Category Archives: Accessibility
Accessibility vs Universality – implications
Mike Davies has stirred up something of a hornets nest with his thoughts on where accessibility as a discipline should be going, especially with statements like
The current web-developer focused organisations are tainted, constrained by universality, with sour to nonexistent relationships with assistive technology providers and browser vendors.
WCAG 2 response on relative units
I had submitted a comment on WCAG about relative units, and looking through my incoming links with Google's new external links tool, I discovered that they had taken it on, partially.
WYSIWYG editor spec – preventing problems
If the editor has followed the earlier HTML and CSS guidelines, many accessibility issues have been avoided already. This post is essentially a list of things a WYSIWYG editor could do to help authors not create accessibility barriers. Firefox 3 accessibility
I've noticed that the Mozilla org has been doing quite a bit on accessibility, from working with IBM on Rich-apps accessibility, to funding people to make Firefox accessible with VoiceOver. Mark Pilgrim reports that Firefox 3 will include the option to block meta-redirects. Elastic layout – wrong term?
This post is far too late, I really should have said this earlier, but the terms being used for various layout types are confusing. The top articles for "Elastic Design" on Google refer to elastic as being a a font-based layout. I think elastic is the wrong term for what the layouts achieve. Also, there is an assumption that these layouts are good for accessibility. WYSIWYG editor spec – interface accessibility
The accessibility of the interface is just as important as the accessibility of the code the editor outputs. The key aspects to focus on are the 'perceptability' of controls (e.g. alt text) and ease of using a keyboard only. Reporting on accessibility issues
After releasing another website accessibility survey (this one global in nature), the topic of 'reporting' on accessibility issues has come up again. Frankly I don't think there's a right answer, but if anyone can think of a better method, I'm all ears.
Why does google use CAPTCHA?
Recently I noticed that Google will be supporting audio as well as visual CAPTCHA tests. This is so that those who can't see the screen can listen to a sound clip and fill in a code to prove they are human. Given the more effective alternatives, why is Google taking this approach?
WYSIWYG editor spec – Tables
Each of the editors I've been looking at allows the addition of tables, but none of them allow the easy insertion & manipulation of a data table, i.e. one with headings. I deal with data tables quite a lot for windsurfing results, and the only program I've found for decent table editing is Dreamweaver. Fund raising for accessibility
At this stage, fund raising to allow fund raising! Joe Clark is starting the Open & Closed Project, dedicated to writing a set of standards (how-to manuals) for four fields of accessibility – captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing.