NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee Meeting

June 11, 2009, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Forum Offices, 24 Aviation Road, Colonie

Attendees: Laura Edlund (AT&T), Mike Hritcko (NYSIF), Rudy Nugent (OMH), Joel Obuchowski (SID), Debi Orton (GOER), Ken Panthen (Tax), Lisa Rosano-Kaczkowski (CQCAPD), Mike Short (DCS)

Old Business:

  1. Agency Consulting: 2 Agencies. CQCAPD - Questions regarding site redesign; GOER - Problems with NYS-Balance site's WebEx registration page (noncompliant); coming up with accessible work-arounds for flash content in elearning course
  2. Training Progress: Debi distributed two outlines for future training presentations; "Writing in Plain English for the Web" and "Creating Accessible PDF Documents". The committee reviewed them, suggested additions, and agreed with the content.
  3. Annual Report/Planning Meeting: The team reviewed the accomplishments and goals for the 2009 program year and a final copy will be provided to Rebecca on behalf of the committee.

New Business:

  1. Upcoming Presentations: Here are the other programs we are planning with estimated target dates:
    1. Writing for the Web - Planning a session for either 11/3, 11/4, or 11/10 Debi provided a copy of Kathy Farrell's outline for this session, covering reading levels, clear language, how users read on the web, and how to optimize content for the medium.
    2. Creating Accessible PDFs - Debi provided an outline and we're planning for a presentation mid to late September. The committee reviewed the outline, made some suggestions, and agreed with its content.
    3. Basic Web Development Skills - CIO/OFT was interested in offering a "web basics" class. Debi will follow up with Marilyn, who was unable to attend.
    4. Search Engine Optimization and Accessibility - TBD, possibly a session that exposes some of the hidden benefit of using semantically correct, syntactically correct markup.
    5. Social Networking presentation including Twitter, Facebook , etc. - Jeff Bennett wrote an article for the June newsletter on this topic and offered to present demonstrations of how social network applications interact with screen reading programs.
    6. Possible Web 2.0 Refresh with the Webmasters' Guild
  2. Adopting Section 508: OFT had recommended we consider the adoption of the Federal section 508 standard. However, subsequent events have put this initiative on hold.

Next Meeting:

July 9, 2009
2:30-4:00 p.m.
Location: Forum Offices, 24 Aviation Road, Colonie
NO MEETING SCHEDULED IN AUGUST