IT Accessibility Committee April October 2006

Guest Editor: Debi Orton

This month's IT Accessibility Committee Meeting will be held on October 12, 2006 at the Forum offices, 411 State Street, Albany from 2:30 - 4:00 p.m.

Among the topics to be discussed are status updates on:

  • Successful Web Communications, Phase II
  • Development of Online Learning Components from our Curricula
  • Status of Policy/Standard changes and Best Practice document awaiting CIO approval
  • "Adoption" of sections of the Committee web site - need volunteers
  • Plans for the December Web Guild/Adobe presentation
  • Status of the validation tool project.

You can find the minutes of our last meeting on the Forum site at:
http://www.nysforum.org/committees/access/meetingsummary/September2006-Access-Minutes.htm

STANDARDS WATCH - News from the W3C
WAI Tackles Dynamic Web Content

The Protocols and Formats Working Group has released First Public Working Drafts of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA). The "Roadmap" describes accessibility of dynamic Web content built with technologies such as AJAX and DHTML. "Roles" provides mappings for user interface controls and navigation APIs. "States and Properties" associates behaviors with document-level markup. Read the press release and visit the Web Accessibility Initiative home page:

http://www.w3.org/2006/09/aria-pressrelease (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-aria-roadmap-20060926/ (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-aria-role-20060926/ (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-aria-state-20060926/ (External Link)

Web Services Policy 1.5: Working Drafts

The Web Services Policy Working Group has released updated Working Drafts of Web Services Policy 1.5. The Policy "Framework" defines a model for expressing the nature of Web services in order to convey conditions for their interaction. "Attachment" defines how to associate policies, for example within WSDL or UDDI, with subjects to which they apply. Read about Web services:

http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-ws-policy-20060927/ (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-ws-policy-attach-20060927/ (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ (External Link)

XMLHttpRequest Object for AJAX: Working Draft

The Web API Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of "The XMLHttpRequest Object." The draft documents features of the XMLHttpRequest object, the core component of AJAX. The interface allows scripts to perform HTTP client functions, such as submitting form data or loading data from a remote Web site. Read about the Rich Web Clients Activity:

http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-XMLHttpRequest-20060927/ (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/2006/rwc/ (External Link)

Selectors API: Working Draft

The Web APIs Working Group released an updated Working Draft of "Selectors API." Methods are defined for identifying elements in a document for the purpose of performing script or Document Object Model (DOM) operations on them. Selectors defined in the CSS3 Selectors specification are used to identify the elements. Visit the Web APIs Working Group home page:

http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-selectors-api-20060926/ (External Link)
http://www.w3.org/2006/webapi/ (External Link)

IN THE NEWS

From the National Center for Accessible Media:

Captioned Radio? Yes!

The Media Access Group at WGBH is working with National Public Radio to make "As Deaf Culture Changes, So Do the Questions: 'Talk of the Nation' Explores Education and Culture" accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing community. This program will will air live on Oct. 12 and it will be accessible via streaming captions on NPR's Talk of the Nation Web site (see URL below).

In this special edition of Talk of the Nation, host Neal Conan will talk with Gallaudet University President I. King Jordan about his legacy, the debate over cochlear implants, and the controversy surrounding the appointment of Jordan's successor. The conversation will be made accessible by WGBH via real-time captioning, and it will include members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, who are invited to e-mail or call in. In the show's second hour, the topic will be the shifting debate over cochlear implants.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6189253 (External Link)

Commentary on the NFB/Target.com Lawsuit

The listservs were humming late last month about a commentary published in eWeek. The columnist wonders what benefit Target was expecting from opposing the NFB complaint about their web site's accessibility problems.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2019635,00.asp?kc=EWRETEMNL092806EOAD (External Link)

OpenOffice Accessibility Project

OpenOffice.org, the popular open source alternative to proprietary office suites, has launched an accessibility project to improve and promote accessibility in the OpenOffice suite. Resources include a white paper and information on a listserv you can join to participate in the project or just ask questions.

