IT Accessibility Committee October 2005 Newsletter

### Edited by Joel Obuchowski

NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING

The IT Accessibility Committee will be meeting on Thursday, October 13, from 2:30 - 4:00 p.m. at the Forum's offices, 411 State Street in Albany. Plenty of free parking is available in Washington Park, right across the street. We'll be discussing upcoming presentations, as well as progress in a number of program areas, such as agency consulting and the progress of planning for the GOER/PEF training series on web design.

"ACCESSIBLE CAN BE BEAUTIFUL" CONTEST WINNER NAMED

The winner of the IT Accessibility Committee's "Accessible Can Be Beautiful" web site redesign contest was announced at the Webmasters' Guild 10th Anniversary Celebration, held on Thursday, October 6 at the Crown Plaza in Albany.

The winning design was entered by Charlynda Winkley, Assistant Director of Web Services at the University at Buffalo, who captured a cash prize of $500.00. We expect that Charlynda's design will be implemented on our Committee web site by the end of October.

Our congratulations go out to Charlynda, who was unable to attend the festivities. Her design was presented by Kathy Farrell from Empire State College, who coordinated the entries, and Committee Co-Chair Lisa Ryan from Microknowledge, who managed the judging. Our thanks also to Lisa and Kathy for the wonderful job they did in selecting the winner.

You can find out more about Charlynda's work by visiting her web site, http://www.charlynda.com (External Link).

THREE COMMITTEE PRESENTATIONS AT GTC

Members of the IT Accessibility Committee participated in three sessions at this year's GTC East conference, held in Albany in September.

Sharon Trerise from the Northeast ADA & IT Center moderated a discussion by Marilyn Cordell from OFT and Kathleen Anderson from Connecticut on the similarities and differences between the states' approaches to accessibility. Those who attended enjoyed a thought-provoking and informative discussion of the issues involved.

Jason Gleman delivered an encore of of his popular "CSS For Your Web Site" presentation to a full house.

Mike Short delivered his annual "Usability and Accessibility for Your Web Site" presentation to an audience with lots of good questions.

UPCOMING COMMITTEE PRESENTATIONS

October 13 - CTG'S XML Testbed Project

We will be presenting an overview on accessibility and a quick tour of New York's Mandatory Technology Standards for the organizations chosen as participants in the project.

November 2 - Rochester

(See "Accessibility Workshop Planned ... " in "Upcoming Training Sessions" below for details about this session)

November 16 - Albany, Presentation for Capital Area Technology Association Monthly Meeting http://www.cataconnect.com (External Link)

Mike Short will introduce the subject of accessibility by presenting our first two modules, Law and Policy and the Introduction to Web Experience for Disabled Visitors and Eating the Elephant.

UPCOMING TRAINING SESSIONS

SPECIAL NOTE: Many of you have asked to be made aware of training opportunities in the Western part of the state, so that you could alert your colleagues in that region. Please spread the word about this session to anyone you know of in the area. The training is free, and everyone -- public and private sector alike -- is welcome to attend.

ACCESSIBILITY WORKSHOP PLANNED FOR ROCHESTER AREA

Save the Date! - Wednesday, November 2

For DESIGNING ACCESSIBLE WEB SITES

R. Thomas Flynn Campus Center

Monroe Community College

1000 E. Henrietta Road

Rochester, NY

Jointly hosted by The NYS Forum's IT Accessibility Committee, ADA & IT Center, Cornell University and Intercon Associates, Inc., in conjunction with U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) & Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired-Goodwill Industries (ABVI)

The NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee and Cornell University's Northeast ADA & IT Center will present several modules on web site accessibility:

Background in Policy and Law
Eating the Elephant (how to get started)
Images and Visual Elements
HTML Forms

The GSA Experience - How to Design Accessible Forms - A Unique Team Approach. GSA will build on the Committee's morning session to demonstrate a simple and effective way of web-enabling your forms using Intercon's Accessible FormNet

Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired - Goodwill Industries - Validating Your E-forms for Accessibility and Usability. ABVI will talk about their quality assurance program in which e-forms are tested by users of assistive technology.

You can register for this program on the Forum web site: http://www.nysforum.org/seminars/accessibledesign-11-2-05/

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ONLINE COURSE: DESIGNING UNIVERSALLY ACCESSIBLE WEB RESOURCES

If you are interested in designing web pages that are universally accessible by people using PDAs and other mobile technologies, various web browsers, various types of assistive technologies, take advantage of this online opportunity to learn more.

Dates: Tuesdays and Thursdays, Oct. 11 through Dec. 15

Time: 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. EST

Instructor: Jon Gunderson, Ph.D, ATP, Disability Resources and Educational Services, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign

Fee: $349 (3.2 continuing education credits are available).

To learn more about the online course and to register, visit http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/courses (External Link). The course is REHAB711NC.

(Reprinted with permission from the Northeast ADA & IT Center's Accessible IT Technical Bulletin, Oct. 2005)

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OCTOBER ACCESSIBILITY CLINIC

This month's accessibility clinic will be held on Tuesday, October 18 from 1:00 to 3:00, and will be the IT Accessibility Committee's version of an Open Mike meeting.

