Web Access Centre Blog

The Web Accessibility Initiative have just published a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 presentation materials.

The presentation “slides” and extensive notes are designed for presenters to use for their own presentations and is also available for anyone who wants to learn about WCAG 2.0. Topics covered are:

• the benefits of WCAG 2.0
• shortcuts for using WCAG 2.0
• how it differs from WCAG 1.0
• related topics

The About WCAG 2.0 presentation is available in “Presentation format” (compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint, Open Office Impress, and some other presentation software) or “Web format” (HTML/CSS) the presentation, notes and instructions can be downloaded from the WAI site.

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.

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

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.

Another day, another Accessibility - Beyond the Basics training course done and dusted.

Yet again another great group of really positive web developers/authors determined to get to grips with the finer points of accessible web design.

Bim and I are really enjoying the chance to meet and talk to people and share what we know - both information and experience - and we think that this series of training courses will run and run.

Don’t just take our word for it though - here are some comments from our delegates:

Very good. I thought I’d read most of the articles and my knowledge about accessibility was about 60%. It was really about 20% but now is more like 60%. Well done. - Melissa Cupis, Director, Budget Web Sites Ltd.

Thorough. Gives a good list of points that are issues for web design today. Carlos Rey, Senior Manager, Datapharm Communications Ltd.

Very practical and hands-on. I learned a lot. Janet Deverell, Communications Officer, Neighbourhood Renewal.

I thought it was of a very high quality - a course aimed at developers who need more than just the basics is definitely needed. Dennis Odell, Senior Web Developer, AKQA.

If you think that sounds like the kind of thing you need, then you can book yourself a place, for a very reasonable sum, via our training course booking form. If you want more information about this or any of the other courses we’re running, look at the aptly named Web accessibility training courses page.

As regular readers of the Web Access Centre will know, we’ve been running open training courses in web accessibility since May this year. Now, I’m delighted to say, they’ve been such a huge success that we’ve scheduled dates for more courses to run right up until March next year.

We’ve learned a lot from the courses that have already run, and through the feedback from these, we’ve been able to make popular changes that are already being put into effect. The two courses currently available are:

• Demystifying web accessibility: a course for people who need to understand the big issues; why accessibility is vital and what happens when sites aren’t accessible. This is now running as a full day course in which, apart from learning all the good reasons for embracing web accessibility, delegates will see access technologies being used, even on their own web pages.
• Accessibility – beyond the basics: the more technical course for people who need to understand the detail of how it’s done, includes examples, so that delegates are equipped to rip out the bad practice and bolt in the best, on their return to work. The most popular part of this hands-on, computer-based learning experience, is where delegates actually get to use a screen reader. It’s so good to hear the pennies drop!

Other good news is, we have plans afoot to add a course, on testing sites for accessibility, to the training suite. More news on that soon !