In his article 508 and Higher Ed., Jon Whiting at WebAIM has blogged about his findings on college web sites meeting (or not meeting) Section 508 requirements. It’s pretty sad how even college web sites, in the most part, do not meet even the most basic web accessibility requirements of Section 508. Jon states that “only three of the one-hundred pages complied with Section 508”.
In Webcredible’s article AJAX accessibility for websites, a list of recommendations is presented for creating accessible Ajax web pages. In this podcast, Dennis and Ross discuss the accessibility issues and benefits of Ajax, and the recommendations from Webcredible which are:
- Inform users early in the page that dynamic updates will occur
- Highlight the areas that have been updated
- Don’t change the focus
- Offer the option to disable automatic updates
- Ensure the site works if JavaScript isn’t enabled
Download Web Axe Episode 63 (Reviewing Accessible Ajax Recommendations)
News & Events
- Refresh Detroit meeting April 23 (demo night)
- Accessible Online Learning
- Accessible Data Visualization with Web Standards
- Guide to semantic use of HTML elements / Why use semantic XHTML
- Everything I know about accessibility I learned from Star Wars (MP3) (Derek Featherstone at SXSW)
As you may know, captioning is required for accessible audio/video presentations. The Open & Closed Project (from Joe Clark) explains the downfalls of captioning on the new web site Captioning Sucks! Reasons cited are as follows (and you’ll have to go to the site to fully understand!):
- Not enough of it
- They don’t listen
- It’s hard to read
- The wrong kind
- The fox is watching the hen house
- There are no standards
Cognitive disabilities are the least recognized in the world of web accessibility (as opposed to visual, auditory, and motor). The goal of WebAIM’s Steppingstones Project is to “help web developers consider issues of cognitive disability in their designs”. To assist in this process, WebAIM is inviting people to complete its Cognitive Disability and Web Accessibility Survey. It takes about 10 minutes.
Dennis and Ross discuss a variety of recent web accessibility news and events.
Download Web Axe Episode 62 (Web Accessibility News)
HTML 5 and Accessibility post — comment from Laura Carlson of Web Standards Group with great info and links.
WAVE toolbar and blog available
Reference Card for Accessible PDF Creation from Word from the Adobe Accessibility blog by Andrew Kirkpatrick (Download Reference Card)
For Review: UAAG 2.0 First Public Working Draft
Joe Clark has released the (final?) update to the WCAG Samurai’s errata. Also see The WCAG Samurai Errata are now available.
Moving WCAG 2.0 to the next stage (W3C March 2008 Update)
Radio New Zealand Interview of Shawn Henry, February 2008
Are Lists Becoming the New Tables?
IE8 announces change in “version targeting”:
- Surprise of the year: IE8 will use Standards mode by default
- Microsoft Backflips on Browser Version Targeting
CSS Globe, 11 Good Accessibility Tips
SXSW panels of note:
- Accessible Rich Media (Sharron Rush)
- Targeting Your Web Site: Accessibility Litigation Update (Mike Wasylik)
- Catching up with Accessibility: The Basics Quickly (Shawn Henry)
- Dell’s Blog about SXSW Accessibility topics
The Digital Bus – a blog about digital marketing