NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee

November 2007 Newsletter

### Edited by Joel Obuchowski

NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING

Thursday, November 8
2:30 - 4:00 p.m. at the Forum offices
411 State Street, Albany

Topics:

Status of the NYS Validation Tool project, next steps, etc. We're hoping that some of the members of the desktop version validation team will be in attendance to discuss their findings with the product.
We would also like your feedback on how we're planning registration and disposition will be handled.
Planning for future presentations (CATA, Governor's AT Expo, etc.) - need to nail down programs and assign resources

NEWS

NYS Validation Tool

With the contract signed, development has begun on the NYS Validation Tool (VT). After signing a contract with the Forum via the Research Foundation, HiSoftware has jumped right in.

The contract calls for two deliverables: an online validation tool that can be used to evaluate public web sites, and a desktop tool that will work behind agency firewalls. "The online tool will be Cynthia Says on Steroids, " says Tammy Cosseboom of HiSoftware. It will have the ability to do single page validations on demand, and large, multiple page validations on a deferred basis. The tool will email the developer when the multiple page scan is complete, providing a link to the report. The desktop tool is a version of HiSoftware's AccRepair tool, with customized reports for the NYS Standards.

Testing has begun on the desktop tool. Twelve volunteers are kicking the tires on the product. The online tool will be evaluated by a team of six people, with testing expected to start within the next two weeks. HiSoftware believes they are on target to deliver the tools in December.

The contract includes one-year licenses for 250 desktop devices. Distribution plans are in the works. The online tool will be available to any NY State developer, including contractors working on New York web sites. The contract covers the first year license of the online validation site.

National Federal for the Blind v. Target Case Moves Back Into the Spotlight
(From: ADA Technical Bulletin: November 2007)

On Oct. 2, a federal district court judge issued two landmark decisions in a nationwide class action against Target Corporation. First, the court certified the case as a class action on behalf of blind Internet users throughout the country under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Second, the court held that web sites such as target.com are required by California law to be accessible. Larry Paradis of Disability Rights Advocates, one of the lead counsels for the class, commented on the court's decision: "Target Corporation has led a battle against blind consumers in a key area of modern life: the Internet economy. The court's decision today makes clear that people with disabilities no longer can be treated as second-class citizens in any sphere of mainstream life. This ruling will benefit hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities." Target spokeswoman Carolyn Brookter said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg: "Target is committed to serving all of our guests and we believe that our web site is fully accessible and complies with all applicable laws". At issue in the federal case is whether the web is a place of public accommodation. If the federal case is decided in favor of the NFB, it may mean that businesses that ignore web accessibility may become liable for similar suits.

More information can be found at http://www.dralegal.org/cases/private_business/nfb_v_target.php

National Chamber of Commerce and People with Disabilities Collaboration

** This is one example of an organization taking a step to improve awareness on the challenges faced by people with disabilities. If you would like to do something similar in your organization, the NYS Forum's IT Accessibility Committee may be able to help you by identifying resources or providing a speaker for your events. **

The Chamber of Commerce along with individuals with disabilities and caregives are collaborating on helping to grow and develop businesses. Their new services will include,such things as:
A list of Disability Businesses categorized by industry and by disability (with information on the Disability Businesses and links to their websites)
A forum and blogs pertaining to business and disability issues.
A periodic newsletter as described below.
Business and disability resources, including information provided by business experts and links to established business and disability organizations. These links will include information on obtaining government grants and other sources of capital.
Webinars (web-based seminars) on various business topics that pertain to Disability Businesses.
For more information, visit their website at http://www.disabilitychamber.org/index.html

Section 508 Update Near Completion

As we reported to you last year, the federal Access Board has begun a mandated review of Section 508 to assess its usefulness and determine whether changes were required. Jared Smith, a technical specialist at WebAim.org has been involved in the process of analyzing what changes are needed, and reports on some of the most significant changes proposed at http://webaim.org/blog/section-508-to-be-updated/.

 

FEATURE ARTICLES

Standard 5: Flicker/Blink

5.1 Web screen elements will not have a flicker rate with a frequency between 2Hz and 55Hz.

When it comes to flickering or blinking content on a web site, the best advice is: Don't! In addition to posing the risk of triggering a seizure in someone with epilepsy, employing flickering/blinking elements is annoying.

What's ARIA and why should I care?

Technologies such as dynamic HTML (DHTML), asynchronous JavaScript applications (AJAX ), Napster and BitTorrent (filesharing), blogs (weblogs), and wikis (user-created information repositories) are cornerstone ingredients in the trend called "Web 2.0", where the emphasis is not so much on presenting static information as on making a web site a compelling experience for the user. Users are invited to participate, directly, as in blogs and wikis, or indirectly, as in using AJAX components to develop a personal portal for a web sites such as My Yahoo.

The ability to customize what information they want to see and which widgets are displayed for them is intended to make users invest in the web sites, to feel a sense of ownership. These are doubtless beneficial to users, saving them time and clicks, but if not implemented correctly, these new tools can exclude users with disabilities using assistive technology.

For example, most context-sensitive menu systems are unavailable to those using a screen reading program to navigate web content. When the screen reader opens a web page, it saves a copy of that web page to its own memory buffer. If the user selects a menu item that generates a context-sensitive sub-menu, the user will not see the sub-menu because it appears on the "live" web page, not the in-local-memory copy the user's screen reader is using.

To help developers include users with disabilities, the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has established a workgroup within their Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) called the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) workgroup. The group has developed a roadmap, a strategy, and several supporting documents, designed to implement an accessible alternative to many of the dynamic behaviors used with Web 2.0.

As explained on the WAI-ARIA web site: "WAI-ARIA addresses these accessibility challenges by defining how information about these features can be provided to assistive technology. More specifically, ARIA provides a framework for adding attributes to identify features for user interaction, how they relate to each other, and their current state. With ARIA, an advanced Web application can be made accessible and usable to people with disabilities."

The ARIA project is also in discussions with the HTML 5 workgroup and the XHTML workgroups to find ways of integrating accessible rich Internet applications into successive versions of those two markup languages. We are fortunate to have engaged the Chairperson of the WAI-ARIA task force, IBM Distinguished Fellow Richard Schwerdtfeger for the December Webmasters' Guild Meeting. Mr. Schwerdtfeger will provide an overview of ARIA concepts and principles and may be able to shed some light on the future direction web technologies might take. We will be sending out a formal announcement to register for the December 7th meeting in the near future. This is one meeting we are sure you will want to attend.

 

RESOURCES

User Test Cases for HTML 5

As part of the activities of the W3C's HTML 5 workgroup, member Joshue O'Connor posted a series of videos that demonstrate how someone using a screen reader accesses the web using various accessibility features. You can find links to all of these videos and explanations of what they demonstrate on the WebAim.org site at: http://webaim.org/blog/accessible_tables_test_cases/

 

Accessibility Awareness

Michael Hritcko of the New York State Insurance Fund submitted this address to a video clip hosted on YouTube. We are providing this to help promote how those with disabilities to browse the World Wide Web. As most people are curious about adaptive technology, this is an excellent example of how such technology can truly expand someone's world, if the developer does his/her job properly.

In this example, here is a video of a boy with Spinal Muscular Atrophy who use a host of assistive devices to accomplish this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=capg1FmXYUI