This web accessibility clinic will include an open Question and Answer session, followed by one-on-one accessibility guidance. Bring your web pages on a Flash Drive or CD to work on them in the clinic with expert help available in the room.

To sign up, go to https://www3.oft.state.ny.us/glc/index.cfm and click on "List all courses." The classes are listed chronologically, so scroll down to October 18th and click on the link to register. As always, clinics are free and are a great way to learn new techniques.

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FREE TRAINING EVENT THIS MONTH

In honor of their twenty years of service, the folks at MicroKnowledge are demonstrating their appreciation by hosting a series of free training events for their customers. The first is of particular interest to committee members: Understanding Web Accessibility will be held on Tuesday, October 25, from 8:00 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. at the Empire State College building, 21 British American Boulevard in Latham.

From the brochure:

"Variation in human ability is ordinary, not special, and affects most of us for some part of our lives. The principles involved in creating accessible web sites benefits all users, many using newly-emerging technologies such as cell phones, PDAs and more."

Microknowledge accessibility expert and Webmaster Eleonora Morrell will explain the background and benefits to accessibility and provide insight as to how your business can benefit from learning about this often daunting topic. Subjects to be covered include:

Understanding Accessibility
The Legal and Business Case for Accessibility
Demonstration of Special Tools.

If you're interested in attending, call 518-786-1181 or e-mail Mary Miller at mmiller@microknowledge.com.

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NEW SOFTWARE TO ASSIST WITH CREATING ACCESSIBLE FORMATS

Legislation such as New York's Chapter 219, the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard and similar legislation in other states has prompted software vendors to respond to the demand for easier ways to convert text and instructional content to alternative accessible formats. Texthelp Systems is one vendor who has responded to this demand by developing Lexiflow which will convert textbook publisher's content to a new digital format.

Lexiflow works with Adobe Acrobat to convert publisher's textbooks and other instructional materials saved in PDF format to an electronic "talking Flash" presentation. Designed to work on both Macintosh and Windows platforms, this software will allow the student to view the document in its original format and see the words highlighted as they are read aloud using text-to-speech technology.

Read more about this software in a Yahoo Financial News article, Texthelp Systems Enables Textbook Publishers to Meet Growing School Accessibility Requirements with New Software That Automatically Converts Digital Documents to Talking Flash Format http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050927/275340.html?.v=1 (External Link).

NIELSEN NAMES HIS TOP TEN

On October 3, noted usability expert Jakob Nielsen named his Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005.

The winners won't be surprising to regular readers of Nielsen's columns:

  1. Legibility Problems
  2. Non-Standard Links
  3. Flash
  4. Content That's Not Written for the Web
  5. Bad Search
  6. Browser Incompatibility
  7. Cumbersome Forms
  8. No Contact Information or Other Company Information
  9. Frozen Layouts with Fixed Page Widths
  10. Inadequate Photo Enlargement

You can read the details at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html (External Link).

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PROGRAM OF INTEREST TO THOSE INVOLVED IN INSTRUCTIONAL SETTINGS

Video: Accessible Information Technology in Education: Building Toward a Better Future

AccessIT has created a video entitled "Accessible Information Technology in Education: Building Toward a Better Future" that presents the voices of students with disabilities and experts in accessible IT as they discuss the importance of ensuring that information technology is accessible in educational settings. It will broadcast on the following dates on University of Washington Television (UWTV) which can be accessed nationwide on the DISH network:

Tues Oct 4 at 9:30pm
Friday Oct 7 at 4:30pm
Sunday Oct 9 at 2:30pm
Wed Oct 12 at 10:30am
Thurs Oct 13 at 7pm

If you are unable to see the video at these times or are unable to access UWTV, keep an eye on the AccessIT website ( http://www.washington.edu/accessit/index.php (External Link)) as they will soon be streaming the video via the Internet. DVD and VHS versions will be available soon through the site, along with pricing and ordering information.

(Reprinted with permission from the Northeast ADA & IT Center's October Technical Bulletin)

REALITY CHECK

From the W3 Schools site http://www.w3schools.com (External Link):

Their top three browsers for September 2005:
Internet Explorer 6 - 59.8%
Firefox - 18.0%
Internet Explorer 5 - 5.7%

(The site did post a disclaimer explaining that their higher-than-average instance of Firefox usage was attributible to the fact the site is popular with web developers.)

The most popular screen resolutions for July 2005:
1024x768 - 55%
800x640 - 25%
Higher than 1024x768 - 14%
The color depth most commonly used on visitor displays for July 2005:
16,777,216 colors - 77%
65,536 colors - 20%
Lower than 65,536 - 3%
Percentages using JavaScript for July 2005:
90% had JavaScript turned ON
10% had JavaScript turned OFF

DID YOU KNOW:

Mozilla is a framework for building web applications.

For the full scoop, see http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_mozilla.asp (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), Debi Orton (dorton@goer.state.ny.us) or Lisa Ryan (lryan@MicroKnowledge.com) to let them know.