accessibility Archives - Page 47 of 60

Presentation: Ten Checkpoints of a Web Standards Based Curriculum

I presented this at HighEdWebDev 2007 today. It was presented as a powerpoint presentation. My narrative explained that this presentation was mainly about what sort of student learning outcomes I would expect to see in an institution where web standards were part of the curriculum. I did touch on a couple of important overall considerations as well.

I have captured only the slides and converted them into a movie. There is no sound. Please return to this post if you have comments or questions.

View the movie.

Technorati Tags: web design, accessibility, usability, CSS, web design education, web standards, HighEdWebDev2007

Court rules in NFB case against Target

The courts moved forward in favor of the case brought by the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) against Target’s online store this week. All kinds of news is available about it, but Jim Thatcher’s brief reaction is most interesting.

Yesterday Judge Marilyn Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling in the case in which the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) (http://nfb.org) is suing the Target Corporation alleging that Target’s web site, http://www.target.com, is inaccessible, especially for shoppers who are blind. I am the Expert Witness in this case for the Plaintiffs; they are represented by Disabilities Rights Advocates (DRA) (http://dralegal.org). I have written about this important case on these pages before (http://jimthatcher.com/law-target.htm).

Thatcher goes on to explain why the ruling on this case is so important.

Technorati Tags: Accessibility, NFB, Target

New technology allows the disabled to control devices by clenching teeth

From Popgadget:

There’s nothing more exciting than new innovations in assistive technology that can help disabled or elderly people live fuller, more independent lives. This particular hands-free device, developed by researchers at Osaka University, is worn on the head like a hairband, with either end equipped with microcomputers and infrared sensors to detect your movements when you press your back teeth together.

Technorati Tags: Accessibiity

U of Maine’s journey toward 508 compliance

Read Alan Parks’ article Focus On Higher Education – Best Practices: Compliance in EDTECH magazine to see how the University of Maine worked its way to having every web site at the universtity meet federal accessibility guidelines.

BlogHer07 Presentation available online

Skye Kilaen and I presented a program at BlogHer07 that is available for download from Skye’s site at All Access Blogging. It’s a large file in the original PowerPoint, so it’s a big download. Slides and speakers’ notes are both available.

Skye talked about checking your blog for accessibility. I talked about checking your blog for mobile devices. I also talked about microformats. The three were bunched together under a heading of “Web Standards” for the BlogHers.

About the BlogHer conference in general, it is highly successful with over 800 bloggers in attendance in person and many more taking part on Second Life. The keynotes and breakout sessions are very well done and it’s turning out to be a very successful conference. See my photos on Flickr.

Technorati Tags: BlogHer07, accessibility, mobile, microformats

Ten Checkpoints of a Web Standards Based Curriculum

I just accepted an invitation to present at HIghEdWebDev2007 on “Ten Checkpoints of a Web Standards Based Curriculum.” I’d love to hear from teachers in the field as to what they consider the two most important aspects of a standards based curriculum for HTML, Dreamweaver, JavaScript and Flash. In my mind, best practices and accessibility fit into this topic, so if you want to give me your top two with that in mind, I’d be happy to learn what you think.

Technorati Tags: HighEdWebDev2007

Latest working draft of WCAG 2.0

On May 17, 2007, the W3C published the latest version of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Changes have been incorporated because of the criticism the first working draft received. There’s a very helpful review of the changes at The Web Standards Project that might give you a quicker summary of what’s new than reading the entire W3C document. The latest working draft was released before the WCAG Samurai came out with their “errata” earlier this week.