You Are Here: IT Accessibility Committee May 2006 Newsletter
### Edited by Joel Obuchowski
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Welcome to the May 2006 IT Accessibility Committee Newsletter. Ordinarily, we'd give you the date and time of our May monthly meeting, but there is no meeting this month because of our work on the 2006 Governor's Assistive Technology Expo (see below). We'll resume our normal meeting schedule next month.
2006 Governor's Assistive Technology Expo: Technology Opens Doors
The 2006 Assistive Technology Expo will be held on Thursday, May 11, at the Empire State Plaza. Among the events will be demonstrations by assistive technology vendors showing products like screen readers and alternative input devices.
Among the other activities, the NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee will be debuting a promotional video that was produced as part of the recent -- and highly successful -- "Successful Web Communications in NYS Government" series of training classes. The video was sponsored by the NYS/PEF Joint Labor-Management Committee on Professional Development.
The IT Accessibility Committee will also be presenting a FREE full-day Workshop on Accessible Web Design. Morning sessions will include Background in Policy and Law, Eating the Elephant, Images and Visual Elements, Tables, Forms, Propritary Formats, and XML. The afternoon sessions are Validation and Best Practices in Cascading Style Sheets. The sessions are designed so that attendees can sign up for the morning or afternoon sessions -- or both. We also welcome walk-ins, although we cannot guarantee that we will have enough handouts for those who do walk in. Your best bet is to register.
For more information, or to register, visit: http://www.nysforum.org/pastseminars/itaccessworkshop-5-11-06/.
Call for Volunteers to Collect Specifications for Creation of An NYS-Specific Validation Tool
We are requesting your help with a project the NYS Forum is undertaking to acquire a NYS-specific validation tool.
Since New York announced its Mandatory Technology Standard S04-002, we have heard from the web development community about the need to find a "one-stop" tool to provide the ability to test for New York's standards. The NYS Forum has agreed to work with its IT Accessibility Committee and Webmasters' Guild and other stakeholders to prepare an RFP for the development of such a tool.
For background information on this project, please refer to the meeting minutes from the IT Accessibility Committee's April 13 meeting, available online at: http://www.nysforum.org/committees/access/meetingsummary/April2006-Access-Minutes.htm.
To go forward, our next steps will be to collect requirements for use in developing project specifications. We would like to invite five or six members of the community who are interested in helping the the Forum develop the specifications and RFP.
Once we have a core group established, we will be soliciting your feedback on the features we need to incorporate in our specifications. Having such a tool will go a long way toward improving the quality of NYS agency web sites.
If you are interested in participating, please contact Debi Orton (dorton@goer.state.ny.us), Mike Short (mike.short@cs.state.ny.us), or Paul Maguire (PaulMaguire@oasas.state.ny.us) to volunteer. We should be able to keep meeting participation to a minimum if we can review and comment on documents via e-mail. We'd like to hear from you by May 19 so that we can get this project underway.
WOW Search Workshop Reinforces Importance of Accessible Web Design for Best Search Results
On April 26 and 27, WOW and the NYS Forum co-sponsored a Search Workshop in Albany. Professor Bebo White was the presenter, and provided a wealth of information about how search engines work, how web content is indexed, and how proper markup and accessible design can improve your site's searchability.
TITLES - Not only provide context for your users, but appear in your search results as the title of the result entry -- make sure they are meaningful and accurate.
HEADINGS - Search engines will zero in on H1 tags, so make sure you use meaningful language for them.
META ELEMENTS - Use the meta element and attributes to provide additional information about which categories might be a good fit for your content.
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*** RECENT NEWS ITEMS (Target Lawsuit, W3C!, Opera browser, Jakob Neilsen, and more) ***
Accessibility Issue Comes to a Head
Target lawsuit could be a test case; new wave of apps concerns blind users
by Carol Sliwa
(from the ComputerWorld Web site)
May 08, 2006 (Computerworld) -- Bruce Sexton Jr. wants to be able to access the same Web content that anyone else can. Because he can't, he now finds himself at the center of a potentially precedent-setting legal fight over Web site accessibility.
Sexton, who is legally blind, relies on software that reads his PC's screen from left to right and top to bottom, skipping ahead when he uses keyboard-based shortcuts. When he visits Target Corp.'s Web site, a robotic voice announces staccato-style the presence of alternative text to describe images of the retailer's logo and its "Target dog" mascot.
