Web Axe - Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips - Podcast and Blog

Web Accessibility Conferences in 2010

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 09:32:08 PST

Here are some web accessibility conferences this year, 2010. Details for some of the annual events are not announced yet. Please comment with any changes, additions, and comments.

ATIA 2010 Orlando
January 28 - 30, 2010
Caribe Royale All-Suites Resort & Convention Center
Orlando, FL USA

California Web Accessibility Conference (CalWAC) (Knowbility)
February 8 - 10, 2010, Santa Clara, CA

Techshare India 2010
15th - 16th February 2010
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India

International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference
March 22-27, 2010
San Diego, CA
Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel

Assets 2010

The 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

October 25-27, 2010

Orlando, Florida, USA

Penn State Web 2010 Conference
Keynote by Jeffrey Zeldman

W4A 2010
19th International World Wide Web Conference
April 26-27, 2010
Raleigh, NC USA
Hosted by North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Illinois Web Accessibility Conference and Expo (Jon Gunderson)

The John Slatin Access U (Knowbility)

ACCESS-IT Seminar (hosted by AbilityNet)

HighEdWeb (Higher Education Web Professionals)
October 10-13, 2010
Cincinnati, Ohio

Accessing Higher Ground
Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference
November, 2010
Colorado, USA

ICCHP
12th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs
July 14-16, 2010, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Pre-Conference July 12-13, 2010

AHEAD: Association on Higher Education And Disability
July 12-17
Denver, Colorado

An Event Apart

Seattle, April 5-7
Boston, May 24-25
Minneapolis, July 26-27
Washington, D.C., September 16-17

Featured vendor:
Mangoco.com: web design company in Virginia

2009 in Review

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:20:18 PST

Wow, what a year! Too many topics to mention, but highlights include the growing usage of ARIA, Google's good and bad, another screen reader survey by WebAIM, and the launch of Accessible Twitter! Below is a brief summary of this year's happenings on Web Axe and elsewhere; please comment on anything I've missed, which I'm sure is a lot. Cheers to a great 2010!

Also, I want to say how proud I am to be a part of the wonderful web accessibility community which has grown larger and more intimate through conferences and "Web 2.0" tools, especially Twitter. -Dennis

Web Axe Podcast Highlights

Podcast #75: Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave - two great topics!
Podcast #74: Awards, Events & Back to Basics
Podcast #71: Gez Lemon Interview & ARIA
Podcast #69: Recovery.gov Site Review - the site's been updated since, but many issues still remain.

Web Axe Blog Highlights

From WebAIM

Screen Reader User Survey Results (October)
WAVE (web accessibility evaluation tool) is now available in Spanish.
JAWS Ate My Tables
Happy 10th Birthday to WebAIM!

More Google

E-Books

Great Tips

Quick (Accessibility) Tips (with links to blogs) from 456 Berea Street.
W3C Cheatsheet

Awareness & Victor

Victor Tsaran of Yahoo is now a "web celeb" after numerous articles appeared about him and Yahoo's accessibility lab. Great web accessibility awareness! Here are a few of the articles:

Involving Users Early in Web Projects

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:37:00 PST

The W3C article Involving Users in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility gives excellent guidelines for developing accessibility in a web project. The article states:

Involving people with disabilities from the beginning of a project helps you better understand accessibility issues and implement more effective accessibility solutions.

In my experience, this couldn't be more true. Nothing is much worse than having to retro-fit an existing web site or web application for web accessibility, or having to explain what assistive technology is to the author of the specifications document. You must plan from the start, and implement at the end (an old Hijax saying). When the different teams on a project understand accessibility, including the developers, it certainly makes the project run much more smoothly and efficiently.

The article discusses the following items in detail:

How Involving Users Early Helps
How to Involve Users throughout Your Project
Getting a Range of Users
Working with Users
Combine User Involvement with Standards

These techniques can be applied to more than web sites; also assistive technologies, media players, authoring tools, policies, and technical specifications.

For more, here's the W3C blog discussing this article: Discover new ways of thinking about accessibility.

Roundup 2: Accessibility Links on Twitter

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:17:00 PST

There's so many great web accessibility links in the Twittersphere that I felt compelled to do another roundup of resources.

