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Vernon Fowler

WAT-C Web Accessibility Tools Consortium - 0 views

wat-c.org/index.html

accessibility webdesign tools development

shared by Vernon Fowler on 23 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Vernon Fowler on 23 Feb 14
     
    "The Web Accessibility Tools Consortium [WAT-C] provides a collection of free tools to assist both developers and designers in the development and testing of accessible web content. The consortium is a collaboration of some of the world's leading accessibility practitioners, founded by Accessible Information Solutions (Australia), Infoaxia (Japan), The Paciello Group (USA), Wrong HTML (Japan), and Juicy Studio (UK). Our goals are to develop new tools, improve current tools and expand the range of browsers, operating systems and languages in which our tools are available."
Sandra Earl

untitled - 0 views

www.iheni.com/e-shifts-on-desktop-and-mobile

mobile accessibility reading best practices standards

shared by Sandra Earl on 12 Oct 10 - Cached
  • The upsurge in VoiceOver could be explained in part by iPhone now providing VoiceOver support; all of a sudden there is a very real reason to switch to Mac if you can use a screen reader you are familiar with on both your desktop and mobile.
  • The upsurge in VoiceOver could be explained in part by iPhone now providing VoiceOver support; all of a sudden there is a very real reason to switch to Mac if you can use a screen reader you are familiar with on both your desktop and mobile.
  • It’s good to also see the free, open source NVDA on the up. They’ve worked hard to include WAI-ARIA support and are becoming a key tool for web developers when testing.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • We’re still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that’s the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into. On desktop we have IAccessible2, MSAA and UI Automation (amongst others) but on mobile users are tied into one platform often only supporting one browser (such as iPhone, Blackberry RIM and others) so while desktop has opened up we find ourselves in a 1990’s type impasse with users left with little room to choose on mobile. Opera works well with VoiceOver but we have no way of telling if it works on the iPhone as it’s not supported. My hope is that with more users there’ll be more momentum behind breaking this stand off and opening up the market and ultimately giving users not only choice but portability between platforms.
  • It’s good to also see the free, open source NVDA on the up. They’ve worked hard to include WAI-ARIA support and are becoming a key tool for web developers when testing.
  • « Yay factor! Going global with standards and BBC Click on web accessibility Make video accessible, localised, mobile and searchable by captioning » Screen reader software usage shifts on desktop and mobile Nov 4th, 2009 by iheni WebAim released their 2009 Screen Reader Survey last week, a follow up from last years Screen Reader survey. Very good reading it makes too but of particular interest are results around screen reader choice on the desktop and increased screen reader access on mobile. For years it’s felt like screen reader users have mainly used IE on the desktop in combination with the major screen readers Jaws by Freedom Scientific and WindowEyes by GW Micro. It’s not that other platforms don’t support screen readers (we have Orca on Linux, VoiceOver on Mac) it’s just that IE seems to have dominated. As such what types of content and web technologies users can and can’t access has very much been driven by what the three software vendors Microsoft, Freedom Scientific and GW Micro have supported. This has made access to the open web a bit lopsided cutting down on choice for the end user, competition and by extension innovation. SVG is an example of a web technology that has possibly suffered by not being supported by IE and in turn by Jaws and WindowEyes. What’s interesting to see in this year’s survey is that Jaws and WindowEyes – while still the most used – have some stiff competition at snapping at their heels from open source, free screen readers (NVDA and  SAToGo ) and VoiceOver which is available with Mac: JAWS 75.2% Window Eyes 23.5% VoiceOver 14.6% System Access or System Access To Go 22.3% NVDA 25.6% While this year’s stats show little shift for Jaws and WindowEyes usage overall there is a significant leap forward for NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) and VoiceOver: Of the 1121 respondents, 74% use JAWS, 23% use Window-Eyes, 8% use NVDA, and 6% use VoiceOver. While several other screen readers were reported, these were the most prominently reported. The upsurge in VoiceOver could be explained in part by iPhone now providing VoiceOver support; all of a sudden there is a very real reason to switch to Mac if you can use a screen reader you are familiar with on both your desktop and mobile. This could also explain the increase of screen reader users on mobile reported this year with 53% of survey respondents with disabilities confirming they use a screen reader on a mobile device. This is up from 12% last year (although last year’s survey doesn’t distinguish disabled from non-disabled users). I wonder how much this is to do with the ‘iPhone Factor’ but also can’t help thinking that social networking has done for the mobile web what Kylie Minogue did for Agent Provocateur – everybody wants some. And for me at least 2009 feels like the year that we all sat up and paid attention to the potential of mobile for people with disabilities. We’re still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that’s the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into. On desktop we have IAccessible2, MSAA and UI Automation (amongst others) but on mobile users are tied into one platform often only supporting one browser (such as iPhone, Blackberry RIM and others) so while desktop has opened up we find ourselves in a 1990’s type impasse with users left with little room to choose on mobile. Opera works well with VoiceOver but we have no way of telling if it works on the iPhone as it’s not supported. My hope is that with more users there’ll be more momentum behind breaking this stand off and opening up the market and ultimately giving users not only choice but portability between platforms.
  • We’re still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that’s the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into.
  • Sandra Earl on 12 Oct 10
     
