The Guild of Accessible Web Designers is currently running a competition to re-design their website. Entries will be accepted until April 30th; the winner will be announced in mid-May.
The contest is purely a CSS design challenge: no (or minimal) changes will be made to the existing template.
Details are available at Launching the GAWDS Website Re-design Competition.
These are articles that you need to read:
Mike Davies: BarCamp London Accessibility Panel Thoughts
Mike Davies is a great writer with some very refined thoughts about web accessibility. He also has some very strong opinions against universality. In this article, he describes what he perceives as a need for the accessibility community to create a strong voice which will discuss accessibility while completely excluding universality.
Mike Cherim: Failed? Fundamentally Flawed?
Mike Cherim responds to Davies comments. Although agreeing with much of the article, Mike, the founder of one of the sites criticized, takes issue with the accusation that the sites mentioned as failed or flawed are what Davies describes. The main issue is this question of universality - Davies considers universality to be a dogmatic, pervasive poison in the accessibility world. Mike takes issue with this.
Web Standards Project (Ian Lloyd): Failed and Flawed Accessibility Organisations
Ian raises the question again about whether this organizations are really flawed, and asks his readers for their opinions on what a “fixed” accessibility organization would be.
Mike Davies’ opinion, apparently, is that any organization which espouses universality and accessibility simultaneously is fatally flawed. Obviously, any forum is flawed by definition, since the open forum format can not justifiably exclude people with a different opinion. More closed organizations are flawed if they publish their opinions which promote universality at what he perceives to be the expense of accessibility.
I’ve published my first article at Cre8tive Flow, the Cre8asite Forums blog - Creating Accessible Navigation. In the article I discuss the idea that providing access to content is the overriding goal for the creation of an accessible content and caution against getting too wrapped up in making accessible methods.
Providing a path around an awkward accessibility obstacle may be far more effective than constructing a bridge over it or carving a tunnel through it. And don’t you just love structural engineering analogies?
I was recently invited to write a guest post at Yuri Filimonov’s search marketing blog, Improve the Web. The title of the blog says it all: improving the web is what Yuri is dedicated to doing, and he was hoping I’d provide some useful and simple accessibility tips.
I tried to stay away from the usual “code with CSS and standards” rigamarole, instead focusing on the features which you can relatively easily employ without a complete redesign of your site which will still help accessibility. Hopefully, I succeeded reasonably well!
Read “5 Basic Steps Towards Website Accessibility” at Improve the Web!
I’ve just done some moderately substantial updates to my script for fulltext searches in PHP with MySQL. Although I don’t think the changes merit a whole new version number, I’ve made enough changes to justify releasing it to the public, I think! Mostly, I’ve focused on making it easier to implement, although I’ve also made changes to make the actual searching better, as well.
The principal changes include:
SELECT statements or customize variables.
My next goal is to improve the overall security of the script: but that will have to wait until later. Next week will definitely not be a week for programming: instead, it will be a week for moving.
I welcome bug reports: I’m sure they’re there - they just need to be chased down.
Joe Clark, web accessibility and captioning guru, is looking for funding: for himself ($7,777) and for the Open and Closed Project ($7,000,000). He doesn’t expect you to donate to the latter, particularly. (If you’ve got a spare million, he’d probably listen to your offer, though.)
However, the $7,777 would sustain him for four months while he dedicates his time to searching out funding for the full project.
The goals of the Open and Closed Project have little to do with web accessibility. There are peripheral relationships, but the principal goals of the project are as follows:
The project is estimated to require four years and $7,000,000 dollars: and the first step is to find that funding. (Well, actually Joe’s been working on the project for four years already, apparently: so really this is the “step after all of Joe’s previous steps.”)
At any rate, he’s looking for support. It’s a worthwhile project, and there aren’t many who know the subject better than Joe Clark. Read what he’s asking. Consider donating.
The United Nations established the International Day of Disabled Persons in 1982. Each annual observance of the day is themed: and the theme for 2006 is E-Accessibility.
From the United Nations:
Persons with disabilities are at a considerable disadvantage by not being able to access information technologies. For instance, as education becomes increasingly dependent on information technologies, not being able to access the Internet for example limits the learning potential of persons with disabilities.
Several places already have legislation and regulations requiring websites to be fully accessible. At the international level, standards and guidelines on website accessibility are being developed. Once adopted and ratified, the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will require entities ensure that persons with disabilities can access information technologies. It specifies that measures should be introduced to eliminate obstacles and barriers to information and communications, and to promote access for persons with disabilities to information and communications technologies, including the Internet.
It’s great to see the UN giving focus to the major issues in accessibility faced by the information technology community. The importance of this issue is tremendous. I’m also glad to see that they’re making a pointed effort to mention the business advantages of accessibility:
Making information technologies available to persons with disabilities is not only a matter of human rights, it also makes good business sense. Studies suggest that accessible websites appear higher up the page rankings of search engines and can save costs on web maintenance. It also allows companies access to a largely untapped customer base. Many websites, however, remain inaccessible for the visually impaired and the blind. A recent study of the FTSE 100 companies in the United Kingdom showed that around three-quarters of company websites did not achieve basic levels of accessibility. By not making their websites accessible, UK companies are forfeiting £80 billion in lost revenue.
Although the Target accessibility lawsuit is certainly a big stick in the name of accessibility, success in espousing accessibility needs to have a carrot as well: good information about the increased financial success of accessible websites should help draw corporations into the accessibility frame of mind.
So let’s make a point to celebrate E-Accessibility Day. I’ll think of December 3rd as a goal for myself: a date by which I intend to make improvements to all my web projects. I am an accessible designer, and what I’ve got is pretty accessible already. But it could always be better. That’s my goal - what’s yours?
Filed under News by Joe Dolson