Must Read: Quick (Accessibility) Tips (with links to blogs) from 456 Berea Street.
JAWS Ate My Tables by Jared Smith of WebAIM.
How many disabled web users are there? by Joe Dolson (6.8% of U.S. population over 15 years old!).
Google Apps now have even better support for blind users using WAI-ARIA
Mark the Date! CalWAC - California Web Accessibility Conference February 8 - 10, 2010, Santa Clara, California.
Happy 10th Birthday WebAIM! Reflections on 10 years.
How to Maintain the Accessibility of Your Site
10 Simple Web Accessibility Tips You Can Do Today (cheers for #1!)

Podcast #76: Web Accessibility Disasters

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:43:32 PST

Dennis and Ross review web sites which should be great in web accessibility, but fail badly. The hosts provide a lot of constructive criticism, including many fixes that can be done in a minimal amount of time. Issues are also good to discuss as a reminder for our own work.

Download Web Axe Episode 76 (Web Accessibility Disasters)

Chatter

Web Design Sketchbook give-away
Dennis presented on Accessible Twitter at the Accessing Higher Ground conference
TEDxDetroit - technology, education and design
Excited about WordPress 2.9!

Articles

W3C WAI: Web Design and Applications > Accessibility: the what, why & how of web accessibility (new site design also)
Thoughts around universal access on mobile from Accessibility 2.0
Universities reject Kindle DX as a textbook replacement
Ebook Accessibility Issues Trouble OverDrive and Adobe
Accessible Tabs in the new Yahoo Homepage - recreated with YUI3 and WAI-ARIA
Dolphin Computer Access makes eBooks accessible

Web Site Disasters

Digitalaccessibiliy

Company targeting Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

The Good

Almost all of the text is marked up in HTML rather than image, flash or other media.
Simple, clean design.

The Bad

No ALT text on main banner.
Font size tool (triple whammy).
Underlines not links; links not underlined.
Headings not marked up appropriately.
Menu missing <ul>
List not a list (see Compliance page).
Inline / intrusive JavaScript.

Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

A service provided by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). JAN's mission is to facilitate the employment and retention of workers with disabilities by providing employers, employment providers, people with disabilities, and family members with information on job accommodations, entrepreneurship, and related subjects.

The Good

Textual navigation; no Javascript based navigation.
Has proper ALT text on pictures and JAN and ODEP logos.

The Bad

No heading tags; some marked up with bold tag.
There is a summary on layout table (double whammy).
No skip nav or skip to link provided.
Inline javascript. Example: <body onload="P7_ExpMenu()">
Non-breaking spacing used for layout.

The Rose Project

Mission is to provide maternal and child healthcare to the economically poor people of Malawi, with particular reference to HIV treatment and care.

One of nine listed for Most Accessible Website in the Irish Web Awards?

The Good

XHTML; semantic, clean mark-up
Using headings
Language is defined (xml:lang="en")
SWFobject.js for unobtrusive flash embedding

The Bad

When JavaScript is unavailable, Flash replacement image has broken links and placeholder text.
Skip links - Skip link doesn't work?
'Find out about ways to give' button.
logo missing alt text for tag line.
H1 headings should be H2 (such as Featured Project).
Some links that should be underlined, are not.
Use of <small> tags not recommended.
Links lack the default focus effect and outline removed!
DO NOT do this:

:focus {
outline-color:-moz-use-text-color;
outline-style:none;
outline-width:0;
}

Roundup: Accessibility Links on Twitter

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:48:11 PST

Here's a list of some great links relating to web accessibility going around Twitter last week.

An excellent, open, web accessibility curriculum from WaSP InterAct (@waspinteract)
Captioned Interview with Ken Harrenstein (Deaf) and T.V. Raman (Blind) both Engineers at Google.
AIR 2 Beta, Introducing Accessibility Support
Automatic captions in YouTube
Upcoming web accessibility training courses for professionals from the RNIB; 15-19 Feb 2010; Liverpool, UK.
Input for HTML5 needed: Do you find table summaries helpful?
Gov 2.0: Transparency without accessibility? Nearly 20 percent of Americans need sites such as Recovery.gov and Disability.gov to improve accessibility features.

