely take 3 to 4 months to address all of the issues and prepare the next draft.

The Working Group will respond to each comment. Once the comments have been addressed, the Working Group plans to publish a second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft to provide for review of the completed edits before moving on to the next stages. The next stages are described in How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process.

Additional information and links are available in the WCAG 2 FAQ under:
- 17 May 2007 Working Drafts
- Update July 2007

Questions such as “What are the different WCAG 2.0 documents?”, “When will WCAG 2.0 be done?” and “How is WCAG 2.0 different from WCAG 1.0?” are also answered in the WCAG 2 FAQ

I’ve been hanging out in the virtual world Second Life a lot recently wrapping my head around all the amazing things you can do there. Something that’s really struck me however is how this could be a real opportunity for people who are restricted in some way in their day to day lives.

Working as a Web Accessibility Consultant this is hardly surprising but what really got me excited was thinking of the opportunities that it could give a friend of mine, Sam, who was paralysed in a car accident a couple of years ago. Imagine if he could hang out in Second Life, meet people, go to concerts, take courses, fly, earn his own money, even play football with his Dad.

To do all this though Second Life needs to be accessible which, from what I have seen so far, it isn’t fully so I am currently researching how Second Life fairs in terms of accessibility from the perspective of all users including people with mobility, visual, hearing and cognitive impairments. To do this though I need your help. Rather than just put on my auditors hat I’d like to also hear what your experiences are with Second Life including the good as well as the bad, what you find troublesome, what features you like most and if you use an access technology or change your browser settings.

If you’d like to share you thoughts then leave a comment here or send an email to accesssecondlife@gmail.com.

RNIB’s Web Access Team run training courses to help people understand issues behind and ways to achieve, accessible web sites. Our laptop based technical course is designed to highlight best practice, and things to avoid when implementing CSS, structure, forms and JavaScript. You’ll get the chance to find out, first hand, what it’s like to work with a screen reader, and how people get round the web without a mouse.

We have just two spare places on the course that will run next Thursday, 26th July, in Judd Street, London (close to Kings Cross). And at just £350 + VAT this course is a bargain.

To find out if it is a subject that would interest or help you in your work, find out more about Web Accessibility Training - Beyond the basics, together with details of how to book online.

All eyes and ears will be on the Beijing 2008 Olympics website next year when the games swing into action on September 6th. I for one am very excited and hoping to get over there to see the real thing but if not will have to make do with internet coverage for up to date results of what is going on. Given the experience of the 2000 Sydney Olympics website sued by Bruce Maguire for being inaccessible the Beijing Olympics website will be under more scrutiny than it may expect and the word in many accessibility circles is “Will it be accessible and will I be able to access it”?

But of course it’s not just a question of if you can access a site if you are disabled. Internationalisation (also known as i18n) and localisation (also known as l10n) must also be taken into account to ensure ease of access for people from different cultures speaking different languages. Mobile access will also play a key role with people wanting to check results while on the move. This is even more important considering mobile access to the web is higher in Asia than the West given that lack of hardware and Internet connections.

In Part One I’ll be looking at the accessibility of the current site, in Part Two I’ll be exploring ease of access for international audiences and in Part Three I’ll be looking at mobile access.

But first, how does the site currently fair in terms of accessibility? Continue Reading »

We are running our “Demystifying web accessibility” training course in London this Thursday, July 19th. There are the final few places available.

This course is designed to introduce website owners, commissioners, marketing or project managers and designers to the reasons for making websites accessible, including the principles and practices that make this possible.

Find out more about the course and book online

The latest news from the Web Accessibility Website is that as part of the Mitsue-Links “Meet the Professionals” video series, Shawn Henry of W3C WAI talks with Kazuhito Kidachi about shared responsibilities between web site developers, browsers, and assistive technologies; the importance of different types of authoring tools supporting accessibility; how WCAG 2.0 and WAI-ARIA address the more difficult aspects of Web accessibility; WAI’s outreach resources; and what led Shawn to accessibility years ago.

See video with English audio and Japanese subtitles, and text transcripts.