Web Access Centre Blog

Second Life has drawn a lot of attention from accessibility circles this year and has been a hot topic of conversation across the blogsphere. While there are technical barriers of access for some groups of disabled people such as people with sight problems there are some huge benefits for others.

This video shows Judith, who has cerebral palsy, being interviewed about her Second Life experience by Roger Hudson and Russ who runs the Web Standards Group mailing list. Judith uses a head wand and keyboard to use a computer and spends a lot of time at Wheelies in SL, a club set up by Simon Walsh who also has cerebral palsy. In Simon’s own words, “Wheelies aims to make guests feel comfortable about disability as well as dancing and just plain having a good time”. I’ve spent a lot of time there myself hanging out with Simon listening to the resident DJ Cataplexia Numbers and other great acts who play live. You can even borrow a wheelchair from a line up just outside the front door.

View the Wheeling in Second Life video on YouTube and read the transcript on UI Access.

Thank you to Roger, Russ, Judith and Simon for this!

Microsoft, Adobe, HP, Novell, Oracle and others have, in conjunction with assistive technology companies such as GW Micro, Dolphin, AI Squared and HiSoftware have formed the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA).

From the press release:

A coalition of leading information and assistive technology companies today announced the formation of the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA), an engineering working group dedicated to enabling developers to more easily create accessible software, hardware and Web products. Those solutions will reduce barriers to information and communication technologies that currently exist for people with disabilities in today’s increasingly digital world.

AIA members will collaborate on specific engineering projects intended to increase interoperability between existing technologies, and will design new technologies or solutions to resolve many of the long-standing challenges associated with developing accessible products. The group’s results are expected to yield improved developer guidelines, tools and technologies; lower development costs; and increase accessibility innovation throughout the industry.

The founding members of the AIA have selected four projects to begin their work:

• Consistent keyboard access. Developing a set of keyboard shortcuts to provide consistent behavior to users of assistive technology products in any Web browser
• Interoperability of accessibility APIs. Modifying and/or extending existing accessibility models (Microsoft UI Automation, IAccessible2 and others) to improve the interoperability and exchange of information between IT and assistive technology (AT) products
• UI Automation extensions. Adding features and capabilities to support additional rich document scenarios, address new Web scenarios and more.
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (ARIA) mapping through UI Automation. Designing the mapping of rich Web accessibility information through UI Automation to ensure maximum value for AT products and, therefore, for people with disabilities

“Today, developers must work across divergent platforms, application environments and hardware models to create accessible technology for customers with disabilities,” said Rob Sinclair, director of the Accessibility Business Unit at Microsoft. “The AIA is an opportunity for the entire industry to come together to reduce the cost and complexity of accessibility, increase customer satisfaction, foster inclusive innovation, and reinforce a sustainable ecosystem of accessible technology products.”

This looks like a really positive step forward, and we look forward to seeing the results of this work.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has been hard at work over the last few months to review comments submitted in response to thier previous Last Call. Below are the details of the next Last Call, how you can provide feedback and information about other documents that have also been updated:

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group invites you to review the second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft published on 11 December 2007. WCAG 2.0 explains how to make Web sites, applications, and other content accessible to people with disabilities. Please submit any comments on the second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft by 1 February 2008.

This second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft is provided for public review of the document now that it has all resolutions from previous comments incorporated. The WCAG Working Group hopes that it has resolved all substantive issues with this draft, and looks forward to progressing to the next stages in completing WCAG 2.0. The next stages are described in How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process.

The different WCAG 2.0 documents that the WCAG Working Group updated are introduced in Overview of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Documents.

A key tool for reviewing and working with WCAG 2.0 documents is WCAG 2.0 Quick Reference.

For a summary of issues, revisions, and rationales on WCAG 2.0 Working Drafts - such as coverage of cognitive disabilities and testability - see Issues and Changes to WCAG 2.0.

Note that the navigation between the documents is changed in these drafts. Now each topic in “Understanding WCAG 2.0″ and “Techniques for WCAG 2.0″ is in a separate small Web page.

When you review the updated documents, if there are any significant additional issues that you feel could present a barrier to adoption and implementation of WCAG 2.0, please submit comments by Friday 1 February 2008. Please use the comment form or the email address provided in Instructions for Commenting on WCAG 2.0 Documents.

Comments in support of progressing WCAG 2.0 to the next stages are also welcome.

WCAG 2.0 is part of a series of accessibility guidelines/standards developed by WAI, which are listed in WAI Guidelines and Techniques.