Accessible YouTube Sites

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:08:59 PST

There are two web accessible versions of the popular YouTube video web site, that I'm aware of at least. (If you know others, please comment.) They are "Easy YouTube" and "Accessible Interface to YouTube".

One big issue is that captioning doesn't appear to be supported on either site. I've never worked with the YouTube API (yet), but I'm assuming there are technical blockers here. (Please comment if you know more!) Flash and JavaScript are required for both sites.

Both sites have excellent markup and implement great accessibility improvements. But as with any site, more enhancements can be made. Here's a quick review each.

Easy YouTube

JavaScript expert Chris Heilmann developed this site in 2008. You can search for a video or enter the URL of a specific YouTube video. You can also choose from three video sizes. Excellent documentation and help is provided.

Suggestions:

Missing H1 tag.
Add highly visible hover/focus states on elements.
Add captioning support, if possible.
Implement ARIA.
Add video comments content.

Accessible Interface to YouTube

This is a more recent accessible YouTube interface. The author is unknown. (I'd like to know who you are as it's very well done!) The interface is very simple yet informative; it display video details and comments. ARIA is implemented, but I have not fully tested it. There's also a survey you may take to help further development.

Suggestions:

Add highly visible hover/focus states on elements.
Add captioning support, if possible.
Add controls for volume adjustment.

Free Browsers for Visual Impairment

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:49:00 PST

I recently came across an article from disaboom called "Assistive Technology: Top 8 Free Browsers for Visual Impairment and More". The link was also popular on Twitter. But one problem, there are no links to the mentioned browser! So I went and found them:

WebbIE -accessible browser, RSS news reader and more.
EdWeb - talking web browser that can display web pages as text and symbols.
Fire Vox - Talking Browser Extension for Firefox (add-on page).
CliCk, Speak - less advanced version of Fire Vox.
Orca - speedy and powerful Gecko-based browser.
Simply Web 2000 - outdated; optimized for Internet Explorer 5.
SpeakOn -PC-based media suite program (four apps).
Thunder - package contains the WebbIE Text browser and more.

I'd like to add that Disaboom is a pretty nice site. In their words:

Disaboom is the leading resource for disability information and real-life articles about people with disabilities. Our broad range of topics, including health conditions, lifestyle, and helpful resources, help you create the life you want.

Colorblind, Law, and Lightboxes

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:26:00 PDT

Color Sensitive

I usually shy away from About.com, but I recently came across a piece worth mentioning. In the article Are Your Web Pages Color Sensitive? from the HTML/Web Design section, Jennifer Kyrnin provides some good information and techniques for web development with color blindness in mind. Here are some good tips from Jennifer:

Don't use only color to indicate something specific on your page.
Desaturate your images to see if they still have impact.
Avoid placing red and green together.
If you can, find a color blind friend or relative to look at your site.

Did you know that color blindness is an issue with 8 to 12% of males of European origin?

Law Needed

In his blog Yes, we need accessibility laws, Eric Eggert gives an argument for why we need better laws for web accessibility. He states that a good accessibility law should do:

Create awareness.
Do not create a climate of fear.
Create mediations.
Reference international standard.
Be inclusive.

Lightboxes

In the article Lightboxes and keyboard accessibility from 456 Berea Street, Roger Johansson describes how a lightbox should function with a keyboard. He states:

Let me use the left and right arrow keys to step through images in a slideshow.
When I press Esc, close the lightbox.
Do one of the following:
- Either add focusable elements (links or buttons) for close/next/previous, put keyboard focus on the first focusable object in the lightbox, make sure I can’t tab to something behind the lightbox, and make it visually obvious which object has keyboard focus.
- or close the lightbox when I press Tab.
When the lightbox closes, return keyboard focus to where it was when I opened it.

In addition, Roger cites the following two articles:

Building a Better Lightbox by Josh Habdas.
The Trouble with Lightbox (and its Variants) by Jonathon Christopher.

Podcast #75: Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:02:19 PDT

Ross interviews web guru Jeremy Keith; Dennis and Ross discuss news, articles, and Google Wave.

