WCAG

THE OPEN AJAX ALLIANCE (OAA) is using open source web 2.0 initiatives to improve Internet access for the elderly and disabled.

The OAA
announced the open source tooling technology to help developers create accessible web 2.0 enabled sites that meet online accessibility standards. The guidelines
followed are the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.0 (WCAG 2.0), considered as the industry-wide global standard
for accessibility.

W3C has released Unicorn
, a one-stop tool to help people improve the quality of their Web pages. Unicorn combines four popular tools, including the Markup validator, CSS validator,
mobileOk checker, and Feed validator, with a single interface. This means you can check a Web page with a visit to one url instead of four. Unicorn allows
you to choose all four validation checks at once, or any one of the four individual checks as needed.

Unicorn allows the same three ways to validate your Web site as the individual tools, i.e. you can submit a url to the page to be tested, upload the files,
or enter (cut-and-paste) the code directly into a text box.

It is our pleasure to announce that the Australian Government Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy (
http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/wcag-2-implementation/index.html
) (NTS) was released today by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, the Honourable Lindsay Tanner, MP and Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities
and Children’s Services, the Honourable Bill Shorten, MP.

You are no doubt already aware that web accessibility has been a government priority for a number of years and the government endorsement and adoption of
WCAG 2.0 will ensure that government websites are more accessible and more user-friendly to everyone.

Have you tried to print out all the WCAG documentation? You probably got worried after several hundreds of pages when your printer didn't stop producing more guidelines and techniques.

Have you experienced planning to make something accessible and then finding out that the required tasks overwhelm you? This can indeed be very intimidating, and it could make you doubt that you could follow the guidelines. so you in turn postpone your plans and you may even cancel them.

But does it have to be this way? Is there a way to make a product, service or web site accessible and not be overwhelmed by the tasks?

Indeed there is, and it’s quite simple. So let us analyze a seemingly “intimidating” obstacle faced by many people in making their product, service, or web site accessible. By the end of this post, I assure you that you’d have a clearer idea about this issue.

According to a survey conducted on behalf of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation by a consulting firm specialising in information
technology for people with disabilities, 52 % of the Danish government websites are not fully e-accessible to people with various types of disabilities.

A total of 226 government websites were tested, including pages that are directly covered by the agreement on the mandatory open standards and a variety
of other government websites. Individual pages were tested in terms of compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA standard
and with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) standards.

Last time we checked if CAPTCHA is Section 508 compliant. Now let's see what WCAG says about it.

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to talk with you again regarding accessibility of the Web. My name is Judy Brewer,
and I direct the Web Accessibility Initiative ni (WAI) at the World Wide Web Consortium nii (W3C).

For the Web to work, computers need to be able to talk to each other across the Internet in the same computer languages - and W3C is where those languages are agreed upon. W3C is an
international standards body with over 300 member organizations, primarily web industry leaders. We are based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
the European Research Consortium on Informatics and Mathematics in France, and Keio University in Japan. W3C is directed by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of
the Web, and a strong believer in the Web for All. W3C has developed over one hundred technical standards and guidelines, ranging from HTML and XML, to
graphics, math, voice, rich media, mobile devices, web services, linked data, security, privacy, e-Government, internationalization, and more.

Among its other work, W3C hosts the Web Accessibility Initiative. WAI develops standards, guidelines and resources to make the Web accessible for people
with disabilities; ensures accessibility of W3C technologies; and develops educational resources to support web accessibility. WAI is supported in part
by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research at the US Department of Education; the European Commission; WAI Sponsors; and W3C Member
organizations. My comments do not necessarily represent those of WAI's funders.

Hearing the name New Zealand may often conjure up thoughts of beautiful scenery and highly developed cities. However, New Zealand is also a country of equal opportunity and equal access. And this is best shown by its efforts to make the World Wide Web accessible to everyone including persons with disabilities.

Here, we will take a look at how New Zealand works to improve the accessibility of its web sites. We will talk about legislation and standards made by the New Zealand government to ensure that its sites are as accessible and as visitor-friendly as its top destinations.

Throughout my accessibility consulting practice, developers have often asked me if they are allowed to use JavaScript in their web applications, because they have heard that it is not accessible.

The good news is, you can use JavaScript, as long as you make it accessible.

In countless situations we use abbreviations, some are more, some are less obvious or commonly understood.

When it comes to the internet, it is a good idea to provide the full meaning of an abbreviation. But in reality, it is not that clear cut. I will provide a couple of ideas on when and how to provide the full phrases.