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

Colorblind, Law, and Lightboxes

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Color Sensitive

I usually shy away from About.com, but I recently came across a piece worth mentioning. In the article Are Your Web Pages Color Sensitive? from the HTML/Web Design section, Jennifer Kyrnin provides some good information and techniques for web development with color blindness in mind. Here are some good tips from Jennifer:

• Don't use only color to indicate something specific on your page.
• Desaturate your images to see if they still have impact.
• Avoid placing red and green together.
• If you can, find a color blind friend or relative to look at your site.

Did you know that color blindness is an issue with 8 to 12% of males of European origin?

Law Needed

In his blog Yes, we need accessibility laws, Eric Eggert gives an argument for why we need better laws for web accessibility. He states that a good accessibility law should do:

• Create awareness.
  
• Do not create a climate of fear.
• Create mediations.
  
• Reference international standard.
• Be inclusive.

Lightboxes

In the article Lightboxes and keyboard accessibility from 456 Berea Street, Roger Johansson describes how a lightbox should function with a keyboard. He states:

• Let me use the left and right arrow keys to step through images in a slideshow.
• When I press Esc, close the lightbox.
• Do one of the following:
  • Either add focusable elements (links or buttons) for close/next/previous, put keyboard focus on the first focusable object in the lightbox, make sure I can’t tab to something behind the lightbox, and make it visually obvious which object has keyboard focus.
  • or close the lightbox when I press Tab.
• When the lightbox closes, return keyboard focus to where it was when I opened it.

In addition, Roger cites the following two articles:

• Building a Better Lightbox by Josh Habdas.
• The Trouble with Lightbox (and its Variants) by Jonathon Christopher.
  

Labels: color, expert, keyboard, law

1 comments

Podcast #75: Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Ross interviews web guru Jeremy Keith; Dennis and Ross discuss news, articles, and Google Wave.

Download Web Axe Episode 75 (Jeremy Keith Interview, Google Wave)

Chatter

• 15 Podcasts That Will Make You Smarter via Nancy White
  
• Interviewing Martha Lane Fox about Digital Inclusion by Sandi Wassmer (@SandiWassmer)
  

News and Links

• Obama administration unveils Recovery.gov makeover (We reviewed original Recovery.gov site in Podcast #69.)
• New WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey
• Accessibility Review: PetsContained.com by Joe Dolson
• How Many People is Your Website Alienating? (Ross' article)
  

Accessibility Review of Google Wave

Google Wave Preview Accessibility Review by Jared Smith. Jared tactfully explains how web accessibility of Google Wave fails miserably. For example:

• Alternative text is not provided for any images.
• Background images are used to convey content.
• Roles, states, and other accessibility properties are not defined.
• There is no document or heading structure or semantics.
• Form elements do not have labels or titles.
• Keyboard focus indication is hidden, making keyboard navigation nearly impossible.
• Keyboard focus is often trapped.
• The application becomes unusable and unreadable when text size is increased only slightly.

Jeremy Keith Interview

Co-host Ross Johnson speaks with Jeremy Keith, Adactio.com, a web standards guru, author, and speaker. Here are some great Jeremy Keith links:

• Jeremy's articles
• Bulletproof Ajax book
• DOMscripting book
• Jeremy on Twitter: @adactio
• Clearleft - Web Design Agency
• Silverback - Usability Testing Software

Related Links

• This Week in HTML5 – Episode 36 #Accessibility
• Building Accessible Flex and Adobe AIR Applications | MAX 2009 Develop | Adobe TV
• Create a CSS3 Button That Degrades Nicely (Ross' article)

UPDATE

The podcast was originally cut off by a couple minutes at the end. It is now fixed. Full running time is about 1 hour and 12 minutes.

Labels: adobe, expert, interview, podcast, webaim

0 comments

ATIA Chicago 2009

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) is presenting a new conference this late October: ATIA Chicago 2009 "Showcasing Excellence in Assistive Technology".

There are over 200 sessions planned. The list of exhibitors includes:

• Freedom Scientific
• HumanWare
  
• AbleNet
• Dolphin Computer Access

The conference will be held at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, in Schaumburg (Chicago), Illinois, U.S.A.

Dates

October 28: Pre-Conference Seminars
October 29: Leadership Workshop
October 29-31: Main Conference

Labels: "assistive technology", conference

0 comments

Accessibility Round-Up from Twitter

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Accessibility Review: PetsContained.com by Joe Dolson.

In the United Kingdom, join the campaign for Offcom to increase audio description on TV from 10% to 20%.

Wanted: Flash and Dojo accessibility experts for contract work. Contact John Foliot at the email address: jfoliot AT stanford DOT edu.

Update on The Paciello Group's ARIA role support: how the Windows browsers stack up.

Rate Accessible Twitter on oneforty.com.

Interviews:

• Podcast interview with Victor Tsaran of Yahoo! Victor is a Senior Accessibility Program Manager.
• Interview article with IBM's Bill Curtis-Davidson, co-chair of Georgia Alliance for Accessible Technologies.

Event reminders:

• Accessibility Camp in Washington D.C. on October 10.
• Accessing Higher Ground 2009 near Denver, Colorado, November 10-14.

Labels: aria, event, flash, interview, news

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.