Download Web Axe Episode 75 (Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave)

Chatter

15 Podcasts That Will Make You Smarter via Nancy White
Interviewing Martha Lane Fox about Digital Inclusion by Sandi Wassmer (@SandiWassmer)

News and Links

Obama administration unveils Recovery.gov makeover (We reviewed original Recovery.gov site in Podcast #69.)
New WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey
Accessibility Review: PetsContained.com by Joe Dolson
How Many People is Your Website Alienating? (Ross' article)

Accessibility Review of Google Wave

Google Wave Preview Accessibility Review by Jared Smith. Jared tactfully explains how web accessibility of Google Wave fails miserably. For example:

Alternative text is not provided for any images.
Background images are used to convey content.
Roles, states, and other accessibility properties are not defined.
There is no document or heading structure or semantics.
Form elements do not have labels or titles.
Keyboard focus indication is hidden, making keyboard navigation nearly impossible.
Keyboard focus is often trapped.
The application becomes unusable and unreadable when text size is increased only slightly.

Jeremy Keith Interview

Co-host Ross Johnson speaks with Jeremy Keith, Adactio.com, a web standards guru, author, and speaker. Here are some great Jeremy Keith links:

UPDATE

The podcast was originally cut off by a couple minutes at the end. It is now fixed. Full running time is about 1 hour and 12 minutes.

ATIA Chicago 2009

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:07:44 PDT

The Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) is presenting a new conference this late October: ATIA Chicago 2009 "Showcasing Excellence in Assistive Technology".

There are over 200 sessions planned. The list of exhibitors includes:

The conference will be held at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, in Schaumburg (Chicago), Illinois, U.S.A.

Dates

October 28: Pre-Conference Seminars
October 29: Leadership Workshop
October 29-31: Main Conference

Accessibility Round-Up from Twitter

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:04:36 PDT

Accessibility Review: PetsContained.com by Joe Dolson.

In the United Kingdom, join the campaign for Offcom to increase audio description on TV from 10% to 20%.

Wanted: Flash and Dojo accessibility experts for contract work. Contact John Foliot at the email address: jfoliot AT stanford DOT edu.

Update on The Paciello Group's ARIA role support: how the Windows browsers stack up.

Rate Accessible Twitter on oneforty.com.

Interviews:

Podcast interview with Victor Tsaran of Yahoo! Victor is a Senior Accessibility Program Manager.
Interview article with IBM's Bill Curtis-Davidson, co-chair of Georgia Alliance for Accessible Technologies.

Event reminders:

Accessibility Camp in Washington D.C. on October 10.
Accessing Higher Ground 2009 near Denver, Colorado, November 10-14.

Podcast #74: Awards, Events & Back to Basics

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:17:28 PDT

A super special podcast:

First time face-to-face recording between Dennis and Ross.
In Santa Cruz, California.
4-Year Anniversary for Web Axe.

Download Web Axe Episode 74 (Awards, Events & Back to Basics)

Chatter

Articles

If a page is viewed through Google Chrome Frame in Internet Explorer no content is available to the user of assistive technology (AT). This can be illustrated using the Microsofts accexplorer tool.

Events/Conferences

Main Segment

WCAG 2: Remember P.O.U.R.: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust

Perceivable - Interface elements can not be invisible to users.
Operable - Users must be able to interact with the interface.
Understandable - Users must be able to understand with information and the interface (cognitive).
Robust - Must be usable by a wide range of user agents and assisstive technologies.

Use P.O.S.H.: Plain Ol' Semantic HTML

Use headings and properly.
P is for paragraph.
blockquotes for quotes (not indentation).
Use lists for lists, menus, etcetera.
Definition Lists.
Use strong and em tags versus b and i.

Accessible Twitter Wins Award, Slidedeck

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:51:12 PST

Congratulations to Accessible Twitter which was honored with the ACCESS-IT@Web 2.0 2009 award! Here is the link to the acceptance presentation on SlideShare which was given by Meera Tank at the event in London:

Accessible Twitter presentation for ACCESS-IT@Web 2.0

Slideshare provides a text version towards the bottom of the page, but here's a better version in HTML.

