Archives for “Internet Accessibility”
Everett Zufelt’s open letter to CTV (Canada) regarding the accessibility of CTVOlympics.ca makes me angry. I had already read Joe Clark’s article about the Vancouver Olympics websites being inaccessible to disabled people, as well as the Webaxe article. It was clear from Twitter that the sites were inaccessible. So why should Everett Zufelt’s letter make me angry? [...]
The ÆGIS project has a gift for you – 15 personas of IT users with disabilities. No more procrastination on your projects! Visit the Ægis persona page to download the PDF files for each persona. This blog post gives you a quick overview of the personas you’ll find on the Ægis site, as well as an [...]
I recently discovered two new logical-based captchas plugins for WordPress. 1. Logical Captcha (Version 1.0.3, Updated 2009-8-24) takes advantage of the TextCaptcha.com service, which provides logic-based textual questions instead of distorted images or audio to validate that the entity registering is a real live human being, and not a spam bot. Textual logic-based captchas mean [...]
Update—25 July 2009: The author of the paper discussed below, Brian Kelly, thanked us for these comments and wrote that the paper is available on the repository at http://opus.bath.ac.uk/14902/ if you’d like a copy of the paper before next year. He can release a number of copies. Brian’s site is “UK Web Focus: Reflections on [...]
Do you find usability concepts outside your work? Oh, we who work with these topics probably run into situations concerning usability and accessibility on a regular basis. Examples are everywhere as shown by the “broken” category over at Mark Hurst’s Good Experience. But what about this ad? Advertisement proclaiming that font size adjustment on your computer screen [...]
Another great project for technical communicators is happening right now over at WebAIM. As announced recently on the WebAIM blog, they have started a translation project for WAVE, WebAIM’s web accessibility evaluation tool. After all, who says web accessibility evaluation is only necessary in English! First stop is Spanish. The Center for Persons with Disabilities at [...]
WebAIM has put together a survey of the preferences of screen reader users. Do you use a screen reader all the time due to a disability? part of the time due to a disability? often, but do not have a disability that requires a screen reader? occasionally to perform accessibility evaluation? If you fit one of those models, why not [...]
Yes, the long awaited version 2.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines was announced today! The news is being echoed all over Twitter, and our own SIG twitter account is chiming in. Read the W3C press release for the official news. Then start following the discussions that have started and will continue in the coming days, [...]
Did you know that Stanford University now has an Online Accessibility Program? They call it “SOAP” for Stanford Online Accessibility Program. I came across this today and thought you might be interested to see it: http://soap.stanford.edu/. The site offers resources and information; tips, tricks, and tutorials; a developers toolbox; and special program services for the [...]
In Digital Web Magazine last month, Leona Tomlinson of Agoo IT wrote a great article on understanding disabilities when designing a web site. While some of the information can be found in many places, Tomlinson distills a broad range of information in one article, making it ideal for sharing with those new to Web accessibility. [...]
Turn Firefox into a screen reader with Fire Vox, suggests Roger Johansson of 456 Berea St. He talks about his experience with Fire Vox, the free open-source screen reader extension for Firefox. He has successfully used it on his Mac (after a few unsuccessful attempts), but Fire Vox can also run on Windows and Linux. The [...]
As Opera puts it, “Learning Web Standards just got easier.” Indeed it has! Opera has released “a complete course to teach you standards-based web development, including HTML, CSS, design principles and background theory, and JavaScript basics”. It is called the Web Standards Curriculum. This curriculum was released in association with the Yahoo! Developer Network and is [...]
I was asked to prepare a persona on what users over the age of 50 may need to maximize their use of the STC Body of Knowledge portal. The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is currently developing a Body of Knowledge (BoK) portal where Technical Communicators can share their areas of expertise with each other. This [...]
This should be an interesting series to follow. Matthew Paul Thomas will be posting updates in the coming months to his identification of 15 usability problems with free (open source) software "Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve it" that he posted on August 1. He plans to present an example for [...]
The department of Personnel at the State of New Jersey provides a text-based mode to their Web content using Usablenet Assistive as part of their efforts to comply with the ADA and Section 504. Usablenet Assistive converts a web page into its text-only version on-the-fly by eliminating all page layout that is present in the [...]
By Kath Moonan, AbilityNet In this article Kath Moonan examines what Web 2.0 is and what implications it might have for disabled people who use the Web, particularly the use of Ajax for interactive web pages. Read the full article at http://www.icthubknowledgebase.org.uk/web20andaccessibility Related posts World Usability Day 2009: Sustainability [...]
Access Technology Tips from the National Federation of the Blind Apple® Accessibility Features Vision built into all Macintosh computers provides adjustable keyboard, an ergonomic mouse, CloseView screen magnification software, Easy Access system software (StickyKeys, SlowKeys, MouseKeys), electronic documentation, key-repeat disable, text-to-speech synthesis and voice recognition (PlainTalk), sticky mouse, and visual alert cues. The VoiceOver spoken English [...]
User-Defined Access Keys: using .asp, by Gez Lemon of JuicyStudio [UK] User-Defined Access Keys: using .php, by Gez Lemon of JuicyStudio [UK] Firefox 2.0 and Access Keys, by Gez Lemon of JuicyStudio [UK] Techniques for "skip navigation" links and "skip to main content" links Too much accessibility – ACCESSKEYS Using Accesskeys – Is it worth it? This is not a [...]
Accessibility Color Wheel Version 1.0 by Giacomo Mazzocato. When you hover over the color wheel, you’ll see text in colors for normal, Deuteranopia, Protanopia and Tritanopia color vision simultaneously. An "OK" message is displayed when you hover over an accessible color. By clicking on the color, you can copy the hex values. The tool may [...]
National Cristina Foundation (NCF) provides computer technology and solutions to give people with disabilities, students at risk, and economically disadvantaged persons the opportunity, through training, to lead more independent and productive lives. NCF uses donated used computer technology resources that no longer meet an enterprise’s or an individual’s needs and gives them a second productive [...]
Topics in Usability: Accessibility Topics in Usability: Web usability and design guidelines for working with older adults, children, and babies Related posts Usability and Human Factors (0) Internet Accessibility / Usability Resources F-W (0) Internet Accessibility / Usability Resources A-E (0) Accessibility Literature (0) Accessibility Browser Extensions, Favelets, and Toolbars (0)
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