For the full article, visit this link: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=13&articleId=111219 
W3C Announces New CSS 2.1 Working Draft
(From the W3C Web Site)
On April 11, the CSS Working Group published a Working Draft of Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 revision 1 (CSS 2.1). This working draft contains most of the changes that resulted from comments on the previous draft, but not all of them. It is published in the hope that it can help people check that those changes are correct. It is expected that the next publication will be a Candidate Recommendation.
CSS 2.1 builds on CSS2 [CSS2] which builds on CSS1 [CSS1]. It supports media-specific style sheets so that authors may tailor the presentation of their documents to visual browsers, aural devices, printers, braille devices, handheld devices, etc. It also supports content positioning, table layout, features for internationalization and some properties related to user interface.
CSS 2.1 corrects a few errors in CSS2 (the most important being a new definition of the height/width of absolutely positioned elements, more influence for HTML's "style" attribute and a new calculation of the 'clip' property), and adds a few highly requested features which have already been widely implemented. But most of all CSS 2.1 represents a "snapshot" of CSS usage: it consists of all CSS features that are implemented interoperably at the date of publication of the Recommendation.
CSS 2.1 is derived from and is intended to replace CSS2. Some parts of CSS2 are unchanged in CSS 2.1, some parts have been altered, and some parts removed. The removed portions may be used in a future CSS3 specification. Future specs should refer to CSS 2.1
To review the CSS 2.1 Working Draft, visit http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-CSS21-20060411/ .
W3C Releases Mobile Web Best Practices
(From W3C web site)
The The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group has released a second Last Call Working Draft of Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0. The draft describes how to produce Web content and Web sites intended for delivery to mobile and small-screen devices. This draft lists 60 items to consider when designing a site for use with mobile devices, ranging from the simple ("Use clear and simple language.") to the less obvious ("Label all controls appropriately and explicitly associate labels with controls."). To view the best practice document, visit http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-mobile-bp-20060412/ .
What is most interesting is that most of the same best practices benefitting mobil web users are recommended in creating an accessible site.
To read about the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, a joint effort by authoring tool vendors, content providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators, visit http://www.w3.org/Mobile/ .
Last Call: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has released a Last Call Working Draft of "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0," Working Drafts of "Understanding WCAG 2.0" and "Techniques for WCAG 2.0," and "About Baselines for WCAG 2.0." Following WCAG makes Web content more accessible to the vast majority of users, including people with disabilities and older users, using many different devices including a wide variety of assistive technologies. Comments are welcome through 31 May. Read about the Web Accessibility Initiative.
- http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-WCAG20-20060427/
- http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-20060427/
- http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-WCAG20-TECHS-20060427/
- http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/baseline/
- http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/comments/
- http://www.w3.org/WAI/
Accessites.org: Raising the Bar on Site Accessibility
That's the mission of web site Accessites.org, a site that seeks "Accessible, Usable, Universal, & Stunning Web Designs". In addition to providing a revolving showcase for sites that meet this group's exacting criteria, you'll also find good tips (such as how to implement Skip Navigation links), discussions on aspects of accessible web design, and a good resource list. This site's selections exemplify the idea that accessible does NOT have to be boring.
New Usability Book Co-Authored by Usability Expert Nielsen
"Prioritizing Web Usability", a new book on usability, co-authored by usability expert Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger, has just been released. Nielsen's last, wildly popular book, was "Designing for Web Site Usability". Here is an excerpt from the Amazon.com web site's review:
"The best-selling usability guru is back and has revisited his classic guide, joined forces with Web usability consultant Hoa Loranger, and created an updated companion book that covers the essential changes to the Web and usability today. Prioritizing Web Usability is the guide for anyone who wants to take their Web site(s) to next level and make usability a priority! Through the authors' wisdom, experience, and hundreds of real-world user tests and contemporary Web site critiques, you'll learn about site design, user experience and usability testing, navigation and search capabilities, old guidelines and prioritizing usability issues, page design and layout, content design, and more!"