Cool tidbit: The presentation made the Featured Presentations & Documents section of the SlideShare home page the day after it was posted, and it made it (briefly) to the Hot on Twitter section!

Addendum:

Read about the award on Dennis' personal blog.
New page for winners of the ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards

Two Free Events in October

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:32:00 PDT

Here's the info on two free web accessibility events in Washington D.C. this October. Thanks to Jennison Asuncion.

Interagency Disability Educational Awareness Showcase (IDEAS) - IDEAS 2009
October 5-6 Marvin Center, George Washington University.
For anyone who wants to learn more about and network with folks who
need to meet Section 508 requirements.

Accessibility Camp D.C.
October 10 at the Martin Luther King Library.
Day-long barcamp for folks who work or have an interest in IT accessibility.

4-Year Anniversary

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:06:19 PDT

Web Axe has been blogging and podcasting for over four years now! Since September 2005, Dennis Lembree has been contributing to the web accessibility community with blogs and podcasts about techniques, news, and events around development of accessible web sites. Dennis started Web Axe as a member of the Detroit Podcasters Network. Co-host Ross Johnson of 3.7 Designs joined the following year. Dennis and Ross are also the co-founders of Refresh Detroit. The site continues to grow in popularity, and the number of RSS subscribers has doubled over the last year. Thank you readers and listeners!

PS:
Coming soon, a great interview podcast!

Web Accessibility Day

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:38:00 PDT

Web Accessibility Day is Tuesday, September 22 in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. It's a a one-day event teaching how to create web accessible content including PDFs and graphics, and how to use evaluation tools.

The keynote speaker is Shawn Lawton Henry, Outreach Coordinator for the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Exhibitors include: Oracle, Knowbility, Nuance Communications, and Browse Aloud.

Web Accessibility Day is presented by The National Federation of the Blind and the Maryland Technology Assistance Program. Support for the Web Accessibility Training Day is provided by the State of Maryland Deparment of Information Technology.

ACCESS-IT Workshops and Awards

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:37:20 PDT

ACCESS-IT 2009 is a two-day event on Accessibility and Assistive Technology to be held September 22 and 23 at Microsoft (UK), Victoria, London. The event includes two workshops and an awards ceremony. It is hosted by Microsoft and will be located at its Cardinal Place location in Central London. You may register for ACCESS-IT 2009 at any time.

The ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards program honors accessible technologies from a project, product or service in the following four categories: Home, Work, Living, Web 2.0. About 100 nominations have been submitted from 24 countries; there are 19 finalists and 44 have received a good practice label.

Accessible Twitter has been named a finalist! All finalists will be rewarded at the ACCESS-IT 2009 event ceremony September 23.

Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:42:06 PDT

In WebAIM's article Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility, the most varied and complex area of accessibility is addressed. Cognitive accessibility is more prevalent than all physical and sensory disabilities combined, but seems to be dealt with the least, probably because it's most difficult to pinpoint as well as to solve. Much needed general principles and specific guidelines (referred to as a checklist in article) are provided in the article.

Here are the principles listed for cognitive accessibility:

Simple
Consistent
Clear
Multi-modal
Error-tolerant
Attention-focusing
Improving web accessibility for this audience will improve access for everyone

The guidelines are categorized under:

Assistive Technology Compatibility
Consistency
Transformability
Multi-modality
Focus and Structure
Readability and Language
Orientation and Error Prevention/Recovery

Fall Web Accessibility Events

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:43:57 PDT

Here's a list of some conferences and events this fall relating to web accessibility. Please feel free to add more in the comments.

Techshare 2009

Workshops, presentations and exhibitions from organisations and leading figures representing the digital technology disability sector.
16-18 September 2009
ExCeL conference and exhibition centre
London, England

Standards.Next - Cognition and accessibility

Northampton Square
London, England EC1V 0HB
Saturday, September 19, 2009 (1-4 pm)

EdUI 2009 Conference

For web professionals in higher education.
September 21-22, 2009
Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A. (at the University of Virginia)

Accessibility 2.0

The UK’s only Web 2.0 accessibility conference.
22nd September 09
London, England
Hosted by AbilityNet

An Event Apart, Chicago

Two Days Of Design, Code, and Content
October 12–13, 2009
Sheraton Towers
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground

Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference
November 10- 14, 2009
Westminster, Colorado, U.S.A (near Denver)
Keynote Speaker: T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc.
Hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder

NOTE

I just have to add, I'm pretty disappointed in some of the code on these sites, especially with the (lack of) alternative text, the most basic checkpoints for web accessibility. In the Accessibility 2.0 site, the logo is missing alternative text! And on the Ed UI site, the date and location in the header is also missing alternative text; there is repeated content (under Get Updates); and my pet peeve, redundant title attributes (in menu). Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is pretty careless and poor example.

