Web Axe – Page 8 – blog and podcast on web accessibility

Digital Accessibility Events in 2019

Post author By Dennis
Post date January 3, 2019
17 Comments on Digital Accessibility Events in 2019

Happy new year! Below is a list of many great conferences and events targeting digital accessibility which are coming up in 2019! I’m sure some are missing; please leave others in comments.

Portland Accessibility and User Experience Meetup, Portland OR, Jan. 14.
ATIA Conference, Orlando FL, Jan. 29-Feb. 2 (Assistive Technology Industry Association).
Accessibility Camp Bay Area, March 9, San Francisco CA, hosted by LinkedIn.
CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, Anaheim CA, March 11-15.
Digital Accessibility Legal Summit, Anaheim CA, March 12.
axe-Hackathon, Anaheim CA, March 16.
Funka Accessibility Days, Stockholm Sweden, April 9-10.
Web4All 2019 conference, San Francisco CA, May 13-14, the theme is personalization.
John Slatin AccessU Accessibility Conference, Austin TX, May 14-17, by Knowbility.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), worldwide, May 16.
Accessibility Toronto Camp, Toronto Canada, May 18.
Accessibility Camp Seattle, Seattle WA, May 18.
Accessibility Conference at the University of Guelph, Guelph Ontario Canada, May 27-29.
Web Accessibility Summit, Missouri State University, Springfield MO, May 29.
TechAccessOK, Oklahoma City OK, June 6-7.
M-Enabling Summit, Washington DC, June 17-19.
ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium, Washington DC, Oct. 1-2.
ACCESS by 3Play Media, Boston MA, Oct. 3 [around video accessibility].
Paris Web, Paris France, Oct. 10-12.
Accessibility Toronto Conference, Toronto Canada, Oct. 24-25.
Accessibility Scotland, Edinburgh Scotland, Oct. 25.
A11yCamp, Sydney Australia, 12-15 Nov.
Accessing Higher Ground, Westminster CO (Denver area), Nov. 18-22.
TechSharePro by AbilityNet, London UK, Nov. 21-21.
Also look for dates in 2020 for OZeWAI (Australia) and ICCHP (Austria).

Webinars and more!

IAAP live webinars (archived also available).
3PlayMedia webinars
A11yTalks (YouTube) @A11YTalks
A11y Rules podcast
AccessMeetups Twitter list, curated by your truly.
Also note that if you’re speaking, it’s just as good (if not better) to speak at an event; here’s a list of UX and design conferences in 2019.

Accessibility Toronto Conference 2018 Review

Post author By Dennis
Post date October 24, 2018
No Comments on Accessibility Toronto Conference 2018 Review

The second Accessibility Toronto Conference was another success! It was held at TELUS in beautiful downtown Toronto, Canada. Hosted by the lovely Léonie Watson (@LeonieWatson) and the always entertaining Makoto Ueki (@mak_en).

Accessibility Toronto Conference hash tag #a11yTOConf

Presentation Resources (partial list)

If your presentation resource is not listed, please leave a comment or contact me on Twitter at @WebAxe.

Welcome To My World
by @SteveFaulkner

Assistive Technology: Training, UX And Design: What Devs Need To Know About UX And Aging
by @SassyOutwater

Finding The Place Where Accessibility And SEO Happily Co-Exist
by @CarieFisher

If It’s Interactive, It Needs A Focus Style
by Eric Bailey @ericwbailey

A Primer On The Designer’s A11y Responsibility
by Hala Anwar @halathinkeths

The Dark Side Of The Grid
by Manuel Matuzović @mmatuzo

Creating Accessible React Apps
by Scott Vinkle @svinkle

Making Bulb More Accessible
Related article: Making Bulb accessible – introducing the new Bulb site
by Heydon Pickering @heydonworks

Photos

Billy kicking off the event

Grinch don’t like bad captions

John Foliot talking WCAG

Makoto and Leonie on stage introducing Hala.

Collection of A11yTO 2018 photos on Google Photos

Tweets

https://twitter.com/aardrian/status/1052299576563159041

Assistive tech isn’t just screen readers! #a11yTOConf pic.twitter.com/fF5kxo0ysb

— Katelyn Lemay (@lemayke) October 15, 2018

https://twitter.com/mmatuzo/status/1052255673034133505

Audible gasps from the audience as @shepazu demos a tool to explore table data with a screen reader.

Not just reading the data out in order but asking and answering questions: “What are the top 5?” “How does C compare to N?”#a11yTOConf

— Stephanie Hobson (@stephaniehobson) October 15, 2018

Sustaining Accessibility – Risks:
1. critical employee turnover
2. inadequate accessible training
3. changes in regulatory requirements
4. inadequate oversight in product mgmt
5. loss of tech interoperability
by @sambhavi #a11y #a11yTOConf

— Web Axe (@webaxe) October 15, 2018

React code doesn't have to be inaccessible any more than hip-hop has to be misogynist.

