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roundup

Podcast #56: Web Axe 2-Year Anniversary!

So it’s been two years since I started Web Axe. After a year, Ross Johnson joined in as co-host for most shows, which I think helped keep the dialog going and definitely give some fresh input. We did some big interviews over the last year, and had a couple of great guests Joe Dolson and Mark McKay.

For a special feature, the following web experts were gracious enough to send me input on their thoughts about recent events and trends in the world of web accessibility:

  • Mark McKay
  • Joe Dolson
  • Roger Johansson
  • Patrick Lauke
  • Jared Smith
  • Ross Johnson

Download Web Axe Episode 56 (2-year anniversary)

Past Web Axe Interviews

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articles

How to Make Your Blog Accessible to Blind Readers

Here are some good web accessibility tips in an article from the American Foundation for the Blind, How to Make Your Blog Accessible to Blind Readers. Although the article aims at blog sites, the rules can be applied to any site.

The main points of the article are:

  • Choose an Accessible Service
  • Describe Your Images
  • Avoid the Dreaded “Click Here” or “More…”!
  • Put Your Blogroll on the Right-Hand Side
  • Check the Comment Form—Is It Labeled Properly?
  • Use Flexible Font Sizes
  • Don’t Force Links to Open in New Windows

PS:
The next podcast coming soon. Web Axe two-year special!

Categories
screenreader

JAWS Shortcut Keys/Commands

While doing a little testing in JAWS, I quickly remembered how inexperienced I am with the program. So I went to the Help section to look up some shortcut keys. All the information is there, and there’s a lot of it, but on many different pages.

So I put what I thought were the most significant key commands on one HTML page. It can print nicely on 2 paper pages. Hopefully you will find it useful!

JAWS Shortcut Keys/Commands

Categories
articles

Reworking A Large Site for Accessibility

Creating an accessible web site can be challenging. Retro-fitting a web site for accessibility is even tougher. Now try upgrading a humongous, corporate site full of new and old pages. Where to begin? Fortunately, Accessites.org has posted an article by Mel Pedley to help tackle this problem: 5 Steps To Reworking A Legacy Site

Categories
guidelines podcast wcag

Podcast #55: WCAG Samurai

The WCAG Samurai is an “independent group of developers convened in 2006” and headed up by Joe Clark, accessibility guru. In this podcast, Dennis and Ross discuss the WCAG Samurai’s errata to the W3C’s WCAG 1.0 web accessibility guidelines. This includes:

  • what it is and if we should use it
  • discussing the 12 main points
  • which WCAG 1.0 Priority 3 guidelines to ignore

Download Web Axe Episode 55 (WCAG Samurai)

The WCAG 1 + Samurai Guidelines

  1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content
  2. Don’t rely on colour alone
  3. Use markup and stylesheets and do so properly
  4. Clarify natural-language usage
  5. Create tables that transform gracefully
  6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully
  7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes
  8. –
  9. Design for device-independence
  10. Use interim solutions
  11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines
  12. Provide context and orientation information

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