    "We're still faced with one massive problem with mobile access however and that's the lack of an open, cross platform accessibility API that mobile screen readers can hook into."
Vernon Fowler

HTML5 Accessibility Chops: When to use an ARIA role | The Paciello Group Blog - 0 views

www.paciellogroup.com/...chops-when-to-use-an-aria-role

accessibility html5 browser

shared by Vernon Fowler on 24 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The situation for new HTML5 elements is different and likely to remain so for some time. It will be years before New HTML5 elements get robust accessibility support implemented across browsers and platforms. This is particularly so for non interactive elements such as the new HTML5 structural elements because  accessibility APIs in general do not have defined roles for many non interactive elements. In this case it is recommended to add the appropriate ARIA roles to elements that are meant to convey meaning but are effectively meaningless due to lack of implemented accessibility support. For example, adding role=navigation to a nav element fills the gaps in support for HTML5 semantics as ARIA  is more robustly  supported by most modern browsers and assistive technology:
  • <nav role=”navigation”>
  • Authors/developers can safely assume that any element that has been around since HTML 4.0 is already accessibility supported in browsers that support accessibility. So they do not need a default implicit role added.
cafe software

My Profitable Business Career - 1 views

Online system accessibility

started by cafe software on 23 Jan 12 no follow-up yet
Sandra Earl

Blind Access Journal: Window-Eyes 7.0: Releasing the Potential for Momentous Steps Forw... - 0 views

blog.blindaccessjournal.com/...0-releasing-potential-for.html

accessibility screen reader Windows Eyes

shared by Sandra Earl on 12 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • A screen reader simply enables a blind person to use the applications and operating system on a computer without sight by converting on-screen text into a Braille or spoken format. Intelligent screen readers like Window-Eyes deliver information in a linear format, interpret the active window, read complex web pages and perform many other advanced functions.
  • Although scripting is, by far, the number one enhancement found in this latest Window-Eyes release, other new features are noteworthy in their own right. Geoffray tells us that Window-Eyes is now 100 percent Unicode compliant. This enables access to foreign language text, certain PDF documents not previously readable, Microsoft Word’s smart quoting feature and any other situation where use of special symbols is required. Intelligent place markers may now be defined on dynamic web pages delivering quick access to a specific area of the page based not only on its virtual line number, but also on the text at the cursor. A new Eloquence speech synthesizer, access to the Firefox 3.0 web browser, support for the public beta version of Internet Explorer 8.0
Sandra Earl

CSU Picks Moodle and ANGEL - 0 views

mfeldstein.com/csu-picks-moodle-and-angel

accessibility CSU

shared by Sandra Earl on 12 Oct 10 - Cached
  • Cal State University, with its 23 campuses and 250,000 students, has signed contracts with Moodlerooms and ANGEL, according to Campus Technology. (I’ve known this was in the works for some time now, but I guess it just went official.) These are statewide pricing contracts; individual campuses still get to choose whatever system they choose. Still, it’s a big deal for both vendors, as well as for the Moodle community. Word on the street is that both Moodle and ANGEL got particularly high marks because of their strong accessibility; California has strict accessibility laws and regulations.
Sandra Earl

InformIT: The Adobe AIR Platform: Software Revolution or Evolution? > The Adobe AIR Pla... - 0 views

www.informit.com/...article.aspx

accessibility adobe adobe air online help

shared by Sandra Earl on 12 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system platform that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills in HTML, Ajax, XML, Flash and Flex to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications for the desktop.
Sandra Earl

E-Access Bulletin Live » Blog Archive » Disability Redefined As E-Learning 'M... - 0 views

www.headstar.com/eablive

accessibility standards elearning LMS general FUSION09

shared by Sandra Earl on 12 Oct 10 - Cached
  • An attempt to redefine or reframe the term ‘disability’, in the context of online learning as a mismatch between a learner’s needs and the education process delivered, is enshrined in a new international e-learning standard.
  • The standard says it views disability as “a consequence of a mismatch between the learner’s needs (or preferences) and the education or learning experience delivered. “For example, an individual who is blind is not disabled when the lesson is delivered in audio. However, an individual who does not have the necessary background knowledge to understand the lesson, or who is listening to the lesson in a noisy environment, is disabled. “Thus, the needs and preferences of a user may arise from the user’s context or environment, the technical requirements of the user’s device, the tools available (e.g. assistive technologies such as Braille devices, voice recognition systems, alternative keyboards, etc.), the user’s background, or a disability in the traditional sense. “Given this reframing of the meaning of “disability”, a learning environment is deemed as “accessible” when learner needs can be addressed or matched.”
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