Part of building an accessible website is making meaningful choices in the code you use to markup your content. In some cases, this is a very easy decision: <p> descrbes a paragraph, <blockquote> describes a blocked quote, and <acronym> describes an acronym. No problems. But some issues are more complex: take the calendar. What is the logical structure of a calendar? Is it tabular data? Is it an ordered list? Is it a definition list? All of these are completely […]
Continue reading “Describing a Semantic Calendar” »Category: Web standards
Trying to Define Web Accessibility
Numerous articles in the last few days have suggested serious problems in either defining web accessibility or in the way it’s handled. Trenton Moss considers the future of accessibility. Alastair Campbell follows up with his own opinions. Gez Lemon and Mike Cherim co-published an article outlining two supposedly opposing views of accessibility at Accessites. Roger Johansson chimed in with his reasoning for universality. And, to cap if off, Mike Davies wrote an excellent (if possibly inflammatory) four-part series declaring Accessibility […]
Continue reading “Trying to Define Web Accessibility” »On Transitional Doctype Declarations
I’ve never really understood why people use transitional doctypes. Perhaps this comes from my time working in libraries: 7 years being beaten over the head with MARC format and various other library standards gave me a sense for correct coding before I ever sat down and decided to develop websites. Data formatting is, believe it or not, quite important. The power of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is wrapped up in formatting – if you’ve left off a closing tag or […]
Continue reading “On Transitional Doctype Declarations” »Lack of Access = Barrier to Access
This case arises out of Target’s policy and practice of denying the blind access to Target.com, including the goods and services offered by Target stores through Target.com. Due to Target’s failure and refusal to remove access barriers to Target.com, blind individuals have been and are being denied equal access to Target stores, as well as to the numerous goods, services and benefits offered to the public through Target.com First Amended Complaint, Article 24, National Federation of the Blind, et al […]
Continue reading “Lack of Access = Barrier to Access” »Thanks to Accessites!
Accessites.org is a site with a mission. Founded by accessible web designer Mike Cherim, the site honors the best of accessible web design. Accessites accepts submissions of sites for review and meticulously separates the best sites for awards. Since the founding of the site in late December of 2005, 179 sites have been submitted and 35 have received awards – with a backlog of only 16 pending sites. The way Accessites operates is through a panel of accessible developers who […]
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