Web Access Centre Blog

September saw a lot of web conferences being held, some of which were attended by members of the Web Access Team.

Firstly we had dConstruct 2008, held in Brighton. The title of this year’s event was “Designing The Social Web”.

The day consisted of the following talks:

• Steven Johnson – The Urban Web
• Aleks Krotoski – Playing the Web: how gaming makes the internet (and the world) a better place
• Joshua Porter – Leveraging Cognitive Bias in Social Design
• Daniel Burka – Designing for Interaction
• Tantek Çelik - Social Network Portability
• Matt Biddulph and Matt Jones – Designing for the Coral Reef
• Jeremy Keith – The System of the World

All in all it was a good day with all the talks being informative, interesting and inspiring me to think about the implications the social web has for accessibility in a wider sense.

I won’t be doing a full run down of the day here – that’s already been done elsewhere on other blogs. If you couldn’t make the day, Alastair Campbell from Nomensa has dConstruct 2008 notes which cover the day well on his personal blog. The podcasts of the talks are also starting to appear on the dConstruct website so make sure to check those out as they get released.

Talking of podcasts, a big thank you should go to Opera Software who sponsored the production of transcripts for the podcasts. These should also be available soon from the dConstruct website. It’s good to see a company sponsoring events such as this through providing something genuinely useful for a lot of people that couldn’t make the day rather than freebies for the attendees.

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If you haven’t heard already, Christian Heilmann from Yahoo! is organising a free accessibility conference / hack day in London this Friday and Saturday (19th and 20th September). Although both days are free, you need to register your details and get a ticket to attend. The hack day on Saturday is now fully booked but you can still grab a ticket for the fact finding conference day on Friday if you’re quick!

The following is taken from the Scripting Enabled site:

The aim of the conference is to break down the barriers between disabled users and the social web as much as giving ethical hackers real world issues to solve. We talked about improving the accessibility of the web for a long time - let’s not wait, let’s make it happen.

You can find out more details about the event by visiting the Scripting Enabled site. The schedule for the day is also available. There has been a last minute change with Jonathan Hassell from the BBC stepping in to talk about dyslexia in place of Phil Teare who unfortunately can no longer make the event.

Check out this page to get your ticket. Hope to see you down there on Friday!

AbilityNet’s conference Accessibility 2.0 was a resounding success in more ways than one. While is sparked controversy within the microformats and accessibility debate it was also the start of much creativity in making social networking sites more accessible.

So much happened during the day it’s difficult to know where to start but thanks to AbilityNet you can catch up yourselves on events by via the podcasts and transcripts.

Keep an eye out for Scripting Enabled, a conference to be held September 19th and 20th, that aims to break down the barriers between disabled users and the social web.

See you there I hope!

If you haven’t already booked to attend the first Accessibility 2.0 Conference, now would be a good time to do so. The conference, organised by AbilityNet will be held this Friday, 25th April, at City University, London.

The conference will focus on web accessibility in the Web 2.0 world. So if you’re involved in the development of social networking portals, sites using Ajax or rich in user generated content, it really should be in your diary.

AbilityNet have brought together an impressive line-up of experts on a wide range of issues that keep raising their heads whenever the words Accessibility and Web 2.0 crop up in the same sentence. The conference promises practical solutions to the Web 2.0 accessibility problems, showing cutting edge techniques and offering realistic solutions.

The Accessibility 2.0 web site, has full information on the schedule and how to book online. See you there!

Today I attended a presentation at CSUN on Creating Blogs, Podcasts and Use of Social Media Tools with Screen Readers presented by Mika Pyyhkala from the Association of Blind Citizens.

The focus of the session was to walk blind and partially sighted users through how to blog using Wordpress, use Twitter, Facebook and what poscasting tools there were out there. It was a really well thought out presentation which was written up in a Wordpress blog together with tools, resources and links. This was made all the better as everyone was sat at a laptop or PC all of which had a screen reader running.

Twitter was the area Mika seemed most excited about and talked the most in depth about. In fact his enthusiasm was such that when he asked how many people in the room used Twitter only two said yes. By the end of the session people were signing up and following his feed.