http://ui.openoffice.org/accessibility/ (External Link)

The National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) has created a fact sheet outlining the accessibility features and concerns of OOo Writer (similar to Word). The resource also addresses accessibility considerations with documents exported to other formats, including PDF, HTML and Microsoft DOC.

http://ncdae.org/tools/factsheets/writer.cfm (External Link)

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities

The 2000 U.S. Census estimated the number of people with disabilities in the U.S. at 8%. The UN estimates the world-wide number at 650 million, or 10% of the world's population. To read more on this convention, see:

http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/ (External Link)

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

EASI Free Web conference Wed. Oct. 18 at 2 PM:
Evaluating the Accessibility and Usability of Web-based Student Services at Community Colleges
Presenters: William Erickson, Camille Lee and Sharon Trerise
All of the Employment and Disability Institute at Cornell University

These 3 presenters will be discussing a project examining the accessibility and usability of online student services on Community College websites. Specifically they will talk about:

  • the multi-pronged approach used to examine the usability and accessibility of selected community college websites,
  • specifically looking at the online admissions application process,
  • a survey of student services administrators at Community Colleges yielding information about their awareness of web accessibility issues and the existence of policies addressing accessibility,
  • a plan for disseminating the study's findings and recommendations for systems change to improve access to online students services at Community Colleges

This U.S. Dept. of Education, NIDRR-funded project is a collaborative effort between Cornell University's Employment and Disability Institute (EDI) and the Institute for Community College Development (ICCD).

Register for this Free Web conference at:

http://easi.cc/forms/webeval.htm (External Link)

Forum's Emerging Technology Committee sponsors SOA/Web Services Session

Services Oriented Architecture - The Enterprise Perspective
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
9:00 am - 12:00 pm (8:30 Registration)
Meeting Room 6, The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza
Convention Center, Albany, NY 12242

Please join The Forum's Emerging Technologies Committee as we host an in-depth seminar on Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) that will explore: business drivers and applications; technical requirements and architectures; and the challenges and benefits that surround the deployment of technology in this expanding sector.

The Agenda includes: Opening Remarks from Mike Donovan, NYS Deputy Chief Information Officer; two NYS public sector "Case-In-Point" presentations; and private sector presentations from Dan Powers, Vice President Worldwide SOA Sales, IBM, and Greg Lomow Ph.D., Senior Manager, BearingPoint and Co-Author of "Understanding SOA with Web Services." There will be an "Open Forum Q&A" session and we encourage you to participate.

http://www.nysforum.org/seminars/soa-10-31-06/

RESOURCES

Juicy Studio has proposed an algorithm designed to determine luminosity contrast between background and foreground colors, based on the RGB values of the colors being tested. For more information on this project, see this article:

http://juicystudio.com/article/luminositycontrastratioalgorithm.php (External Link)

Federal Government Issues 'Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines'

This is more information on the publication we mentioned in last month's newsletter.

Title: Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines Publisher: U. S. General Services Administration and the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services ISBN: 0-16-076270-7 Synopsis: The 2006 update of the Federal government's 209 usability guidelines. Guidelines are organized into chapters that address common web design questions relating to:

  • Design process and evaluation
  • Page layout and graphics
  • Conducting usability testing
  • Screen-based controls and widgets
  • Navigation and links
  • Writing and organizing web content
  • Searching

Each guidelines includes a "relative importance" rating that indicates how important that guideline is to the success of a web site, along with a "strength of evidence" rating that indicates how much research there is to support that guideline, and a list of supporting references.

You can order the book ($25) at

http://bookstore.gpo.gov/actions/GetPublication?stocknumber=017-022-01599-4 (External Link)

You can find the same information in a slightly different form on the web site http://usability.gov (External Link)

In an ironic twist, you can also access the book's content in PDF format at http://usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html (External Link)