IT Accessibility Committee August 2005 Newsletter

### Edited by Joel Obuchowski

NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING

The Forum IT Accessibility Committee's next meeting will be held on Thursday, August 11 from 2:30 to 4:00 at the Forum offices, 411 State Street, Albany. We'll discuss the status of our web site redesign contest, work on validating "Best of the Web" nominees, our upcoming GTC sessions, and restarting our monthly Accessibility Clinics in September, among other things. As usual, there will also be open time to discuss those subjects of interest to committee members. Please try to make the meeting, if you can.

WEB SITE REDESIGN CONTEST

Contest Update/Reminder about call for judges

The entry period for our "Accessible Can Be Beautiful" Web Design Contest closed on August 1. We've received six entries, all of which survived the first round of validation.

The goal of the competition is to demonstrate that incorporating accessibility does not stifle creativity or preclude designing a gorgeous web site. The winner will receive $500, to be presented at the October 6 Tenth Anniversary Celebration for the Forum's Webmasters' Guild. The contest is being coordinated by Kathy Farrell from Empire State College and committee co-chair Lisa Hebert Ryan from MicroKnowledge.

Contest Judges Sought

There's still time to become a judge for our "Accessible Can Be Beautiful" Web Design Contest... Are you creative? Have you developed usable sites? Followed good design practices?

Then the IT Accessibility Committee is looking for you!

We need a small group of individuals to serve as judges for the "Accessible Can Be Beautiful" Web Design Contest.

Judge will be asked to review contest entries for:

Use of commonly accepted good web design practices.
Artistic appeal
Usability (e.g., intuitive navigation, clearly labeled links, etc.)
Continuity of concept

Interested parties should e-mail Lisa Ryan at lryan@MicroKnowledge.com.

Please provide contact information and a brief paragraph describing your experience no later than August 15.

Please note that judging will take place between September 16th and October 2nd. When contacted, you will be asked about your availability during this timeframe.

BEST OF THE WEB AWARD

Committee Assisting in Forum's Best of the Web Competition

In recognition of the NYS Forum's ongoing commitment to accessibility, this year's nominees for the Forum's Best of the Web award will be validated for accessibility by members of the IT Accessibility Committee. The winners of this prestigious award will be announced on September 9 at the Forum's Annual Meeting at the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center, and will be featured on the Forum web site.

FORUM'S ANNUAL STRATEGIC PLANNING SESSION

Committee Work with GOER, PEF Highlighted at Forum Planning Session

The IT Accessibility Committee's work with GOER and the PEF Professional Development Committee was highlighted at the Forum's annual Strategic Planning Meeting in July. Debi Orton provided a brief history of GOER's involvement with accessibility initiatives since 1999 and provided information on how we leveraged the training funds provided by the collective bargaining agreements.

Committee Goals for the 2005-2006 Program Year

2005-2006 Initiatives

As needed, assist with the web developer training pilot project jointlyundertaken by GOER and the PEF PDC
Analyze pilot training evaluations and determine next steps
Continue to offer monthly clinics
Explore the idea of formalizing mentoring relationships to provide support for less experienced web developers
Identify and act on outreach opportunities with the private sector and localities
Investigate conferences and other training opportunities with a view toward establishing "scholarships" for State employees to attend
Continue to work with the Webmasters Guild and WOW to provide information and training opportunities
Continue to raise awareness of IT accessibility issues with audiences other than web developers; explore feasibility of making awareness training mandatory
Work with existing organizations (e.g., MATRIX, Training Council, etc.) to raise awareness of the need for accessible IT
Encourage existing validation tool vendors to develop component to accommodate NYS standards
Publicize redesign contest and resultant web site redesign/update as proof of concept that "accessible can be beautiful"
Expand monthly e-mail newsletter to provide more useful information to web developers
Continue to provide training and information at every opportunity
Attendees identified outreach to the private sector and localities, providing information and training opportunities, and providing support for the NYS policy and standards as priorities for the committee.

ACCESSIBILITY CLINIC REMINDER

There will be no clinic in August. We'll resume our monthly schedule in September with a clinic on validation. If you're perplexed by the feedback you receive from validators, come to the clinic and we'll work with you to try and demystify the error messages.

