The W3C has announced the last call for feedback for WAI-ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications technical specification. The deadline for comments is March 24, 2009.
Related links:
Category: standards
Yes, it’s now official! At last. WCAG 2.0 has been officially published as a final Web Standard “W3C Recommendation” on December 11, 2008. For more, read the W3C blog announcement A New Era for Web Accessibility: WCAG 2.0 is Finalized.
Related Links:
- Press Release: W3C Web Standard Defines Accessibility for Next Generation Web
- Comments from Adobe: WCAG 2.0 is here at last!
- Comments from Joe Dolson: WCAG 2 Reaches Recommendation Status
- Comments from E-Access Blog
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
Categories
HTML 5 and Accessibility
HTML 5 is under development, and I thought I’d point out some proposed changes that directly affect accessibility, namely, the removal of certain attributes:
- accesskey attribute on a, area, button, input, label, legend and textarea
- longdesc attribute on img and iframe
- target attribute on link
- summary attribute on table
- headers, axis and abbr attributes on td and th
- scope attribute on td
Key Links
- A Preview of HTML 5 (ALA)
- HTML 5 differences from HTML 4 (W3C)
In his article/post Supporting Standards that Support Accessibility, Joe Dolson examines the (non) relationship between web standards and web accessibility. He makes the excellent point that following web standards is not the same as providing web accessibility, although generally standards are beneficial. Joe discusses examples of where standards can actually make a negative impact on the accessibility of a web page, and where rarely used code can be beneficial.