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

Fall Web Accessibility Events

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Here's a list of some conferences and events this fall relating to web accessibility. Please feel free to add more in the comments.

Techshare 2009

Workshops, presentations and exhibitions from organisations and leading figures representing the digital technology disability sector.
16-18 September 2009
ExCeL conference and exhibition centre
London, England

Standards.Next - Cognition and accessibility

Northampton Square
London, England EC1V 0HB
Saturday, September 19, 2009 (1-4 pm)

EdUI 2009 Conference

For web professionals in higher education.
September 21-22, 2009
Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A. (at the University of Virginia)

Accessibility 2.0

The UK’s only Web 2.0 accessibility conference.
22nd September 09
London, England
Hosted by AbilityNet

An Event Apart, Chicago

Two Days Of Design, Code, and Content
October 12–13, 2009
Sheraton Towers
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground

Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference
November 10- 14, 2009
Westminster, Colorado, U.S.A (near Denver)
Keynote Speaker: T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc.
Hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder

NOTE

I just have to add, I'm pretty disappointed in some of the code on these sites, especially with the (lack of) alternative text, the most basic checkpoints for web accessibility. In the Accessibility 2.0 site, the logo is missing alternative text! And on the Ed UI site, the date and location in the header is also missing alternative text; there is repeated content (under Get Updates); and my pet peeve, redundant title attributes (in menu). Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is pretty careless and poor example.

Addendum 27 Aug

Closing the Gap

Changing lives with assistive technology
Minneapolis, MN
October 15-17, 2009
Preconference Workshops - October 13-14

Web 2.0 Expo New York

November 16-19, 2009 at Javits Center
New York, NY
Register by October 8 and Save $350

Labels: "assistive technology", alt, conference, event

0 comments

Web Axe Nominated in 2009 .net Awards

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Web Axe is nominated for Podcast of the Year in The 2009 .net Awards by .Net Magazine (@netmag).

There are 17 categories, but you don't have to vote for all at one time. Categories include best web app, mobile site of the year, and standards champion.

Voting closes 12th October 2009. The judges will then decide the winner from the top 3 in each category. Winners will be announced December 8th.

The awards have an excellent group of judges including: Jeffrey Zeldman, Paul Boag, Andy Budd, Christian Heilmann, Jason Santa Maria, Jon Hicks, Ryan Carson and Jonathan Snook.

Web Axe was also nominated last year (2008). Boagworld won the award.

Labels: administrative, awards, podcast

1 comments

Affordable niche advertising!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Web Axe is now offering audio ad space in each podcast. Additionally, you get a link on the blog. Standard rate is $150 (U.S. Dollars) per podcast.

Anyone interested may contact me by:

• Email to: web axe [at gmail] NOSPAM! dot com
• Direct message on Twitter (@webaxe)
• Leave a comment on this blog post.

More Details

• Valuable, unique niche market. Target this highly specialized audience! (accessibility advocates, web coding gurus, etc.)
• PayPal is preferred.
• Rate may vary depending on length and placement.
• $150 rate is for an audio ad under 20 seconds.

Labels: administrative

0 comments

Podcast #73: Bandwidth & Download Time

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Dennis and Ross provide nearly an hour of news, knowledge, and fun!

Download Web Axe Episode 73 (Bandwidth & Download Time)

Michigan and Web Dudes, Lab, and Accessible Twitter

• Dennis' vacation including visit to Michigan
• Met creators of BongoTones
• Met creator of Twilk
  
• Visit to Yahoo! Accessibility Lab
• Accessible Twitter updates.
• Future of Skype

Web Accessibility News

• WebAIM - Colors and Links and WCAG 2.0
• ACCESS-IT 2009 Awards
• Nominations will be submitted online only.
• Submission deadline of nominations: 25th August 2009.
• CVS Accessible Web Site and Point of Sale (nice sub-heading).
• Misunderstanding Markup: XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip by Jeremy Keith @adactio.
• Accessible drag and drop using WAI-ARIA on Dev.Opera by Gez Lemon .
• Don't Just Tick Boxes - Meeting the diverse needs of your site’s visitors is likely to mean a great deal more than ticking off individual accessibility checkpoints.
• AccessibilityWatch.com - fairly new accessibility blog (more than web).

Main Segment

The Issue & Statistics

• Web accessibility is about providing content for everyone; even if the user is unable to have access to a broadband internet connection.
• Economic issue; many people simply can't afford broadband.
• Mobile--light and fast web sites can be more easily viewed on you phone!
  
• Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 (study from 2003-2008 data)
• In the U.S. in March 2008, users connecting at 56Kbps or less now make up 11.18% of active Internet users.
• CWA Communications reported that the "median real-time download speed in the U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). The best available estimates show average download speeds in Japan of 63 mbps, in South Korea of 49 mbps and in France of 17 mbps.

Related WCAG Guidelines

WCAG 2.0 Principle 4: Robust

Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

WCAG 1.0 Intro states:

user may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection and users may have turned off support for images (e.g. due to a slow Internet connection)

Greatly outdated web portion of Section 508 doesn't mention internet connection speed.

What You Can Do

• Use progressive enhancement.
• Optimize images; use sprites.
• Write clean code.
• Use external CSS and JavaScript files. For CSS, use <link> not @import.
• Combine multiple CSS files into one. Same for JavaScript.
• Use media domains.
• Minify CSS and JS files.
• Setup your server to send pages and files compressed.
• PHP Speedy (Apache/Gzip)
• How gzip compression works
• Cache dynamic data and Ajax when appropriate.

More from the Big Boys

• More at Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site from Yahoo!
• And now, Let's make the web faster from Google, with fun little videos.

Labels: color, css, javascript, podcast, twitter, wcag2, yahoo

1 comments

Speaking on "Twitter and Web Accessibility" at AHG

Monday, August 03, 2009

Web Axe host Dennis Lembree will be speaking on "Twitter and Web Accessibility" at the 12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground conference in Colorado this mid-November.

The conference is November 10 thru 14. The labs are scheduled for a Tuesday and Wednesday, then the main conference is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. (One day longer than last year!) Dennis is scheduled to speak on Thursday at 9:15am.

The keynote speaker is T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc. Dolphin Computer Access, LTD will sponsor one of the conference computer labs. They will also present 2 hand-on sessions on alternate format conversion.

The location of the conference is the Westin Hotel in Westminster, which is about 30 miles from the Denver International Airport (DEN). The hotel, or resort I should say, looks very nice!

You may register here. The shortened URL is tinyurl.com/ahg2009. Hope to see you there!

Labels: conference, event, presentation, twitter

0 comments

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Previous Posts

• Web Accessibility Conferences in 2010
• 2009 in Review
• Involving Users Early in Web Projects
• Roundup 2: Accessibility Links on Twitter
• 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

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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.