— front-end.social/@heydon (@heydonworks) February 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/aardrian/status/1051909502851837955

Last Thoughts

Unfortunately, Eric Wright (@EWAccess) wasn’t able to give his presentation “Speech Recognition Solutions” due to breaking his ankle while he was in Toronto for the conference. Feel better Eric!

Was great to meet several folks in person for the first time whom I had known for a while online including Heydon Pickering, Eric Bailey, and Manuel Matuzović.

I discovered Steam Whistle pilsner (brewed in Toronto) which was very good!

Billy Gregory announced that the event will take place again next year in the same location (and Cordelia and Heydon invited to host!)

Here’s the review of last year’s conference (2017), Accessibility Toronto Conference a big success!

roundup wcag21

WCAG 2.1 article series via Knowbility

Post author By Dennis
Post date September 16, 2018
1 Comment on WCAG 2.1 article series via Knowbility

As you may know, WCAG 2.1 was recently published as a Recommendation (see my WCAG 2.1 post in this past June). It adds 1 new guideline (2.5 Input Modalities) and 17 new success criteria.

To help understand the new criteria, check out this excellent “Exploring WCAG 2.1” article series on the Knowbility website and written by Becky Gibson.

Overall: Welcome, WCAG 2.1! The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines get an update.

More WCAG 2.1 articles

Axe-core gets WCAG 2.1 rules by Deque Systems.
Webinar Sep. 26, 2018 “What you need to know about WCAG 2.1 by Léonie Watson.
WCAG 2.1: An Evening With Andrew Kirkpatrick, Head of Accessibility at Adobe, YouTube recording from A11yNYC Meetup Sep. 11, 2018.
Improving web navigation for speech recognition users – about Success Criterion 2.4.12 Label in Name (Level A) by Intopia.

jobs

Digital Accessibility Jobs, summer 2018

Post author By Dennis
Post date July 31, 2018
No Comments on Digital Accessibility Jobs, summer 2018

Lots of terrific opportunities!

Digital Accessibility Analyst at LC Industries in Durham, NC.
Product Developer – JavaScript at Deque Systems in Ann Arbor, MI.
E-Learning and ADA Compliance Specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Senior Software Engineer – Accessibility at Salesforce in Bellevue, WA preferred (2 other cities listed).
Sr. Accessibility Analyst at Visa in Austin, TX.
Accessibility Specialist at Oath in Sunnyvale, CA.
IT Accessibility Consultant at University of Maryland in College Park, MD.
Front-End Developer (with accessibility skills) at HeX Productions in Nottingham, England, UK.
Added: Senior Digital Accessibility Specialist at TD Bank in Toronto, Canada.
Added: Instructional Designer Accessibility at Pearson in Austin, TX.
Added: IT & Accessibility Analyst at University of Vermont in Burlington, VT.
Added: Web Accessibility QA wanted at Prudential in El Paso, TX or Newark, NJ.

On Twitter, follow me, @a11yJobs, @EasyChirp and @LyndonDunbar for more!

roundup wcag wcag21

WCAG 2.1 Now A W3C Recommendation

Post author By Dennis
Post date June 19, 2018
No Comments on WCAG 2.1 Now A W3C Recommendation

On 5 June 2018, WCAG 2.1 was published with a Recommendation status, which means it’s stable and ready for implementation. The new guidelines help fill gaps in WCAG 2.0 particularly in the areas of mobile, low vision, and cognitive disabilities.

The new guidelines are backwards compatible with 2.0 as the official W3C announcement by Andrew Kirkpatrick and Michael Cooper explains:

All the criteria from WCAG 2.0 are included in WCAG 2.1, so web sites that conform to WCAG 2.1 will also conform to WCAG 2.0.

Learn more in an upcoming A11Y Talks What’s New with WCAG 2.1 with Carie Fisher and Andrew Macpherson, 27 June 2018.

Summary

Here is a quick list of the new criteria:

1.3.4 Orientation – Level AA
1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose – Level AA
1.3.6 Identify Purpose – Level AAA
1.4.10 Reflow – Level AA
1.4.11 Non-text Contrast – Level AA
1.4.12 Text Spacing– Level AA
1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus – Level AA
2.1.4 Character Key Shortcuts – Level A
2.2.6 Timeouts – Level AAA
2.3.3 Animation from Interactions – Level AAA
2.5.1 Pointer Gestures – Level A
2.5.2 Pointer Cancellation – Level A
2.5.3 Label in Name – Level A
2.5.4 Motion Actuation – Level A
2.5.5 Target Size – Level AAA
2.5.6 Concurrent Input Mechanisms – Level AAA
4.1.3 Status Changes – Level AA

W3C page heading for WCAG 2.1