Most social networking sites have a way to go to make them truly accessible to all users with disabilities but it is great to see people taking advantage of these tools as far as they canm and Mika’s resources are a great place to start if you want to get into it. I’m a true believer in signing up to Facebook, Twitter and blogging in order to spread the word about web accessibility as well as keep up to date with what is going on.

Join us on Facebook and Twitter and follow news soundbites as well as updates on what we are up to.

At the start of February I presented at Techshare in Delhi, India’s first ever conference for technology for people with disabilities. It was an eye opening event with people gathered from both government, industry and non-profit from all over India and the world.

It was fascinating to learn about what is happening in India with regards to web accessibility and talk to different people, learn what the drivers are and what needs to be done to promote accessibility. As an invited guest blogger on the UN Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT) I pulled these thoughts into an article. This, I hope, will be the first of a series of articles looking at web accessibility in various locales. Next will be China as I’ll be speaking about the cross over between web and mobile accessibility at the WWW 2008 Conference and gathering information there in April.

Read Putting accessibility to information centre stage in India

it seems to be a day of conference announcements today. Accessibility 2.0: a million flowers bloom
25th of April 2008 will be held by AbilityNet 25th April.

The event will look at practical solutions to the Web 2.0 accessibility problems, showing cutting edge techniques. Jeremy Keith, author of Bulletproof AJAX and technical lead at Clearleft, will be the keynote speaker talking us through through Open Data. Other speakers include Christian Heilmann from Yahoo talking about the implementation of accessibility and Steve Faulkner, author of the AIS toolbar, talking about screen readers and AJAX.

We’ll also be speaking together with many more so hope to see you there.

I spotted Using Virtual Worlds and Emerging Technologies for People with Disabilities on Upcoming this Friday, 29th of February. The free event will be held online with live discussion in Second Life at 9am PST (slurl) as well as a follow-up discussion for the rest of the day, 10AM PST- 6PM PST, in TechSoup’s Accessible Technology & Public Computing forum.

Simon Stevens (aka Simon Walsh in Second Life) will be speaking about his work in Second Life. Simon, who has cerebral palsy manages the Wheelies nightclub for people with disabilities in Second Life and the Second Ability Second Life simulator.

Topics that will be covered during the rest of the day in the TechSoup forum include:

• Innovative ways that emerging technologies are making technology more accessible for people with disabilities
• Ways people with disabilities use technologies to expand their communities?
• How can we work to make accessibility a design priority in the virtual world as well as the real world?
• What are some free resources to help people with disabilities find accessible technology tools?
• How can nonprofit organizations help make technology more accessible for people with disabilities?

Hope to see some of you there.

At the end of the week I’ll be on the road speaking and attending a number of conferences taking me through to March.

First up is the first ever Techshare India in New Delhi. Techshare is all about technology and accessibility (web, mobile, software, audio, Daisy…) and I’m really looking forward to learning more about what is going on in India specifically and Asia in general. I’ll be giving a workshop on “Transitioning from WCAG 1.0 to 2.0″ as well as presenting with Brian Hardy from Vision Australia on “Government Web Accessibility Policies”.

After a little bit of time chilling in Goa (yay) and a quick pit stop in the office, I’ll be heading off to SXSW Interactive in Austin Texas. This will be my first year there and I’m looking forward to hearing the great and the good talking about all things web. Most of all I’m looking forward to hearing from Tim Guest, author of Second Lives. I’ll be co-chairing a Core Conversation on “Global Design: Web Sites for the World” with Glenda Sims who is lead of the Web Standard Project International Liaison Working Group which I also contribute to.

Straight after that I’m off to CSUN in LA which is the largest conference about technology for people with disabilities. This is always quite the event and a great opportunity to catch up with the latest technologies as well as familiar faces. I’ll be taking some time out after that to drive up the coast and spend some time skiing before heading up to San Francisco.

So if you are going to be out and about drop me a line, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of meet ups in the evenings to make the most of!

We’ve been talking to our friends in India and as a result Techshare is going East! Breaking the Barriers is the first ever accessibility conference-cum-exhibition bringing the entire ecosystem; the government, the
corporates, the NGOs, the disabled, the product companies, and the education providers under one roof.

Techshare India 2008 will be held on 4th and 5th February, 2008 at New Delhi, India. Continue Reading »