If you have a topic you'd like to see tackled in a clinic, please contact Debi Orton dorton@goer.state.ny.us or Mike Short mbs1@cs.state.ny.us to suggest it.

STILL SEEKING VALIDATION INFORMATION FROM AGENCIES

Last month we sent out a message asking for information on what validation tool State agencies were using to check their sites. So far, the response has been light. Keep in mind that we'll be using this information to approach vendors about providing an option that conforms to New York's hybrid standards.

If your agency is using a validation tool, please e-mail the following information to Debi Orton at dorton@goer.state.ny.us:

the name of the tool;
the company that markets it:
whether the tool works on individual pages or in batch mode;
and, contact information.

UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS

GTC

Committee to Sponsor/Co-Sponsor Two GTC Sessions

The following presentations are being planned for September 21.

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Wednesday, September 21, Swyer Theater

10:00 a.m. * 12:00 p.m.

Presentation Title: A Survey of State Accessibility Initiatives (Joint presentation with the NYS Forum's Webmasters' Guild and the NYS Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities)

Tentative Presenters:

Deborah Buck, Moderator

Kathleen Anderson, CORE-CT

Ken Knorr, Virginia

Michael Scott, Illinois

TO BE DETERMINED, New York

Audience: NON-TECHNICAL

Synopsis: We have structured the session as four main segments.

  1. Brief overview of the status of accessibility initiatives in each jurisdiction. Panelists will have 5-10 minutes to describe how their state's accessibility initiative is structured.
  2. Current status of initiatives.
  3. What problems have you encountered?
  4. How do you envision your initiative evolving?

If there is time, we'd like to entertain some questions at the end of the presentation.

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Wednesday, September 21, Meeting Room 6

1:00* 4:00 p.m.

Presentation Title: Cascading Style Sheets for Your Web Site

Presenter: Jason Gleman, NYS Department of Civil Service

Audience: MODERATELY TECHICAL

Synopsis: Web developers with some experience with semantic markup and CSS will get the most out of this session.

Jason Gleman of the NYS Department of Civil Service will explore the world of CSS (cascading style sheets). After laying the groundwork with an overview of semantic HTML markup, Jason will show how the promised land of presentation separated from content is finally reachable.

Jason will talk about selectors and rules, and how CSS rules are applied to web pages. Next is an exploration of the box model and positioning, which determines where objects appear on a page. Finally, Jason will offer a number of real-world examples that web developers can use as the basis to create their own style sheets for their own web sites.

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Keep an eye out on the Forum Web site for GTC registration materials, which should be coming soon.

Next WOW Session Scheduled for October

Most of you have probably already heard about this by now, but WOW is coming back to Albany on October 4th and 5th to present a two-day Web Application Development Workshop -- and to help us celebrate the Webmasters' Guild's tenth anniversary on October 6th. The presenter will be Dr. Bebo White. The price for the two-day class is $195. Participants should have a working familiarity with HTML, HTML forms, and CSS 2. Knowledge of XML would be beneficial, but not required.

If you're interested in more information on this session, see http://www.webprofessionals.org/community/events/websummit5/ (External Link).

CTG'S XML Testbed Project

On October 13, we will be presenting an overview on accessibility and a quick tour of New York's Mandatory Technology Standards for the organizations chosen as participants in the project.

CSS TIP: USING MORE THAN ONE CLASS AT A TIME

Do you have a situation where you want to combine the attributes of two existing classes? You might think you need a new class that combines the CSS rules, but you don't. You can specify more than one class.

For example, say you have a class called "Normal" that specified the type font and size for your entire page. Say you also have a class called "Critical" that changed the font weight and color in a particular way. If you wanted a paragraph that used the "Normal" font sizing and the "Critical" weight and color, you would mark it up like this:

<p class="Normal Critical">Your text here.</p>

If the two classes have rules that conflict, then it is the last class named that takes precedence. In this example, if "Normal" called for a blue font, and "Critical" called for a red font, the text would display as red. If you wanted it to display as blue, you could reverse the order the classes were specified:

<p class="Critical Normal">Your text is still here.</p>

Learning tricks like this can save you from "Class Bloat." Inexperienced developers often create many more classes than they actually need. While this won't affect accessibility, usability or your pages' look, it does lead to large style sheets that are difficult to maintain.

