NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee

September 2009 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

September 10, 2009, 2:30pm - 4:00pm
**** NOTE! The meeting will be held at a different location this month.

AT&T Operations
1205 Troy Schenectady Road, Suite 101
Latham, New York

Directions from Albany:
Take 87 N to exit 6 toward Schenectady/Watervliet
Turn left at NY 7 Troy Schenectady Road
Proceed approximately 3.1 miles
Turn right at Riverhill Center
Bear left around the complex to Building # 1205
Go to suite 101 (on right in Building)
Bear left and we will be in the conference room on the right

Please contact Laura Edlund at 518-339-0444 if you need assistance with directions.

At this meeting, we will be discussing the following:
Agency Consulting
Training Progress
New Co-Chairs!! New delegations!
Title II settlement agreements - recent Department Of Justice Rulings
CIO/OFT's call for comments on adopting section 508 and Committee response
Upcoming Presentations
Adopting 508 and Draft response
HTML 5.0

UPCOMING EVENTS

September 9, 2009

U.S. Department of Agriculture's TARGET Center Webinar on captioning YouTube videos

http://www.da.usda.gov/oo/target/discovery/index.html

September 22, 2009.

LOW VISION TECHNOLOGY FAIR
This fair is being sponsored by the Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany (NABA).
The purpose of the "Low Vision Technology Fair" is to showcase the latest in low vision technologies.
Persons with vision difficulty as well as family members, caregivers, educators and healthcare professionals are encouraged to attend.
The fair is free to the public and light refreshments will be available.

9 AM to 3 PM
Beltrone Living Center
Six Winners Circle
Colonie, New York

For more information about the fair, please contact Cheryl Lawyer at (518) 463-1211 x234 or via e-mail at: clawyer@naba-vision.org.

September 25, 2009

Accessibility and Web-Delivered Training

NYS Training and Development Council at OASAS
1450 Western Avenue
2pm to 4pm

October 2009

Accessible PDFs Demonstration

Date coming soon!

November 2009

"Writing for the Web"

Date coming soon!

RECENT NEWS

U.S. Access Board to Release Pre-Draft of New Section 508/255 Standards
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=424

"Get Ready for HTML 5" by J. David Eisenberg
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/get-ready-for-html-5/

FEATURE ARTICLE

It's been a long and winding road.

Debi Orton has been working to raise awareness and teach accessibility for over ten years. Mike Short was claimed when Deborah Buck literally put her hand on his shoulder in the State Museum back in November 1999. Or it could be 1998. No one really knows anymore. That first session increased the number of people who understood the issue from approximately four to at least fifty. The drive for accessibility in New York was underway.

There were some vivid mileposts along the way. We were there attending a session on accessibility in the LOB at GTC on September 11, 2001. We went on break and never came back. And nothing was the same, although nothing had really changed.

We served together on the official ITASC (Information Technology Accessibility Steering Committee). We did the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator together, and discovered that we were similar, but not the same, driven by similar motivators, but not the same motivators, driven to get things done, but not for the same reasons. We learned that we complemented each other.

ITASC died a bureaucratic death from apathy, not among the committee members, but those outside the committee who had moved on to other priorities. The accessibility issue didn't go away, though; it was just placed on simmer. ITASC had tried to release FAQs on the 99-3 policy, but they got bound up in OFT counsel's office. ITASC tried to get the policy updated, but the effort just withered for lack of interest.

Greg Benson and the Forum Executive Committee thought accessibility was important, important enough to form a Forum working committee. He called Debi. Debi said she'd do it, but only if Mike agreed to join her. He did, because the passion had not gone away for either of them. So another Forum committee was formed, this one with strong support, and the results were amazingly different.

The interest was high. At the AT Expo in 2004, we had 200 participants in our Intro to Accessibility class. It was at this class that we were able to appeal to OFT to replace the policy, and get the traction we needed to accomplish this. The hybrid standards were born. ITASC had tried to do this three years earlier, and failed. It turned out that politics worked better than an official charge.

The Committee got FAQs out in six weeks, because there were no lawyers. It was an outside organization's opinion and did not have the force of official policy, so we could be nimble in publishing it. Finally, the information that people had been dying for was available.

Developers were hungry for information: for commentary and support for the standards, for techniques, and for tools. The tools took a while, but with Greg's support and a lot of hard work by a lot of people, a tool was built during the fall of 2006. This effort won national recognition.

The Committee was able to partner with the Governor's Office of Employee Relations and the Public Employees Federation to create the award-winning Successful Web Communications in NYS Government. The committee also partnered with the Webmasters' Guild and the World Organization of Webmasters to bring high-quality, cutting edge training to local web developers.

Debi was the engine, Mike the chrome. Debi hates talking in front of a large group. Mike loves it. Mike does not have the single-minded purpose and drive that Debi has behind the scenes. Each thinks the other got the lame end of the bargain.

But we both admit to running out of energy. The cyclical nature of the workforce's knowledge and understanding means that we have essentially started at the beginning three times to bring people along to the point where they understand the issues and care. The fourth wave looms, and we both find it daunting.

So we will slowly bow out. We both plan to be around at least the next program year, and lend OUR helping hands, hard work, and presence. We are both excited about the new leadership for the committee, and know we leave it in good hands. We are both proud of the truly stunning line of accomplishments we leave behind: the thousands of people the committee has taught and helped, the excellent policies we have been able to inform, the tools we have been able to help build, the resources that remain timely and comprehensive. We love all the people who have joined forces with us over the years to make all these things happen. We feel that the IT Accessibility Committee must rank among the most successful committees ever, and it is therefore with mixed feeling that we step back. But, it's time.

There remains a long and winding road, but we hope it is not quite so long, nor quite so winding as it was ten years ago. We know it is not as lonely. We wish you all a good journey.

RESOURCES

provided by Mike Hritcko, NYS Insurance Fund

Firebug released version 1.4, which includes accessibility enhancements.

Blind web devs, jump on the Firebug train!
http://www.marcozehe.de/2009/07/16/blind-web-devs-jump-on-the-firebug-train/

Accessibility Enhancements in Firebug 1.4
http://clients.paciellogroup.com/firebug/firebug.html

Improving Accessibility Through ARIA
http://blog.mozilla.com/webdev/2009/07/02/improving-accessibility-through-aria/

"Creating Accessible Sites in Flash" (Tutorial)
http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/flash/tutorial/

Mozilla's Crowdsourcing Mystique
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2009/tc2009071_384108.htm

Open Web Tools Directory
http://tools.mozilla.com/simple.html