NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee

February 2009 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

The next committee meeting will be held on Thursday, Feb. 12 from 2:30 - 4:00 at the Forum offices, 411 State Street, Albany NY.

Among the items on the agenda will be: Determining training to be held for the remainder of the program year, discussions about the ongoing attempt to resurrect the online validation tool, discussion of the draft business case for the validation tool, and a review of options in the event the attempt to resurrect the online tool is unsuccessful.

RECENT NEWS

HTML 5 Receives Support for Authoring Materials

2009-02-02: Dan Connolly, an active member of the HTML community for many years, has received support from Adobe to work on HTML 5 materials for authors. The HTML Working Group Chairs have requested additional resources to ensure that HTML 5 meets the needs of authors and browser developers alike. As a provider of Web development and authoring tools, W3C Member Adobe is not only participating in the Working Group, they have also provided financial support for the open standards process.

OFT Combines Accessibility Documents

The NYS Office for Technology has combined its policy, standard, and best practice guidelines into one comprehensive policy: NYS-P08-005, Accessibility of Web-Based Information and Applications. You can find the combined document at http://www.oft.state.ny.us/Policy/NYS-P08-005.pdf.

FEATURE ARTICLES

FEDERAL NEWS
(by Joel Obuchowski).

On January 20, 2009, I can imagine that huge numbers of people living in our country and beyond our borders were viewing the inauguration of Senator Barack Obama as our new U.S. President. Out of curiousity, I wanted to see the new Web site designed for him. The home page looked nice, with a decent visual organization. However, was it accessible?

Using FireFox, I performed a quick check on the home page of www.whitehouse.gov

The results were: Valid for XHTML 1.0! and Section 508 (Federal Accessibililty). I was amazed, because most Web sites don't reach that level. Further testing revealed some pages achieved this as well, though not all. Still, to reach this level is no easy task. Here in the New York State Forum on Accessibility, we continually strive to promote, educate and apply solid standards for our state government Web sites.

President Obama has stated words to the effect that we have work to do. Hopefully, more improvements will become a reality on the federal and state level, including Web sites in general.

Freedom Scientific (JAWS) Files Patent Infringement Suit Against GW Micro (Window-Eyes)

Freedom Scientific, the producer of JAWS, arguably the most popular screen reader in use today, has filed a patent infringement suit against GW Micro, the producer of Window-Eyes, claiming that GW Micro is "willfully" using a technology known as a "Document Placeholder". The Document Placeholder technology in question is a feature in both screenreaders that allows a user to identify a particular place or bit of content on a web site and return to this same spot on the web page (using a few simple keystrokes) when viewing the page initially or on subsequent visits. The technology is intended to make larger or more complicated pages easier for screen reader users to navigate.

To read more about this issue, see http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm09/bm0902/bm090206.htm.

To read GW Micro's response to the lawsuit, see http://blog.blindaccessjournal.com/2008/08/gw-micro-response-to-freedom-scientific.html

RESOURCES

(provided by Michael Hritcko of NYSIF)

ARIA

Accessibility: Improved ARIA Support in the IE8-RC
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/16/accessibility-improved-aria-support-in-the-IE8-RC.aspx

Government Guidelines, ARIA Microformats http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/government-guidelines-aria-microformats/

Freedom Scientific Podcast: Web 2.0 and Benefits of ARIA http://www.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/episodes/fscast026-january2009.asp

Redesigning with HTML5 and WAI-ARIA http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/redesigning-with-html-5-wai-aria/

Using WAI-ARIA Landmark Roles http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=106

WebAIM

WCAG 2.0 Checklist

As reported in previous issues of this newsletter, the WorldWide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 has become an official recommendation. WebAIM has developed a WCAG 2.0 Checklist and has posted that list on its site.

While New York no longer adheres to WCAG, it's worth taking a look at the WebAIM checklist simply because it does a good job of covering all of the considerations inherent in developing accessible content. You can find this checklist at http://webaim.org/standards/wcag/checklist.

WebAIM Color Contrast Checker

Checking for appropriate color contrast in developing web content has traditionally been difficult. But WebAIM has made the task a little easier with their automated Color Contrast Checker. You can find information about the checker at http://webaim.org/blog/webaim-color-contrast-checker/. You can find the tool itself at http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/.

WebAIM Screen Reader Survey Results Available

WebAIM conducted a survey of preferences of screen reader users. With over 1100 responses, this survey provides great insight into the demographics and preferences of screen reader users. To view survey results, visit http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey/.

MISCELLANEOUS

"For the Blind, Technology Does What a Guide Dog Doesn?t"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/business/04blind.html?_r=1

Video and Transcription: Denise Stephens on Using the Web with Multiple Sclerosis
http://scriptingenabled.org/2009/01/video-denise-stephens-on-multiple-sclerosis-at-scripting-enabled-london/

WebA11y: Adventures in Web Accessibility (Note: The site is fully powered by Dojo. Tip: Use Juicy Studio Accessibility toolbar to examine and analyze WAI-ARIA Roles - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9108 ) http://www.weba11y.com/Presentations/presentations.html