Addendum 27 Aug

Closing the Gap

Changing lives with assistive technology
Minneapolis, MN
October 15-17, 2009
Preconference Workshops - October 13-14

Web 2.0 Expo New York

November 16-19, 2009 at Javits Center
New York, NY
Register by October 8 and Save $350

Web Axe Nominated in 2009 .net Awards

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:28:00 PDT

Web Axe is nominated for Podcast of the Year in The 2009 .net Awards by .Net Magazine (@netmag).

There are 17 categories, but you don't have to vote for all at one time. Categories include best web app, mobile site of the year, and standards champion.

Voting closes 12th October 2009. The judges will then decide the winner from the top 3 in each category. Winners will be announced December 8th.

The awards have an excellent group of judges including: Jeffrey Zeldman, Paul Boag, Andy Budd, Christian Heilmann, Jason Santa Maria, Jon Hicks, Ryan Carson and Jonathan Snook.

Web Axe was also nominated last year (2008). Boagworld won the award.

Affordable niche advertising!

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:35:55 PDT

Web Axe is now offering audio ad space in each podcast. Additionally, you get a link on the blog. Standard rate is $150 (U.S. Dollars) per podcast.

Anyone interested may contact me by:

Email to: web axe [at gmail] NOSPAM! dot com
Direct message on Twitter (@webaxe)
Leave a comment on this blog post.

More Details

Valuable, unique niche market. Target this highly specialized audience! (accessibility advocates, web coding gurus, etc.)
PayPal is preferred.
Rate may vary depending on length and placement.
$150 rate is for an audio ad under 20 seconds.

Podcast #73: Bandwidth & Download Time

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:50:48 PDT

Dennis and Ross provide nearly an hour of news, knowledge, and fun!

Download Web Axe Episode 73 (Bandwidth & Download Time)

Michigan and Web Dudes, Lab, and Accessible Twitter

Dennis' vacation including visit to Michigan

Met creators of BongoTones
Met creator of Twilk

Web Accessibility News

WebAIM - Colors and Links and WCAG 2.0
ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards

Nominations will be submitted online only.
Submission deadline of nominations: 25th August 2009.

CVS Accessible Web Site and Point of Sale (nice sub-heading).
Misunderstanding Markup: XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip by Jeremy Keith @adactio.
Accessible drag and drop using WAI-ARIA on Dev.Opera by Gez Lemon .
Don't Just Tick Boxes - Meeting the diverse needs of your site’s visitors is likely to mean a great deal more than ticking off individual accessibility checkpoints.
AccessibilityWatch.com - fairly new accessibility blog (more than web).

Main Segment

The Issue & Statistics

Web accessibility is about providing content for everyone; even if the user is unable to have access to a broadband internet connection.
Economic issue; many people simply can't afford broadband.
Mobile--light and fast web sites can be more easily viewed on you phone!
Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 (study from 2003-2008 data)
In the U.S. in March 2008, users connecting at 56Kbps or less now make up 11.18% of active Internet users.
CWA Communications reported that the "median real-time download speed in the U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). The best available estimates show average download speeds in Japan of 63 mbps, in South Korea of 49 mbps and in France of 17 mbps.

Chart shows that from January 1995 to January 2008, there was a tremendous growth of average page size and average number of objects. The average page file size went from 14.1k in 1995, to 93.7k in 2003, to over 312k in 2008. The average number of page objects went from 2.3k in 1995, to 25.7 in 2003, to nearly 50 in 2008.

