NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee

November 2008 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

November 13, 2008
2:30pm - 4:00pm
Empire State Plaza, Meeting Room 7 (behind the elevators for the Egg),
Albany, NY

Among the topics to be discussed:

  • Recent presentations in White Plains and Florida
  • Status of the validation tool

UPCOMING EVENTS

The December 5 Webmasters' Guild meeting will focus on web usability, including speakers from state agencies who included usability considerations in their recent site redesigns.

RECENT NEWS

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 is a Proposed Recommendation

2008-11-03: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a Proposed Recommendation, and published updated Working Drafts of Understanding WCAG 2.0, Techniques for WCAG 2.0, and How to Meet WCAG 2.0. WCAG defines how to make Web sites, Web applications, and other Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Comments are welcome through 2 December 2008.

Read the announcement, Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-WCAG20-20081103/ (External Link)

This is the last step in the process to become a full recommendation.

See also:
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/2008/11/05/wcag2-proposal/ (External Link)

Introduction to Accessibility Session in White Plains

The Forum IT Accessibility Committee held a half-day "Introduction to Web Accessibility" session on October 27, 2008, from 10:00 to 1:00 at the New York Power Authority, Jaguar Room, 123 Main Street in White Plains.

The agenda included:

  • Building a Business Case for Web Accessibility
  • Background in Policy and Law
  • Eating the Elephant
  • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
  • Tables and Forms
  • Testing Your Content for Accessibility

Although the turnout was low, the audience was very engaged in the session and asked great questions.

EduCause 2008

Forum IT Accessibility committee members Mike Short and Kathy Farrell joined HiSoftware in Orlando, FL on October 29 to present a poster session on Web Accessibility and the Web Validation Tool. The lively 75-minute session gave people from about a dozen institutions of higher learning the opportunity to investigate the issues surrounding the development of accessible web standards and the tools to ensure the standards are met.

Because the people who stopped by the booth were particularly interested in this topic, the conversations were targeted, pointed, in-depth and detailed. In addition to talking about the tool, committee members were able to tout the strong public/private partnership fostered by the Forum.

November Webmasters' Guild Mini-Presentation

Recent changes in CIO/OFT Accessibility Policy and Standard were explained at the November 7 Webmasters' Guild meeting. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the change summary, please contact Debi Orton (dorton@goer.state.ny.us) to request a copy.

RESOURCES

(For the non-WebAIM resources, thanks to Mike Hritcko of the NYS Insurance Fund)

(For the WebAIM resources, thanks to Debi Orton of the NYS Governor's Office of Employee Relations)

ARIA

Accessibility of Rich Internet Applications (from WebAIM) This article provides an overview of ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) and demonstrates how it can be used to resolve many of the accessibility issues found in dynamic, complex web applications and widgets. Additional ARIA documentation and examples will be coming to the WebAIM site in the near future.
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/aria/ (External Link)

ARIA Plug-ins for YUI Widgets
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/10/02/yui-aria/ (External Link)

Examining WAI-ARIA Live Regions
http://juicystudio.com/article/examining-wai-aria-live-regions.php (External Link)

Set of ARIA Test Cases
http://wiki.codetalks.org/wiki/index.php/Set_of_ARIA_Test_Cases (External Link)

WAI-ARIA based Accessibility Library
http://www.access-see-be.net/ (External Link)

AJAX

AxsJax-Access-Enabling AJAX
http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/ (External Link)

SCREEN READERS

JavaScript & screen readers
http://northtemple.com/2008/10/07/javascript-and-screen-readers (External Link)

VALIDATION

Free Site Validator
http://freesitevalidator.com/ (External Link)

Juicy Studio Accessibility Toolbar 1.25 (Firefox extension)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9108 (External Link)

Linkification, part II
http://cameronmoll.com/archives/2008/10/linkification2 (External Link)

Web Accessibility Gone Wild (from WebAIM)
This article presents a wide variety of mistakes, misconceptions, over-indulgences, intricacies, and generally silly aspects of modern accessibility.
http://www.webaim.org/articles/gonewild/ (External Link)

Web Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: Better Than a Poke in the Eye With a Stick?
http://www.notesondesign.net/inspiration/design/web-accessibility-guidelines-20-better-than-a-poke-in-the-eye-with-a-stick/ (External Link)