Tips, web design book reviews, resources and observations for teaching and learning web development.
Knowbility is a superb organization offering accessibility training, accessibility conferences, and accessibility information to web designers and developers. Now they want to develop online accessibiity training modules and they need your help.
Please contribute to the Indigogo campaign for this worthy project.
Migrating a website to WordPress is easier than you think is a well done article at Smashing Magazine that can help you if you are contemplating a move.
I’ve worked with Knowbility for years but I didn’t realize they offered Document Accessibility and User Experience Testing. Using a group called AccessWorks, they provide people with disabilities who have been highly trained to help you with making your PDF and Office documents accessible.
10 Easy Accessibility Tips Anyone Can Use. You could build a class or a presentation around these basic tips from WebAIM.
Study ranks accessibility of Learning Management Systems.
The review examined four major LMSes: Blackboard Learn version 9.1 Service Pack 6 and 8, Desire2Learn version 10, Moodle version 2.3, and Sakai version 2.8.
I’m doing a training session for Knowbility today. It’s a session on accessible HTML, training some trainers who work on various state of Texas sites. The people I’ll work with will be the ones who scatter through state agencies and make sure the people they train know how to write accessible HTML.
I can’t release the training materials because Knowbility is reserving them for the people attending the training. The aspects of HTML that I’ll talk about include headings, links, alt text, data tables, and forms.
I won’t have time to talk about video captioning, but I wanted to provide a reference for the trainers so they’d know where to look for information. Knowbility usually trains users in MAGpie for this. I wondered if YouTube did a decent job. I hadn’t seen anyone mention whether YouTube does a good job making video accessible with their new captioning service, so I asked Knowbility director Sharron Rush about YouTube’s service. She said that the service works great if you provide a transcript. It isn’t reliable if you depend on voice recognition.
I’ve been a supporter of Knowbility and what they do for a long time. This is the first time I’ve worked with them. I’m delighted to be officially associated with this wonderful organization, even in this small way.
Useful links: When can I use new features of web standards? The John Slatin Access U for 2009. Do It Myself Blog’s Glenda figures out how to present live online. More . . .
When can I use . . . has compatibility tables for features in HTML5, CSS3, SVG and other upcoming web technologies. It shows a timeline for when various features will be supported. No surprise, many are waiting for the demise of some version or other of Internet Explorer.
An event to note. For two days in May, Knowbility will be putting on the newly named John Slatin Access U. It will be at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. It features a Usability Track and a Molly Holzschlag Track. There’s a post conference day with Molly and Derek Featherstone. Read the course descriptions.
You know Molly’s a brand of her own when there’s a whole section of an event named “Molly Holzschlag Track.” There’s not even a need to explain what it will be about, you only need to mention her name. There’s an interview or a graduate thesis or a book in there somewhere about how Molly became a brand.
Celebrating a Newly Discovered Ability from Do It Myself Blog is Glenda Watson Hyatt’s presentation from AccessCamp San Antonio. It explains how she managed to do a live online presentation and is a must see presentation.
Get your Knowbility accessibility training in California in 2009 at CalWAC. This training is aimed at university people. The conference brings together world renowned accessibility experts and webmasters from university and community colleges throughout the state of California for an intensive two day series of learning sessions on accessible information technology tools and techniques. Classes include practical instruction from basic accessibility awareness and resources to advanced assessment techniques, project management, and working with specific technologies such as Flash and PDF. There are also two optional post-conference sessions on Accessible AJAX, by Derek Featherstone and a CSS Intensive by Molly Holzschlag.
The action takes place January 12 – 14th 2009 in Long Beach. Students, faculty and staff from California State University get a discount. The conference hotel is the Marriott Long Beach Airport Hotel.
Added 12/5/08: The classes will meet at California State University in Long Beach.