Opera's Browser Now Has Voice
The latest stable version of Opera, version 8, now offers a feature that allows the user to control the browser interface by talking, and to have documents read aloud. The feature is offered in English and works with Windows 2000 or XP. A headset with a microphone is required. The Opera Voice page (http://opera.com/voice ) includes quick tips, a tutorial, customization notes, and tips on authoring sites for use with Voice.
U. S. Access Board Calls for Volunteers to Review Section 508
Over the summer, the U. S. Access Board plans to initiate steps this summer to review and update its access standards for electronic and information technology covered by section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. These standards cover products and technologies procured by the Federal government, including computer hardware and software, websites, phone systems, fax machines, and copiers, among others. The constantly changing nature of the technologies covered necessitates periodic reviews of these standards. This effort, which will be the first update of the standards since their publication in late 2000, will address new or convergent types of technologies and other areas where the standards need to be revisited. The Board considers it important that this work be coordinated on an international scale.
For more information on the updates, see http://www.access-board.gov/news/508update.htm .
Deaf, Perhaps, But Not Mute (see the related 'Forum member item' after this article)
From www.wired.com
By Ryan Singel
02:00 AM Apr, 13, 2006
An FCC program for the deaf sounds like the modern equivalent of ringing Mabel the operator down at the phone exchange so she can patch through your call. Assuming, of course, that Mabel has signing skills.
The system, called video relay services, or VRS, is proving a godsend to the deaf and hearing-impaired, allowing them to communicate using American Sign Language through a translator to a third party.
Increasing numbers of the hearing-impaired are now using various sorts of video phones with VRS to place calls to each other and to the hearing world.
VRS providers are paid approximately $6 a minute by the FCC from a tax levied on every U.S. phone bill. That makes VRS an expensive replacement for conventional TDD-based services, in which an operator relays between a deaf person typing on a computer terminal and a hearing person on the phone. Those calls cost the FCC about $1 a minute.
But the technology is a quantum leap for deaf people, according to Pat Nola, CEO of Sorenson Communications, the nation's largest VRS provider.
For the deaf, switching to the new service is like a hearing person going from Morse code to a telephone, says Nola.
"What is subtle is that American Sign Language is spoken with hands, and it is so different than English," Nola said. "With VRS, the hearing and deaf can be connected in the natural language of both parties, and it is a very effective way to communicate emotions since the interpreter emotes.... To communicate the emotions you hear in a person's voice, the interpreter signs in a certain way to a deaf person."
Grant Laird Jr., who runs the community site Deaf Network, concurs.
"You are able to express your emotion thru VRS with your natural sign language -- unlike TTY (teletype terminals) with limited text messages (where) no emotion shows," said Laird, a 36-year-old semiconductor specialist at Texas Instruments who is deaf. "We are getting close to 100 percent independent."
Laird uses a video phone to call his parents, who are also deaf, though he says they are only slowly adapting to the new technology.
Members of Laird's immediate family all carry mobile devices, such as the Sidekick, to keep in touch using instant messaging. His wife is also deaf, and they have two teenage daughters who are not hearing-impaired.
He also uses a competing VRS service from LifeLinks, which provides the deaf with a broadband connection, a webcam and video-phone software from SightSpeed. LifeLinks provides VRS translators, but the deaf can also use the software for free calls to other deaf people.
SightSpeed's service, which is free for anyone to use, includes a video-mail inbox and technology that refreshes only the most important aspects of a video frame in order to optimize the frame rate, according to SightSpeed President Scott Lomond.
Laird says he likes SightSpeed for work and travel, but says it has its limitations. For instance, when using SightSpeed in a room without good lighting, Laird is forced to slow down his signing so he can be understood by the interpreter.
By comparison, Sorenson provides the deaf with a company-designed video camera called the VP-100, which sits on top of a television and shows the interpreter or deaf friend full-screen. The company allows deaf people to place calls to and from each other for free -- a popular feature that enjoys almost eight times the use of Sorenson's VRS service, according to CEO Nola.
***** Forum member item *****
Dan and Rachel Short have the Sorenson video relay setup in their home. Father-in-law Mike has watched Rachel use it to order pizza. It's much faster than the TTY setup. For example, the signer can be voice while Rachel signs, and signing while the pizza guy talks. In a TTY setup, not only are you typing, which is slower, but it's completely synchronous, with the conversation going in only one direction at a time.