NYS Forum IT Accessibility Committee

November 2009 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

November 12, 2009, 2:30pm - 4:00pm
NYS Forum Offices,
24 Aviation Road, Suite 103
Colonie, NY

Directions? Please e-mail Joel Obuchowski jobuchow@ins.state.ny.us.

Agenda:
508 Comments to OFT Wiki
Upcoming Presentations
"Writing for the Web"
Consultations
Newsletter
508 vs. our Hybrid policy
Miscellaneous Matters

NYS FORUM - WEBEX

A new document is available on the IT Accessibility Resource Web site entitled "WebEx - Tips for Presenting Online to People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired". It's in PDF format, and listed under 'Current Events and New Materials' on the Web site's HOME page. http://www.nysforum.org/accessibility/resources/

UPCOMING EVENTS

"Writing for the Web"
November 12, 2009

Due to high response for this session, registration is full. We're looking at holding another session, probably in January. We'll keep you updated on this via the Accessibility listserv.

"Creating Accessible PDFs"
December 2, 2009

RECENT NEWS

Adobe pushes Flash and PDF for open government, misses irony
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/adobe-pushes-flash-and-pdf-for-open-government-misses-irony.ars

Articles related to this Adobe/Flash item
http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/adobe-bad-open-government/
http://shebanator.com/2009/11/02/open-government-and-pdf/

WebAIM Blog - Screen Reader User Survey Results
October 29, 2009
by Jared Smith
http://webaim.org/blog/screen-reader-user-survey-results/

Testing the Accessibility of Web 2.0 (U.K.)

ECS researchers have begun a trial of browser and USB (Universal Serial Bus) pen drive applications to assist with the accessibility of Web 2.0 services.

For the full article, please visit this link:
http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/10/28/tools-to-test-the-accessibility-of-web-2-0-resources/

WGBH - DVS

"Universal Pictures to Release DVD and Blu-Ray Disks with DVS"

This article was originally distributed by WGBH. Another WGBH page about Accessible DVDs is available at this address: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/mag/resources/accessible-dvds.html

For the full text of the original article, please visit this posting, and select "show quoted text" under the title if it does not appear. http://groups.google.com/group/techlunch/browse_thread/thread/34ead7e97b4a48a0

More information about DVS activity at the WGBH Web site can be found via this address: http://dvs.wgbh.org

The following was distributed by Federal Computer Week

Education Department hit over Web site access

Complaint alleges USALearns.org Web site is inaccessible to the blind

  • By Alice Lipowicz
  • Oct 28, 2009

The National Federation of the Blind is accusing the Education Department of failing to comply with accessibility requirements for disabled people on the department's USALearns.org Web site.

The 50,000-member federation filed the administrative complaint Oct. 27 with Education that alleged violations of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, according to a news release.

Under Section 508, federal agency communications, including Web sites, must be accessible. In practice, that means having special features and compatibility with screen readers and other information technology tools and devices used by people with disabilities.

The federation asserts that USALearns.org is inaccessible to blind people who use text-to-speech screen access technology or Braille displays.

For the full article, please visit this link:
http://fcw.com/articles/2009/10/28/federation-for-blind-files-complaint-about-ed-dept-web-site.aspx

Asian nations find ways to Web-enable PWDs

By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net (web site of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)
First Posted 17:56:00 10/29/2009

Filed Under: Technology (general), Internet

MANILA, Philippines - The United Nations is looking to find new ways for some 400 million disabled people in the Asia Pacific to get access to the Internet and mobile phone technologies.

In the recently concluded Regional Workshop on the Enhancement of Information and Communications Technology Accessibility for People with Disabilities, member countries from across the region came up with several new guidelines to help improve ICT access for disabled people.

For the full article, please visit this link:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view/20091029-232921/Asian-nations-find-ways-to-Web-enable-PWDs

FEATURE ARTICLE

"GSA: accessibility compliance improves everyone's quality of life"

By Suzanne Kubota
Senior Internet Editor
FederalNewsRadio.com

Sitting in a sports bar, watching the Redskins play, it would probably never occur to the suffering fan that he or she is reaping a benefit from an assistive technology: the closed captioning on the television created for people with hearing loss. "You don't care if it's a loud environment," says GSA's Terry Weaver, you're able to follow the game.

As director of GSA's Information Technology Accessibility and Workforce Division, Weaver says that changes to technology today "are going to be benefiting all of us. Speaking as a boomer, I know I need it."

As the U.S. Access Board readies to update accessibility guidelines, known as Section 508, Weaver explained GSA's role in the process to FederalNewsRadio. She said that money talks, and when GSA does the talking, suppliers listen.

It's really a carrot kind of approach. We're saying "Gee, companies, we are your single biggest buyer. Maybe we're one percent of your purchases, but there's nobody bigger than us." If we can buy things that make technology work for people with disabilities, they don't want to make a government version and a non-gov version. They're going to make one version, so the ripple effect goes out and suddenly you find things that are accessible for folks that started out being a government requirement but made good business sense down the line.

Especially exciting, said Weaver, are the evolving technologies of web 2.0.

"It's something the Obama Administration has clearly shown an interest in. We're out there looking. How do we collaborate with the citizens? How do the citizens get involved?"

Weaver said that includes all citizens, including those with disabilities. The goal is to create hardware and software, "so that everybody gets to play."

Currently, under Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, federal web sites are required to use technologies to make them accessible to disabled users. The rules may seem thorny and nearly indecipherable to both federal and private web designers, Weaver said that's not the intent.

Section 508 "isn't a stop order. It's actually a include-everybody approach. If someone says '508' to you, they're not telling you to cut it out, they're saying make sure you make it work for everyone."

FederalNewsRadio's Jason Miller previously reported that GSA has been analyzing selected procurements to see how they mention 508, and the results have not been good, Weaver says.

She says well over 50 percent of the solicitations they look at do not mention 508 at all, even though it's for technology products or services.

Weaver says GSA also will up the ante in 2010 in how it evaluates requests for proposals.

RESOURCES

Unless otherwise noted, these were provided by Mike Hritcko, NYS Insurance Fund

Accessibility - Various

Accessibility/Video a11y Aug09
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility/Video_a11y_Aug09

New approaches to Flash & Java accessibility in the browser on Windows
http://www.marcozehe.de/2009/10/02/new-approaches-to-flash-and-java-accessibility-in-the-browser-on-windows/

(provided by Debi Orton)

Captioning YouTube Video and Providing Accessible Controls - From the Ohio State University Web Accessibility Center
http://wac.osu.edu/examples/youtube-player-controls/

Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility/WebAIM:
http://www.webaim.org/articles/evaluatingcognitive/

Using NVDA [a free, open source screen reader] to Evaluate Web Accessibility/WebAIM:
http://www.webaim.org/articles/nvda/

Web 2.0 Accessibility Site:
http://www.web2access.org.uk/

HTML

Demos of HTML5 Video & Audio Tag Accessibility
(Note: Demos work best in latest Firefox 3.5+ version in order to work with HTML5)
http://www.annodex.net/~silvia/itext/

The importance of placement of HTML elements in a document
http://www.marcozehe.de/2009/10/07/the-importance-of-placement-of-html-tags-in-a-document/

Mozilla

Mozilla Accessibility/Strategy
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility/Strategy

Recent happenings in accessibility-related projects financially supported by Mozilla
http://www.marcozehe.de/2009/09/25/recent-happenings-in-accessibility-related-projects-financially-supported-by-mozilla/