Author: Dennis

Categories
administrative podcast

4-Year Anniversary

Web Axe has been blogging and podcasting for over four years now! Since September 2005, Dennis Lembree has been contributing to the web accessibility community with blogs and podcasts about techniques, news, and events around development of accessible web sites. Dennis started Web Axe as a member of the Detroit Podcasters Network. Co-host Ross Johnson of 3.7 Designs joined the following year. Dennis and Ross are also the co-founders of Refresh Detroit. The site continues to grow in popularity, and the number of RSS subscribers has doubled over the last year. Thank you readers and listeners!

PS:
Coming soon, a great interview podcast!

Categories
nfb w3c

Web Accessibility Day

Web Accessibility Day is Tuesday, September 22 in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. It’s a a one-day event teaching how to create web accessible content including PDFs and graphics, and how to use evaluation tools.

The keynote speaker is Shawn Lawton Henry, Outreach Coordinator for the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Exhibitors include: Oracle, Knowbility, Nuance Communications, and Browse Aloud.

Web Accessibility Day is presented by The National Federation of the Blind and the Maryland Technology Assistance Program. Support for the Web Accessibility Training Day is provided by the State of Maryland Deparment of Information Technology.

Categories
awards conference event

ACCESS-IT Workshops and Awards

ACCESS-IT 2009 is a two-day event on Accessibility and Assistive Technology to be held September 22 and 23 at Microsoft (UK), Victoria, London. The event includes two workshops and an awards ceremony. It is hosted by Microsoft and will be located at its Cardinal Place location in Central London. You may register for ACCESS-IT 2009 at any time.

The ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards program honors accessible technologies from a project, product or service in the following four categories: Home, Work, Living, Web 2.0. About 100 nominations have been submitted from 24 countries; there are 19 finalists and 44 have received a good practice label.

Accessible Twitter has been named a finalist! All finalists will be rewarded at the ACCESS-IT 2009 event ceremony September 23.

Categories
cognitive webaim

Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility

In WebAIM’s article Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility, the most varied and complex area of accessibility is addressed. Cognitive accessibility is more prevalent than all physical and sensory disabilities combined, but seems to be dealt with the least, probably because it’s most difficult to pinpoint as well as to solve. Much needed general principles and specific guidelines (referred to as a checklist in article) are provided in the article.

Here are the principles listed for cognitive accessibility:

  • Simple
  • Consistent
  • Clear
  • Multi-modal
  • Error-tolerant
  • Attention-focusing
  • Improving web accessibility for this audience will improve access for everyone

The guidelines are categorized under:

  • Assistive Technology Compatibility
  • Consistency
  • Transformability
  • Multi-modality
  • Focus and Structure
  • Readability and Language
  • Orientation and Error Prevention/Recovery
Categories
"assistive technology" alt conference event

Fall Web Accessibility Events

Here’s a list of some conferences and events this fall relating to web accessibility. Please feel free to add more in the comments.

Techshare 2009

Workshops, presentations and exhibitions from organisations and leading figures representing the digital technology disability sector.
16-18 September 2009
ExCeL conference and exhibition centre
London, England

Standards.Next – Cognition and accessibility

Northampton Square
London, England EC1V 0HB
Saturday, September 19, 2009 (1-4 pm)

EdUI 2009 Conference

For web professionals in higher education.
September 21-22, 2009
Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A. (at the University of Virginia)

Accessibility 2.0

The UK’s only Web 2.0 accessibility conference.
22nd September 09
London, England
Hosted by AbilityNet

An Event Apart, Chicago

Two Days Of Design, Code, and Content
October 12–13, 2009
Sheraton Towers
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground

Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference
November 10- 14, 2009
Westminster, Colorado, U.S.A (near Denver)
Keynote Speaker: T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc.
Hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder

NOTE

I just have to add, I’m pretty disappointed in some of the code on these sites, especially with the (lack of) alternative text, the most basic checkpoints for web accessibility. In the Accessibility 2.0 site, the logo is missing alternative text! And on the Ed UI site, the date and location in the header is also missing alternative text; there is repeated content (under Get Updates); and my pet peeve, redundant title attributes (in menu). Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is pretty careless and poor example.

Addendum 27 Aug

Closing the Gap

Changing lives with assistive technology
Minneapolis, MN
October 15-17, 2009
Preconference Workshops – October 13-14

Web 2.0 Expo New York

November 16-19, 2009 at Javits Center
New York, NY
Register by October 8 and Save $350