Web Axe: web accessibility podcast and blog

Podcast and blog on practical web design accessibility tips.

What is web accessibility? | Email: web axe [at gmail] NOSPAM! dot com

Current Posts

JAWS Shortcut Keys/Commands

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

While doing a little testing in JAWS, I quickly remembered how inexperienced I am with the program. So I went to the Help section to look up some shortcut keys. All the information is there, and there's a lot of it, but on many different pages.

So I put what I thought were the most significant key commands on one HTML page. It can print nicely on 2 paper pages. Hopefully you will find it useful!

JAWS Shortcut Keys/Commands

Labels: screenreader

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Reworking A Large Site for Accessibility

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Creating an accessible web site can be challenging. Retro-fitting a web site for accessibility is even tougher. Now try upgrading a humongous, corporate site full of new and old pages. Where to begin? Fortunately, Accessites.org has posted an article by Mel Pedley to help tackle this problem: 5 Steps To Reworking A Legacy Site

Labels: article

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Podcast #55: WCAG Samurai

Saturday, August 25, 2007

The WCAG Samurai is an "independent group of developers convened in 2006" and headed up by Joe Clark, accessibility guru. In this podcast, Dennis and Ross discuss the WCAG Samurai's errata to the W3C's WCAG 1.0 web accessibility guidelines. This includes:

• what it is and if we should use it
• discussing the 12 main points
• which WCAG 1.0 Priority 3 guidelines to ignore

Download Web Axe Episode 55 (WCAG Samurai)

The WCAG 1 + Samurai Guidelines

1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content
2. Don’t rely on colour alone
3. Use markup and stylesheets and do so properly
4. Clarify natural-language usage
5. Create tables that transform gracefully
6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully
7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes
8. -
   
9. Design for device-independence
10. Use interim solutions
11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines
12. Provide context and orientation information

Related Links

• Introduction to WCAG Samurai Errata
• WCAG Samurai Errata for WCAG 1.0
• WCAG Samurai Peer Review
• On the WCAG Samurai errata - Bruce Lawson

News

• JAWS 9.0 with AJAX Support?
• SpokenText
  
• developing Firefox add-on/extension
• can now share recordings
• donate using PayPal
• Why your employer should care about web accessibility

Labels: guidelines, podcast, wcag

2 comments

Terribly Inaccessible CAPTCHA

Friday, August 24, 2007

Found this terrible, almost humorous example of inaccessible CAPTCHA. If you're blind, I don't think refreshing the page will help you read the letters in the image!



Here's the Web Axe entry on how to make accessible CAPTCHA: Podcast #40: About CAPTCHA and Accessibility.

Labels: captcha

1 comments

Podcast 54: The Summary Attribute

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

By now most of us should be pretty familiar with creating an accessible data table--use a caption, TH for row and col headers, scope attribute, and the summary. In this podcast, Dennis talks about the least familiar of these techniques--the summary attribute of the table element. The summary attribute is WCAG Checkpoint 5.5 (Priority 3).

Download Web Axe Episode 54 (The Summary Attribute)

Examples of good summary text:

• The number of employees and the foundation year of companies in Orlando, Florida, in 1988.
  
• A warming trend has been observed in Cache Valley, with temperatures about 5 degrees above historical averages over the last two months.
  
• This table charts the number of cups of coffee consumed by each senator, the type of coffee (decaf or regular), and whether taken with sugar.
  
• Total required by pollution control standards as of January 1, 1971. Commercial category includes stores, insurance companies and banks.
  

Sample Code (from 456bereastreet's Bring on the Tables):

<table summary="The number of employees and the foundation year of some imaginary companies.">
<caption>Table 1: Company data</caption>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Company</th>
<th scope="col">Employees</th>
<th scope="col">Founded</th></tr>
<tr>
<td scope="row">ACME Inc</td>
<td>1000</td>
<td>1947</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td scope="row">XYZ Corp</td>
<td>2000</td>
<td>1973</td>
</tr>
</table>

Links

• W3C Definition of Summary attribute: This attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose and structure for user agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech and Braille.
• W3C on Data Tables
  
• page 4 of Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Using Tables Appropriately
• WebAIM: Creating Accessible Tables
• WCAG Samurai

News

• textTHaCAA
• TradingEye PHP

Labels: accessibility, podcast, table

0 comments

Web Accessibility Articles (Gmail, Screenreader, RadioShack, Process)

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Here are some good articles relating to web accessibility:

• Gmail Settings Now Accessible in Basic HTML View
• Video--From the Mouth of a Screenreader
• RadioShack’s Accessibility Initiative
• Bringing Accessibility into the Development Process
• Who's responsible for accessibility?

Labels: article

0 comments

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Previous Posts

• Podcast #76: Web Accessibility Disasters
• Roundup: Accessibility Links on Twitter
• Accessible YouTube Sites
• Free Browsers for Visual Impairment
• Colorblind, Law, and Lightboxes
• Podcast #75: Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave
• ATIA Chicago 2009
• Accessibility Round-Up from Twitter
• Podcast #74: Awards, Events & Back to Basics
• Accessible Twitter Wins Award, Slidedeck

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Related Sites

• Web Overhauls - tune-up your web site!
• Accessible Twitter - superior alternative to Twitter.com.
• 3.7crea.tv - web design and marketing blog.
• Refresh Detroit - regional group for web professionals.
• Detroit Podcasters Network.
• Website Design - seo friendly web design company.

About the Hosts

 

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Web Axe was nominated for "Podcast of the Year" in .net magazine's 2008 and 2009 Best of the Web awards.

To learn more about Dennis Lembree, the founder and main host of Web Axe, visit his web site at www.DennisLembree.com.