Category: javascript

November 20, 2011

Slides from DC meetup: How To Build An Accessible Web Application

Web Axe author Dennis Lembree presented “How To Build An Accessible Web Application” last week (via Skype) at the Accessibility DC meetup (on Twitter at @AccessibilityDC). Examples from the Easy Chirp website are given throughout the presentation. Here are the slides.

How To Build An Accessible Web Application

View more presentations from Web Axe

June 30, 2010

Link Roundup – June 2010

Simple Free Online Caption Creator for YouTube Videos
Australian Government releases Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy
Open Web Camp 2010 at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, July 17 (Free)
Assistive Technology Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, July 29-30 (Free)
Online version of book Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
50+ Reasons to Use VoiceOver (from Apple)
AJAX and the Problem of Web Accessibility by @JoeDolson
HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives (W3C)
How NOT to use the HTML title attribute by @ianpouncey (from January)
Forthcoming Updates on Federal Section 508 Rules by @JoeDolson
Chrome explains its partial screen reader support
Princeton University and learning disabled student settle suit
Blind students sue four California law schools over inaccessible online applications
What AT devices announce when encountering ARIA roles
AViewer beta – new accessibility checker tool from The Paciello Group
Making JavaScript Accessible slides presented by @dennisl at Bayjax meetup
How to get started on Twitter with JAWS – CNIB blog by @mcourcel
Examples of Inaccessible Web Design
Sign petition for Google to make Chrome screen reader accessible
Features of a Cognitively Accessible Web Site
How to Use HTML, CSS and JavaScript in an Accessible Manner
Web Accessibility and WAI-ARIA Primer by @emilylewis
Writing text alternatives for maps
Future Web Accessibility: SVG from WebAIM
List of Twitter clients for persons with disabilities
U.S. Departments of Justice and Education tell college/university presidents that required electronic book readers must be accessible

June 18, 2010

BayJax Presentation “Making JavaScript Accessible”

Web Axe host Dennis Lembree presented “Making JavaScript Accessible” at the Bay Area Ajax and JavaScript Meetup (BayJax) June 15, 2010 at the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale, California.

Dennis was honored to be invited as a replacement for Dirk Ginader, who sadly couldn’t make it due to a family emergency.

Making JavaScript Accessible

View more presentations from Web Axe.

June 1, 2010

My Concerns on JS & Flash

Accessibility does not prevent you from using JavaScript or Flash from 456 Berea St.

August 9, 2009

Podcast #73: Bandwidth & Download Time

Dennis and Ross provide nearly an hour of news, knowledge, and fun!

Download Web Axe Episode 73 (Bandwidth & Download Time)

Michigan and Web Dudes, Lab, and Accessible Twitter

Dennis’ vacation including visit to Michigan

Met creators of BongoTones
Met creator of Twilk

Web Accessibility News

WebAIM – Colors and Links and WCAG 2.0
ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards

Nominations will be submitted online only.
Submission deadline of nominations: 25th August 2009.

CVS Accessible Web Site and Point of Sale (nice sub-heading).
Misunderstanding Markup: XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip by Jeremy Keith @adactio.
Accessible drag and drop using WAI-ARIA on Dev.Opera by Gez Lemon .
Don’t Just Tick Boxes – Meeting the diverse needs of your site’s visitors is likely to mean a great deal more than ticking off individual accessibility checkpoints.
AccessibilityWatch.com – fairly new accessibility blog (more than web).

Main Segment

The Issue & Statistics

Web accessibility is about providing content for everyone; even if the user is unable to have access to a broadband internet connection.
Economic issue; many people simply can’t afford broadband.
Mobile–light and fast web sites can be more easily viewed on you phone!
Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 (study from 2003-2008 data)
In the U.S. in March 2008, users connecting at 56Kbps or less now make up 11.18% of active Internet users.
CWA Communications reported that the “median real-time download speed in the U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). The best available estimates show average download speeds in Japan of 63 mbps, in South Korea of 49 mbps and in France of 17 mbps.

Growth of Average Web Page Size and Number of Objects

Chart shows that from January 1995 to January 2008, there was a tremendous growth of average page size and average number of objects. The average page file size went from 14.1k in 1995, to 93.7k in 2003, to over 312k in 2008. The average number of page objects went from 2.3k in 1995, to 25.7 in 2003, to nearly 50 in 2008.

Related WCAG Guidelines

WCAG 2.0 Principle 4: Robust

Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

WCAG 1.0 Intro states:

user may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection and users may have turned off support for images (e.g. due to a slow Internet connection)

Greatly outdated web portion of Section 508 doesn’t mention internet connection speed.

What You Can Do

Use progressive enhancement.
Optimize images; use sprites.
Write clean code.
Use external CSS and JavaScript files. For CSS, use not @import.
Combine multiple CSS files into one. Same for JavaScript.
Use media domains.
Minify CSS and JS files.
Setup your server to send pages and files compressed.

Cache dynamic data and Ajax when appropriate.