NYS Forum IT Accessibility Work Group

January 2010 Newsletter

### Edited by Joel Obuchowski

Articles and ideas for future newsletters? Please e-mail them to Joel Obuchowski jobuchow@ins.state.ny.us and Estelle Council ecouncil@parole.state.ny.us

 

NEXT COMMITTEE MEETING

January 14, 2010, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Forum Offices, 24 Aviation Road, Colonie

 

AGENDA

Agency Consulting:
Training - Progress Report
Writing for the Web
Creating Accessible PDF Documents
Interactions with Other Forum Work Groups?
508 Policy Recommendations to OFT
Upcoming Presentations:

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

"Writing for the Web" and "Accessible PDFs" - coming soon in February?

Once confirmed, more information will be issued via the listserv.

2010 Accessible Technology On-line Seminar Series

This series of webinars, hosted by the DBTAC Great Lakes ADA Center, helps to increase understanding of technology accessibility for people with disabilities. Upcoming webinars include "The Power of Social Networking Sites for People with Disabilities" and "Best Practices in Developing and Disseminating Documents Electronically".

For more information, please visit the following link:
http://www.ada-audio.org/Webinar/AccessibleTechnology/Schedule/

 

FEATURE ARTICLE

State of the State Address
by Joel Obuchowski

In the past few years, it's always been interesting to see how the online version of the address works when viewing on a computer. Steadily, improvements have been made. Considering how much bandwidth is probably used to view it, streaming feeds worked variably in the last couple years. Video was out of synchronization with the audio feed. Fortunately, even if the video did not work, you could still listen to it. Archives would be provided following the Address to to view it in different formats.

This year, the video options of closed captioning, and American Sign Language (ASL) are provided on the New York State Web site.

The ASL option presented two frames; one displaying the Governor, and the other showing the interpreter. The frames were not very big, in order to fit the size of the window's main viewing area. However, the clarity of each frame was good, and the feed was generally smooth.

Compared to previous transmissions, this was a genuine improvement, and made for good viewing. The audio was clean, too.

To view the 2010 Address, please visit this page of the New York State Web site: http://www.ny.gov/governor/index.html

The viewing options are located after the "Watch it Here" (alternate text - "Governor David Paterson 2010 State of the State") block icon.

Being an election year, attention will certainly be paid to the next Address in 2011. Hopefully, the technology support for it will match or exceed what was provided for this year's address.

 

RECENT NEWS

Disability.gov Civil Rights News & Events Update: Job Bias Charges Approach Record High in Fiscal Year 2009

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced that 93,277 workplace discrimination charges were filed with EEOC during Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, the second highest level ever, and monetary relief obtained for victims totaled over $376 million. EEOC comprehensive enforcement and litigation statistics for FY 2009 provide more details on charges filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and other statutes. The data also show that private sector job bias charges (which include those filed against state and local governments) alleging discrimination based on disability, religion and/or national origin hit record highs.

Resources for Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
December 14, 2009

The W3C WAI today published a collection of statistics, case studies, and articles supporting the business case for web accessibility. To see the collection, please visit this link:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/resources.html

 

 

Web accessibility no longer an afterthought
by Tom Krazit
from CNET News
December 14, 2009 4:00 AM PST

Yahoo's Victor Tsaran knows how much time Web designers spend agonizing over color and font-width choices when laying out an application. So when he started Yahoo's accessibility push two years ago, he had a tough time arousing sympathy for engineers grousing about how much extra time was needed to create accessibility features.

Fortunately for Tsaran, Yahoo's accessibility manager, he's running into that problem less and less. Web designers are starting to take accessibility as seriously as button placement or heading layout when they develop their products, improving the Web experience not only for people like Tsaran--who lost his sight at the age of five--but for Web users in general.

"We're seeing a lot more awareness and involvement in Web accessibility than we did a few years ago, particularly among big companies," said Judy Brewer, director of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at the World Wide Web Consortium. "It's becoming a solid business expectation that Web sites need to meet the needs of all users."

For the full article, please visit this link:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10414041-265.html

Usability and SEM 101, Part 2
By Ron Jones, Search Engine Watch, Dec 14, 2009

Usability and SEO best practices have a congruent nature. Designing your site for a compelling user experience means you're already on a parallel path with your SEO efforts.

Let's dive deeper and explore more usability concepts and introduce new thoughts on behavioral design and how Web accessibility factor in. Additionally, we'll look at good usability resources and tips.

The article continues discussing the concepts of:
SEO and User Optimization
Web Usability
Usability Testing
Web Accessibility and SEO

For the full article, please visit this link:
http://searchenginewatch.com/3635882

 

RESOURCES

None are specifically included in this section, but this section will continue in future editions.