Categories
google podcast presentations review twitter webaim

2009 in Review

Wow, what a year! Too many topics to mention, but highlights include the growing usage of ARIA, Google’s good and bad, another screen reader survey by WebAIM, and the launch of Accessible Twitter! Below is a brief summary of this year’s happenings on Web Axe and elsewhere; please comment on anything I’ve missed, which I’m sure is a lot. Cheers to a great 2010!

Also, I want to say how proud I am to be a part of the wonderful web accessibility community which has grown larger and more intimate through conferences and “Web 2.0” tools, especially Twitter. -Dennis

Web Axe Podcast Highlights

Web Axe Blog Highlights

From WebAIM

More Google

E-Books

Great Tips

Awareness & Victor

Victor Tsaran of Yahoo is now a “web celeb” after numerous articles appeared about him and Yahoo’s accessibility lab. Great web accessibility awareness! Here are a few of the articles:

Categories
conference podcast review wordpress

Podcast #76: Web Accessibility Disasters

Dennis and Ross review web sites which should be great in web accessibility, but fail badly. The hosts provide a lot of constructive criticism, including many fixes that can be done in a minimal amount of time. Issues are also good to discuss as a reminder for our own work.

Download Web Axe Episode 76 (Web Accessibility Disasters)

[transcript of podcast 76]

Transcription provided by Katherine Lynch, a Drupal, WordPress, and accessibility professional.

Chatter

Articles

Web Site Disasters

Digitalaccessibiliy

Company targeting Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

The Good
  • Almost all of the text is marked up in HTML rather than image, flash or other media.
  • Simple, clean design.
The Bad
  • No ALT text on main banner.
  • Font size tool (triple whammy).
  • Underlines not links; links not underlined.
  • Headings not marked up appropriately.
  • Menu missing
    • List not a list (see Compliance page).
    • Inline / intrusive JavaScript.
    Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

    A service provided by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). JAN’s mission is to facilitate the employment and retention of workers with disabilities by providing employers, employment providers, people with disabilities, and family members with information on job accommodations, entrepreneurship, and related subjects.

    The Good
    • Textual navigation; no Javascript based navigation.
    • Has proper ALT text on pictures and JAN and ODEP logos.
    The Bad
    • No heading tags; some marked up with bold tag.
    • There is a summary on layout table (double whammy).
    • No skip nav or skip to link provided.
    • Inline javascript. Example:
    • Non-breaking spacing used for layout.
    The Rose Project

    Mission is to provide maternal and child healthcare to the economically poor people of Malawi, with particular reference to HIV treatment and care.

    One of nine listed for Most Accessible Website in the Irish Web Awards?

    The Good
    • XHTML; semantic, clean mark-up
    • Using headings
    • Language is defined (xml:lang=”en”)
    • SWFobject.js for unobtrusive flash embedding
    The Bad
    • When JavaScript is unavailable, Flash replacement image has broken links and placeholder text.
    • Skip links – Skip link doesn’t work?
    • ‘Find out about ways to give’ button.
    • logo missing alt text for tag line.
    • H1 headings should be H2 (such as Featured Project).
    • Some links that should be underlined, are not.
    • Use of tags not recommended.
    • Links lack the default focus effect and outline removed!
      DO NOT do this:
    :focus {
    outline-color:-moz-use-text-color;
    outline-style:none;
    outline-width:0;
    }
Categories
law review

Site of Section 508 Testing Company Not Compliant

NTS Corp (National Technical Systems, Inc.) is a company in which offers testing services. They claim that they offer testing for web sites ??? to Section 508.

http://www.ntscorp.com/services/ComputerElectronicProducts/TestingServices/WebsiteTesting/WebAccessibility

  • Not readable without CSS (logo)
  • No label on search input field
  • No skip links
  • Headings

Categories
conference event podcast review standards twitter

Podcast #69: Recovery.gov Site Review

Download Web Axe Episode 69 (Recovery.gov Site Review)

Events

News

Main Segment

Dennis and Ross give a web accessibility review of the new U.S. government site Recovery.gov. Topics discussed include:

  • skip-to link
  • menu
  • headings
  • XHTML validation
  • tables
  • forms
  • ALT attributes
  • titles
home page of Recovery.gov
Categories
book review

Book: Universal Design for Web Applications

Universal Design for Web Applications is a recently published book (by O’Reilly Media November 2008) which sounds very promising. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s received favorable reviews. Topics include:

  • How do you sell accessibility?
  • W3C documentation
  • Web page structure and design
  • Forms
  • Tables
  • Videos
  • Scripting and WAI-ARIA

There is an excellent review of the book by Accessify, which ends by stating:

I can definitely see my copy being lent to various colleagues in the coming months as I try to get them up to speed with modern web development techniques and how they relate to the world of accessibility.