LINKS OF INTEREST (plus one for the 'Muggles')

July marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). You can find disability-related information on two Federal web sites:

DisabilityInfo.gov http://www.disabilityinfo.gov (External Link) is an online resource for Americans with disabilities, and includes comprehensive consumer-oriented information on topics such as employment, education, housing, transportation, health, and many more.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy web site http://www.dol.gov/odep/ (External Link) has a great web site with frequently-asked questions (e.g., how many people with disabilities are there in the U.S.?), a publications section with reports and fact sheets (e.g., Investing in People: Job Accommodation Situations and Solutions).

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From Jeffrey Zeldman's Web site:

JK Rowling site goes accessible Flash route

"Yesterday the JK Rowling site relaunched in an accessible Flash version designed by Lightmaker Group in collaboration with Macromedia, the RNIB and the RNID. Usability testing by partially sighted test subjects helped fine-tune the site..."

http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0705d.shtml (External Link)

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(Reprinted with permission from the Northeast ADA & IT Center publication Accessible Information Technology Technical Bulletin: August 2005)

"Speak Out About Inaccessible Information and Telecommunication Technology"

This free resource provides an overview of 13 federal laws (or sections of laws) that support accessible technology, and it also presents step-by-step instructions on how to complain when you encounter barriers to use. Fictional scenarios, sample letters, and letter templates also are included to help consumers voice their opinions about inaccessible technology that they encounter in the workplace and the marketplace. The Speak Out is available as a spiral-bound book and as in HTML format on CD. If you are interested in receiving a copy of this publication, please contact the Northeast ADA & IT Center at 800-949-4232 or northeastada@cornell.edu. Supplies are limited, so please make requests by the end of August.

You can also find Speak Out online at http://www.ittatc.org/technical/speakout/ (External Link).

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Jump to Main Content

People who are blind and people with physical disabilities who do not use a mouse benefit greatly from the ability to skip over lengthy lists of repetitive navigation links on web pages. But many web developers are reluctant to sacrifice the "look" and space on the web page to accommodate a visible link that jumps the user to the main body of the page. You can observe how a couple of sites have handled this dilemma by visiting www.webaim.org (External Link) and www.ittatc.org (External Link).

People that navigate web pages using the keyboard only, generally use the Tab key to move between links on the page. Once the desired link is reached, the Enter key is used to select the link. Using the tab key to move the cursor between active links at either of the above mentioned sites, you will see that the first link or links that you reach are "Skip to main content" (in the case of the WebAIM site). However, this link was not visible until the tab key landed on it.

For techniques on how to create this keyboard-activated visible Skip navigation link, see the WebAIM article, "An Accessible Method of Hiding HTML Content" at http://www.webaim.org/techniques/articles/hiddentext. (External Link)

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Microsoft Accessibility Resource Centers Empower People with Disabilities Yahoo News (press release)

The Microsoft Accessibility Resource Centers (MARC) program is one of the company's latest efforts to empower people with disabilities. For the MARC program, Microsoft partnered with two nonprofit organizations -- the Alliance for Technology Access (ATA) and the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs (ATAP) -- to select 26 centers in the United States that provide technology training and assistance for people with a variety difficulties and disabilities that affect computer use, such as low vision, hand and wrist pain, and hearing loss. The MARC pilot program equips the centers with resources designed to train people on the accessibility options in Windows, Office and Internet Explorer so that they can adjust their computers and make them easier to use.

The Microsoft Accessibility Resource Center in New York State is located at Enable in Syracuse, NY.

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If you're looking for ways to jazz up your site's design using CSS, visit Eric Meyer's css/edge site: http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/ (External Link)

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A promising list of fixes and changes coming in IE7 Beta 2 can be found at

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242.aspx (External Link)

Beta 1 has a few changes but is only currently available to MSDN subscribers and select invitees.

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Accessible Alternative vs. Direct Accessibility

On scripting and accessibility:

http://domscripting.webstandards.org/?p=12 (External Link)

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If you have questions or topics you'd like to see covered in our monthly newsletter, please contact Mike Short (mbs1@cs.state.ny.us), Debi Orton (dorton@goer.state.ny.us) or Lisa Ryan (lryan@MicroKnowledge.com) to let them know.