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"assistive technology" conference event

Web Accessibility Conferences in 2010

Here are some web accessibility conferences this year, 2010. Details for some of the annual events are not announced yet. Please comment with any changes, additions, and comments.

This post is periodically updated throughout 2010.

ATIA 2010 Orlando
January 28 – 30, 2010
Caribe Royale All-Suites Resort & Convention Center
Orlando, FL

California Web Accessibility Conference (CalWAC) (Knowbility)
February 8 – 10, 2010, Santa Clara, CA

Techshare India 2010
15th – 16th February 2010
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India

International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference
March 22-27, 2010
San Diego, CA
Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel

Power Up 2010 Conference and Expo
April 26 and 27, 2010
Holiday Inn Select, Columbia, Missouri
presented by Missouri Assistive Technology

W4A 2010
7th International Cross Disciplinary Conference in Web Accessibility
April 26-27, 2010
Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Hosted by North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Techshare Mobile 2010
Presented by Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB)
Birmingham, UK
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The John Slatin Access U (from Knowbility)
Monday, May 10th and Tuesday, May 11th , 2010
St. Edward’s University, Austin, Texas

Penn State Web 2010 Conference
June 7 and 8, 2010
Penn State Conference Center
Keynote by Jeffrey Zeldman

Aiming for Accessibility: Meeting Standards, Making Change
University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada)
June 8 and 9, 2010
Keynote Speaker: Christine Karcza of I can do This

ACCESS-IT Seminar (hosted by AbilityNet)

ICCHP
12th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs
July 14-16, 2010, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Pre-Conference July 12-13, 2010

AHEAD: Association on Higher Education And Disability
July 12-17, 2010
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.

Annual Assistive Technology Conference (from Easter Seals Crossroads)
July 29 & 30
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.
*Web Axe host Dennis Lembree is speaking!

Illinois Web Accessibility Conference and Expo (Jon Gunderson)
September 29, 2010
Keynote Speaker: Victor Tsaran
Registration is closed; reached capacity

Accessibility Camp DC
October 9, 2010; 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM
MLK Library
Washington, DC, U.S.A.

HighEdWeb (Higher Education Web Professionals)
October 10-13, 2010
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.

Assets 2010
The 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
October 25-27, 2010
Orlando, Florida

Accessing Higher Ground
Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference
November 15-19, 2010
Westminster, Colorado, U.S.A.

An Event Apart

  • Seattle, April 5-7
  • Boston, May 24-25
  • Minneapolis, July 26-27
  • Washington, D.C., September 16-17

4th European eAccessibility Forum (Paris)

Featured vendor:
Mangoco.com: web design company in Virginia
Categories
google podcast presentations review twitter webaim

2009 in Review

Wow, what a year! Too many topics to mention, but highlights include the growing usage of ARIA, Google’s good and bad, another screen reader survey by WebAIM, and the launch of Accessible Twitter! Below is a brief summary of this year’s happenings on Web Axe and elsewhere; please comment on anything I’ve missed, which I’m sure is a lot. Cheers to a great 2010!

Also, I want to say how proud I am to be a part of the wonderful web accessibility community which has grown larger and more intimate through conferences and “Web 2.0” tools, especially Twitter. -Dennis

Web Axe Podcast Highlights

Web Axe Blog Highlights

From WebAIM

More Google

E-Books

Great Tips

Awareness & Victor

Victor Tsaran of Yahoo is now a “web celeb” after numerous articles appeared about him and Yahoo’s accessibility lab. Great web accessibility awareness! Here are a few of the articles:

Categories
articles disability testing w3c

Involving Users Early in Web Projects

The W3C article Involving Users in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility gives excellent guidelines for developing accessibility in a web project. The article states:

Involving people with disabilities from the beginning of a project helps you better understand accessibility issues and implement more effective accessibility solutions.

In my experience, this couldn’t be more true. Nothing is much worse than having to retro-fit an existing web site or web application for web accessibility, or having to explain what assistive technology is to the author of the specifications document. You must plan from the start, and implement at the end (an old Hijax saying). When the different teams on a project understand accessibility, including the developers, it certainly makes the project run much more smoothly and efficiently.

The article discusses the following items in detail:

  • How Involving Users Early Helps
  • How to Involve Users throughout Your Project
  • Getting a Range of Users
  • Working with Users
  • Combine User Involvement with Standards

These techniques can be applied to more than web sites; also assistive technologies, media players, authoring tools, policies, and technical specifications.

For more, here’s the W3C blog discussing this article: Discover new ways of thinking about accessibility.

Categories
aria conference google screenreader webaim

Roundup 2: Accessibility Links on Twitter

There’s so many great web accessibility links in the Twittersphere that I felt compelled to do another roundup of resources.

Categories
conference podcast review wordpress

Podcast #76: Web Accessibility Disasters

Dennis and Ross review web sites which should be great in web accessibility, but fail badly. The hosts provide a lot of constructive criticism, including many fixes that can be done in a minimal amount of time. Issues are also good to discuss as a reminder for our own work.

Download Web Axe Episode 76 (Web Accessibility Disasters)

[transcript of podcast 76]

Transcription provided by Katherine Lynch, a Drupal, WordPress, and accessibility professional.

Chatter

Articles

Web Site Disasters

Digitalaccessibiliy

Company targeting Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

The Good
  • Almost all of the text is marked up in HTML rather than image, flash or other media.
  • Simple, clean design.
The Bad
  • No ALT text on main banner.
  • Font size tool (triple whammy).
  • Underlines not links; links not underlined.
  • Headings not marked up appropriately.
  • Menu missing
    • List not a list (see Compliance page).
    • Inline / intrusive JavaScript.
    Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

    A service provided by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). JAN’s mission is to facilitate the employment and retention of workers with disabilities by providing employers, employment providers, people with disabilities, and family members with information on job accommodations, entrepreneurship, and related subjects.

    The Good
    • Textual navigation; no Javascript based navigation.
    • Has proper ALT text on pictures and JAN and ODEP logos.
    The Bad
    • No heading tags; some marked up with bold tag.
    • There is a summary on layout table (double whammy).
    • No skip nav or skip to link provided.
    • Inline javascript. Example:
    • Non-breaking spacing used for layout.
    The Rose Project

    Mission is to provide maternal and child healthcare to the economically poor people of Malawi, with particular reference to HIV treatment and care.

    One of nine listed for Most Accessible Website in the Irish Web Awards?

    The Good
    • XHTML; semantic, clean mark-up
    • Using headings
    • Language is defined (xml:lang=”en”)
    • SWFobject.js for unobtrusive flash embedding
    The Bad
    • When JavaScript is unavailable, Flash replacement image has broken links and placeholder text.
    • Skip links – Skip link doesn’t work?
    • ‘Find out about ways to give’ button.
    • logo missing alt text for tag line.
    • H1 headings should be H2 (such as Featured Project).
    • Some links that should be underlined, are not.
    • Use of tags not recommended.
    • Links lack the default focus effect and outline removed!
      DO NOT do this:
    :focus {
    outline-color:-moz-use-text-color;
    outline-style:none;
    outline-width:0;
    }