Related WCAG Guidelines

WCAG 2.0 Principle 4: Robust

Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

WCAG 1.0 Intro states:

user may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection and users may have turned off support for images (e.g. due to a slow Internet connection)

Greatly outdated web portion of Section 508 doesn't mention internet connection speed.

What You Can Do

Use progressive enhancement.
Optimize images; use sprites.
Write clean code.
Use external CSS and JavaScript files. For CSS, use <link> not @import.
Combine multiple CSS files into one. Same for JavaScript.
Use media domains.
Minify CSS and JS files.
Setup your server to send pages and files compressed.

Cache dynamic data and Ajax when appropriate.

Speaking on "Twitter and Web Accessibility" at AHG

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:48:16 PDT

Web Axe host Dennis Lembree will be speaking on "Twitter and Web Accessibility" at the 12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground conference in Colorado this mid-November.

The conference is November 10 thru 14. The labs are scheduled for a Tuesday and Wednesday, then the main conference is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. (One day longer than last year!) Dennis is scheduled to speak on Thursday at 9:15am.

The keynote speaker is T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc. Dolphin Computer Access, LTD will sponsor one of the conference computer labs. They will also present 2 hand-on sessions on alternate format conversion.

The location of the conference is the Westin Hotel in Westminster, which is about 30 miles from the Denver International Airport (DEN). The hotel, or resort I should say, looks very nice!

You may register here. The shortened URL is tinyurl.com/ahg2009. Hope to see you there!

Podcasts from Tweeps: Universal Design, SitePoint, Heretech

dennislembree@yahoo.com (Dennis E. Lembree) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:21:09 PDT

Some great recent podcasts from some great Tweeps (if you've been on Mars, that means users of Twitter).

Universal design and Web Accessibility For Everyone — Great interview with Wendy Chisholm. Co-author of Universal Design for Web Applications, speaker, tweep (@wendyabc).
SitePoint Podcast #20: YouTube Deep-sixes IE 6 — In addition to YouTube and IE6, topics include HTML5, web fonts, and the "DiggBar". Hosted by Patrick O’Keefe (@ifroggy), Stephan Segraves (@ssegraves), Brad Williams (@williamsba) and Kevin Yank (@sentience).
The Heretech, episode 15: Cindy Alvarez on market development — Cindy Alvarez (a wonderful former co-worker) is a guest on this product management interview podcast. Cindy (@cindyalvarez) and host Tom Grant (@TomGrantForr) provide insightful conversation on design and user experience.

Web Axe - Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips - Podcast and Blog

Web Accessibility Conferences in 2010

2009 in Review

Web Axe Podcast Highlights

Web Axe Blog Highlights

From WebAIM

More Google

E-Books

Great Tips

Awareness & Victor

Involving Users Early in Web Projects

Roundup 2: Accessibility Links on Twitter

Podcast #76: Web Accessibility Disasters

Chatter

Articles

Web Site Disasters

The Good

The Bad

Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

The Good

The Bad

The Good

The Bad

Roundup: Accessibility Links on Twitter

Accessible YouTube Sites

Free Browsers for Visual Impairment

Colorblind, Law, and Lightboxes

Color Sensitive

Law Needed

Lightboxes

Podcast #75: Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave

Chatter

News and Links

Accessibility Review of Google Wave

Jeremy Keith Interview

Related Links

UPDATE

ATIA Chicago 2009

Dates

Accessibility Round-Up from Twitter

Podcast #74: Awards, Events & Back to Basics

Chatter

Articles

Events/Conferences

Main Segment

Accessible Twitter Wins Award, Slidedeck

Addendum:

Two Free Events in October

4-Year Anniversary

Web Accessibility Day

ACCESS-IT Workshops and Awards

Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility

Fall Web Accessibility Events

NOTE

Addendum 27 Aug

Web Axe Nominated in 2009 .net Awards

Affordable niche advertising!

Podcast #73: Bandwidth & Download Time

Michigan and Web Dudes, Lab, and Accessible Twitter

Web Accessibility News

Main Segment

The Issue & Statistics

Related WCAG Guidelines

What You Can Do

More from the Big Boys

Speaking on "Twitter and Web Accessibility" at AHG

Podcasts from Tweeps: Universal Design, SitePoint, Heretech