Author: Dennis

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articles guidelines

Post-Guideline Age for Web Accessibility?

Are we entering a Post-Guideline Age for web accessibility? It’s an interesting new argument being made in the article Web Accessibility. Life In the Post-Guideline Age from the E-Access blog.

I believe there is a good case for this:

  • Too many different guidelines and laws.
  • Too many different technologies are being developed.
  • Just because a site passes web accessibility, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s usable (this is what the article focuses on).

Here’s a good excerpt from the article:

I think of this as a pyramid. Web accessibility is the foundation. Usability by disabled people is the next layer. And both of these underpin the ultimate goal: excellent user experiences by disabled people (and everyone).

Categories
"assistive technology" conference law

Web Accessibility Conference (Nov 11-14, Boulder, CO)

The University of Colorado-Boulder is hosting the 11th Annual Accessing Higher Ground Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference, November 11- 14, 2008.

The main topics include:

  • implementation and benefits of Assistive Technology in the university and college setting
  • legal and policy issues, including ADA and 508 compliance
  • campus media and information resources, including Web pages, accessible

The web site describes the event as:

Disability Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder presents Accessing Higher Ground: Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference for Education, for Businesses, for Web and Media Designers

Categories
acrobat adobe

Acrobat 9 and Accessibility

As you may know, Acrobat 9 has recently been released. Fortunately for all, making PDFs accessible is even easier than ever.

There’s some good information on the Acrobat 9 accessibility FAQ page, and many accessibility features are explained. Here are the highlights:

  • Acrobat has an OCR text recognition feature that allows you to apply OCR to the scanned pages.
  • The form tools in Acrobat 9 Pro and Acrobat 9 Pro Extended allow you to automatically recognize form fields in PDF files and Microsoft Word documents.
  • Several tools can create tagged PDF files automatically, including: Microsoft Office applications when Acrobat is installed; the most recent versions of Adobe FrameMaker®, InDesign®, LiveCycle Designer ES, and PageMaker®; the Web Capture feature in Acrobat.

Podcast on creating accessible PDFs

[update June 6] Refresh Detroit’s next meetup will feature a presentation on this topic. Acrobat: Features, accessibility, and version 9 – June 18, 2008

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stats

Five Most Common Accessibility Errors

In the blog post Web Accessibility – The Power of Five, E-Access Bulletin Live reports on a web accessibility study completed by the Society of IT Management (Socitm). The study cites the five most common web accessibility errors, which reportedly make up 76% of all website accessibility failures.

  1. no alternative text for images
  2. inappropriate use of JavaScript
  3. errors in simple data tables
  4. errors in complex data tables
  5. use of features with a lack of accessible alternatives
Categories
articles cognitive screenreader

Writing for Accessibility Article

In his article Writing for Accessibility, Joe Dolson explains that accessible copy is more than making non-textual elements available, it’s also about the main content! He continues to explain how tone and puncuation are very sensitive and important issues when writing for accessibility. Joe suggests:

  • Keep your sentences on the short side
  • Avoid excessive parenthetical statements
  • Avoid excessive subclauses
  • Read the sentence without giving any particular emphasis to the terms and see how easy it is to understand the statement

Related links: