You Are Here: April 2008 Newsletter
### Edited by Joel Obuchowski
Articles and ideas for future newsletters? Please e-mail them to Debi Orton dorton@goer.state.ny.us and Joel Obuchowski jobuchow@ins.state.ny.us
NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING
Note!!!! Different meeting location this month! **
- Date and Time: Thursday, April 10, 2:30pm-4:00pm
- ** Location:
- 8th Floor Conference Room, Agency Building 2
- Empire State Plaza
- Albany, NY
- This month's agenda is primarily training-related. The Committee will be hosting two sessions at the AT Expo:
- A.M. Session: NYS Accessibility Policy and Standards and the NYS Forum Validation Tool
- P.M. Session: Accessible Web 2.0
We have also received requests for other training sessions, and will discuss those at the meeting.
UPCOMING EVENTS
SAVE THE DATE!
Governor's Assistive Technology Expo - 10th Anniversary!
Governor David A. Patterson, a nationally-recognized advocate for persons with visual and physical impairments, will be welcoming attendees at TECHNOLOGY OPENS DOORS, The New York State Governor's Expo on Assistive Technology, to be held on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany, New York.
At the Expo, hundreds of exhibits and workshops on assistive devices and services will be showcased. In addition, the NYS Forum's award-winning IT Accessibility Committee will present a series of tutorials on all aspects of accessible website development.
- A.M. Session: NYS Accessibility Policy and Standards and the NYS Forum Validation Tool
- P.M. Session: Accessible Web 2.0
To register for either event, see http://www.nysforum.org/events/webaccessibility-5-15-08/
We hope that you will join us for this exciting opportunity, which has been a biennial event since 1998, when it was first sponsored by the New York State Interagency Partnership on Assistive Technology and its Advisory Board. Based on past Expo attendance, up to 1000 participants are expected, so we urge you to register soon.
- For registration information go to:
- www.ATEXPO2008.com
- Or Call
- Michelle Murray
- NYS Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities (CQCAPD) (800) 522-4369 (NYS only Voice/TTY/Spanish) or (518) 388-0690
ACCESSIBILITY FUND RAISER
The John Slatin Fund Accessibility Project
http://www.zeldman.com/2008/04/02/the-john-slatin-fund-accessibility-project/
FEATURE ARTICLE
Standard 10
10.1: Audio Only
Information will not be conveyed by single audio (audio clip sounds to provide instructions, warnings or other information) alone.
This standard repeats a theme that we have seen before in our closer look at the standards -- provide information in more than one format. If you present information in an audio format, you risk losing those with hearing impairments, people using handheld devices, people in a work environment whose computers do not have sound capability, and those in noisy environments. Making sure to offer audio information as an accessible text transcript or as HTML ensures that a wider cross-section of your audience can make use of it.
RESOURCES
{from ADA Technical Bulletin: April 2008}
Premier Assistive Releases Text-To-Audio 9.0: Convert PDF Files to Audio for Mobile Listening & Podcast PDF E-books (excerpt from emediawire.com)
Premier Assistive has enhanced its Text-To-Audio program and added a PDF Import Wizard that works with Adobe® Acrobat® PDF files, version 4 and higher. The Wizard provides users the convenient option to choose whether to convert the entire book/document from PDF or select a range of pages to convert. With the option to select a range of pages, parts of the book such as the preface, table of contents, and index can be excluded from conversion.
The PDF Import Wizard features a PDF View window that can be used to preview the document before it is processed. Many PDF files have complicated layouts that may include multiple columns and text boxes. The unique auto-arrange feature takes these complex pages and arranges them in a continuous reading format. Most inaccessible PDF files, even those that are scanned pages of a book, can work with the Import Wizard.
In just a matter of minutes the PDF Import Wizard can import a 400 page book, which is equivalent to a four-hour audio file. Since a four-hour audio file is quite large for an MP3 player, Text-To-Audio 9.0 also has a feature to create manageable-sized audio segments that make MP3 file management and navigation easy.
For more information, please go to http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2008/3/prweb763724.htm .
Per Mike Hritcko
"A Command of Headings: Usage & Styling"
http://accessites.org/site/2008/02/a-command-of-headings-usage-and-styling/
Per Mike Hritcko's boss (Mike wants to thank his boss for forwarding the info.)
Ajax Accessibility for Websites
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-accessibility/ajax-accessibility.shtml
"GNOME focuses on accessibility -- with a little help from Mozilla and others"
http://www.linux.com/feature/127801
Joe Clark's Captioning Sucks
"Microsoft Accessibility Lab"
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/cc188976.aspx
"Microsoft Announces New Accessibility Tools & Resources for Developers"
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/mar08/03-13AccessibilityToolsPR.mspx
Podcast #62: Web Accessibility News
http://webaxe.blogspot.com/2008/03/podcast-62-web-accessibility-news.html
Practical Accessibility Tips
"UI Accessibility Checker (AccChecker) and UI Automation Verify (UIA Verify)"
RECENT NEWS
From the e-Consultancy web site http://www.e-consultancy.com/
"Amex woes highlight common PDF accessibility problem"
Recent reported accessibility problems with American Express' web statements exemplify a common challenge for financial service websites and those reliant on PDFs.
American Express has come under criticism, and potential legal action, for the lack of accessibility of its credit card website.
As reported on the BBC's Moneybox programme last week, a blind customer of American Express credit cards found that Amex's change in the presentation of its online credit card statements from HTML to PDF format effectively prevented him from accessing his financial information online.
Despite promises from Amex, changes have not occurred, and the customer is now considering taking legal action against the credit card provider.
Presenting financial information online in an accessible format is always slightly more challenging due to the fact that it is often best presented in a tabular format.
For the data tables to make sense when read through a screen reader, there are some special tags that need to be applied to the column and row headers to provide orientation to the user, so they can interpret the data.
This is a relatively simple adaptation to a data table that many financial organisations online provide, including American Express in its previous version of the client servicing website.
The problem occurred with its change to presenting the statement details in PDF format three months ago.
The data read out by the screen reader is not in a logical order and is impossible to interpret.
Although PDF documents and data tables can be tagged properly to facilitate correct interpretation by screen readers, this has not been implemented by Amex.
In our experience providing web accessibility audits, this is often the case with PDF documents.
Although Adobe has provided improved the ability for PDF documents to be marked up accessibly, it does require some extra effort that falls slightly outside the typical training of HTML coders or content contributors.
As a result, there are many inaccessible PDF documents on otherwise accessible sites. PDFs are the Achilles heel of website accessibility for many sites.
It does not have to be that way. The best place to start with a PDF document is to ensure that the source document being converted to PDF has been created in an accessible way.
Even still, it is worth checking things such as the reading order and interpretation of data table cells are correct, and the correct tags are applied to the PDF document.
There is also plenty of information from the Adobe website that will help site, and a good place to start is Adobe's own guide to creating accessible PDFs.
There is also free software from Adobe to convert the PDFs to standard HTML which is more likely to be interpreted correctly by the screen reader.
American Express is well aware of the problem and, although overdue, I am sure that it will be resolved in the near future.
As for the many other sites with PDFs, this is likely to take much longer.