IT Accessibility Committee June 2005 Newsletter

IMPORTANT NOTE: Effective immediately, the e-mail address for our listserv has changed to: forumitaccess@listman.goer.state.ny.us. If you have a question, problem, or concern you'd like to invite others to comment on, send your e-mail to this new address. All existing accounts have been moved over to the new listserv, so you don't need to do a thing. We're excited about this change, as the package we've moved to is much more robust and will offer us a mini-survey capability as well as the ability to host online forums -- perfect for winter in Albany when snow cancels our face-to-face meetings!

NEW CORPORATE CO-CHAIR

We now have a new corporate co-chair: Lisa Ryan Hebert from MicroKnowledge. Lisa graduated from Russell Sage College with a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science. For the past 12 years, Lisa has been working for MicroKnowledge and is directly responsible for trainer/consultant professional development, strategic planning, sales and marketing. She consults with businesses in the use of technology in the workplace and effective staff training. In addition, Lisa regularly presents to large audiences, is a subject matter expert for a leading courseware manufacturer and has led more than 50 large, statewide training and consulting projects. Ms. Ryan and MicroKnowledge are involved in many community enrichment organizations and activities

UPCOMING EVENTS

THURSDAY, JUNE 9 -- COMMITTEE MEETING

The Committee meets from 2:30 - 4:00 at the Forum offices, 411 State Street in Albany. Free parking is available nearby in Washington Park.

All are welcome to attend.

On this month's agenda will be a final review of the contest guidelines and plans for an announcement. We will be offering a cash prize, supplied by the Forum. Right now, the final draft of the contest guidelines is wending its way through the Rockefeller Institute for approval. We expect to be able to announce the within the next 2-3 weeks. Our timeline is going to be tight if we are going to announce the winner at the October 6 celebration for the Webmasters' Guild 10th anniversary. Our volunteer contest coordinator is Kathy Farrell from Empire State College (thank you, Kathy!). I'm sure she'll be ready to accept volunteers on Thursday.

We have a couple of upcoming projects that we'll probably be asking for help with:

  • It may be possible to deliver a training session in the western part of the state in late summer or early fall. We'll be looking for volunteers to help.
  • One of the strong messages to come out of our recent survey and follow-up focus groups was the need for one tool that could be customized to New York's standards. We'll be looking for volunteers to contact validation tool vendors, explain the problem and ask the vendor for suggestions about a solution. And we'll discuss the ethical issues involved in this project -- we have to make sure that whatever we do is fair and equitable to all vendors.

We hope to see you there!

TUESDAY, JUNE 21 -- ACCESSIBILITY CLINIC

The topic: CSS for Tables

We have scheduled our next Accessibility Clinic for Tuesday, June 21, from 1:00 to 4:00 in Classroom D of the OFT Training Academy, Floor 3B, Core 4, Swan Street Building.

This June clinic will focus on using CSS to mark up tables. We will open with a thirty-minute presentation by Jason Gleman on our topic, followed by an open Q&A session on ANY web development or accessibility topic.

The final two hours are your opportunity to get expert help with your web pages, regardless of whether the issues you are facing with your pages matches this month's topic or not. Bring your pages on floppy, CD or flash drive, and review them with the experts. Your pages can be "viewed" using screen reader software at this session as well. If you have seen a page you like and want assistance in deconstructing it, we can help with that, too.

There are presently nine openings.

To sign up, go to https://www3.oft.state.ny.us/glc (External Link) and register. We still have ten openings for the June clinic, which we will fill on a first-come, first-served basis.

FRIDAY, JUNE 24 -- MORE CSS FOR YOUR WEB SITE

Back by popular demand, this is a repeat of Jason Gleman's April Webmasters' Guild presentation on how to apply CSS to your web site. We received so many positive comments and requests to repeat it that we've arranged a second session for those who missed the first one.

Registration will NOT be required for this session. See other details below.

Session Date: Friday, June 24, 2005

Session Location: Meeting Rooms 2 & 3, Empire State Plaza

Session Time: 9:00 - 12:00

Session Cost: FREE, no registration required

Session Description: Cascading Style Sheets for Your Web Site

On behalf of the NYS Forum's IT Accessibility Committee, 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.

NEWS FROM THE W3C

W3C Releases New Working Draft of XHTML 2.0

On May 27th, the W3C released its latest Working Draft of the XHTML 2.0 spec. For the "Cliff notes" version of what the differences between XHTML 1.0 and 2.0 are, see http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-xhtml2-20050527/introduction.html#s_intro (External Link).

The goal of XHTML 2.0 is to take another step on the path to full implementation of XML. Three points in the W3C list of design aims with particular relevance for the Committee are:

  • Less presentation, more structure: use style sheets for defining presentation.
  • More usability: within the constraints of XML, try to make the language easy to write, and make the resulting documents easy to use.
  • More accessibility: some call it 'designing for our future selves' - the design should be as inclusive as possible.

There are some drawbacks as well, so it would probably be a good idea to completely familiarize yourself with the specification before deciding to adopt it.

CSS 2.1 Is Now Candidate Recommendation

Without much fanfare, CSS 2.1 became a candidate recommendation in late February of this year. The differences between CSS 2.0 and CSS 2.1 are primarily strategic, although a few new properties were introduced. For more information about what's in, what's out, and why, visit http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/CR-CSS21-20040225/about.html (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) or Debi Orton (dorton@goer.state.ny.us) to let them know.