Web AxeIn my article Business Reasons for Web Accessibility (posted under Web Axe’s sponsor company, CheckEngine USA) I provide several reasons why an accessible web site is good for business (namely, the bottom line—finances). Points for web accessibility benefiting business include:
Dennis and Ross explain aural style sheets, a nifty part of CSS2.
Download Web Axe Episode 58 (Aural Style Sheets)
A way of controlling speech synthesis and auditory icons with CSS2, usually through a screen reader.
H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 {
voice-family: paul;
stress: 20;
richness: 90;
cue-before: url("ping.au")
}Supported by: Emacspeak, Fonix SpeakThis, and the Opera Browser
digits: a string of numbers is spoken as a whole number (123 = one hundred twenty-three)
continuous: numbers in a string are read successively (123 = one two three)
Web Axe host Dennis Lembree has published an article describing an accessible method of coding email addresses on web pages which blocks spammers, the Email Spambot Buster. Sample code is provided. The technique implements progressive enhancement and unobtrusive JavaScript. JavaScript-enabled browsers display a “normal” email link and other browsers display the email using “email munging”.
In the post Section 508 to be updated on WebAIM, Jared Smith announces that Section 508 (of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973) is going through the process of being updated. There are also some excellent comments on this post.
The portion of Section 508 dealing with web sites is outdated and badly needs this revision. The guidelines are loosely based on WCAG 1.0 Priority 1, which also needs updating (see Podcast #55: WCAG Samurai).
Related Links:
In the article Web Accessibility Myths, common misunderstandings of accessible web sites are addressed and rebutted. Be it a poorly marked-up article, the content has some great points including: