So, I’m a bit late in posting about this, as the site was launched earlier in the week, but you still may not know that Captioning Sucks. Joe Clark would like you to know why this is. The site itself looks like an explosion in a paint factory - something that Joe admits is garish and vulgar, intentionally - so you can’t help but remember it! But the information contained is very readable and informative, explaining what the issues are and why they exist. The aim of the project is described here:

This is the real reason why everything else we’ve mentioned here is happening. We want to write and test a set of standards for captioning (and more) – independently, honestly, and out in the open. We need your help.

It was not long ago that we learnt of John Slatin’s passing. As a long-time active member of the accessibility world who worked with the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative and co-authored a book on the topic, John was passionate about the topic. In his memory is a great service for companies that want an accessibility review from experts in the field, appropriately entitled The John Slatin Accessibility Fund Project.

For a minimum donation of $500 US, the project will put the company requesting the review in touch with one of the experts (who have volunteered their time for free) and the funds will go towards the (not inconsiderable) medical costs that were incurred during John’s long illness. They aim to raise $25,000 from the project but the donation is a minimum suggested, so with hope this will not be difficult to achieve. And even if people do only donate the minimum, then there are good things that can come from that too – that’ll be another 50 web sites whose accessibility will be improved in John’s name.

If you are looking for an accessibility review, please do consider using this outlet, and if you consider yourself an expert and have some time that you can donate, contact the project to offer your services.

I almost forgot to put a mention on this site about something that I have been working on over the last few months, namely SitePoint’s HTML Reference. While it is not specifically an accessibility resource it does cover the basics of accessibility, highlighting the various HTML elements and attributes that were introduced to improve the accessibility of web pages. With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers of this site to take a quick look and let me know if there’s anything that I’ve missed. The beauty of this HTML reference being an online resource is that you can leave comments on the site (assuming that you have a SitePoint account) and if the comment/suggestion is a sensible one, the amendment will be integrated into the reference. So, have I missed highlighting any accessibility features?

Rest in peace, John Slatin. Your work in the field of accessibility will not be forgotten, and nor will the friendship and kindness to all who had the pleasure of knowing you or meeting you in person.

If you’ve just come back from another annual SXSW Interactive and the thought of returning so soon fills you with a sense of dread (and not just a little amount of concern for your poor, battered liver), look away now. For anyone still reading, here’s the deal: Knowbility are running another AccessU session in that fair city, which they describe as follows:

Knowbility’s annual web and software accessibility institute. Three tracks, two days of classes for administrators, content providers, and technologists in how and why to make IT accessible to everyone. From the basics to the bleeding edge, Access-U will provide the resources you need.

It’s aimed at ‘anyone with interest in and responsibility for accessible IT within business, academia, government agencies and/or the nonprofit sector’. So that’s a fairly wide-rangling group of people. If this sounds of interest to you - and the courses are certainly run by people who know their stuff - then check out the full course description here or register here.

If you are in London in April and have an interest in advancing the web using the latest technologies but also care a dime about keeping the end result accessible, you must come along to the 1-day event that AbilityNet are hosting. Accessibility 2.0: A Million Flowers Bloom includes a number of the leading accessibility experts converging for 1 day of practical discussions and demonstrations:

They will be looking at practical solutions to the Web 2.0 accessibility problems, showing cutting edge techniques.  We want to make it a very practical day, so that you will come away knowing what you need to do, and where you need to focus to make sure you give access to all users.

Ther is an early bird registration fee which runs out in 2 days (sorry, I only just found out about this event!), with the very reasonable price of £150 for the day. The booking form is here.

British Standards Institution (BSi), the UK’s national standards body, now in the process of establishing a new technical standards committee to oversee the development of a standard which all organisations will be able to follow in procuring or developing an accessible website.

[…]

[Julie] Howell says BSi would like the standard to be based on PAS78 but she is also keen to widen it to embrace some of the new types of web service that were not around just a couple of years ago when the PAS was drawn up.

Read the full story on the E-Access Blog: Raising the standards.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group invites you to review the second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft published on 11 December 2007. WCAG 2.0 explains how to make Web sites, applications, and other content accessible to people with disabilities. Please submit any comments on the following document by 1 February 2008: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 - W3C Working Draft 11 December 2007

See the complete call for review: WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft for further details.

I’ve just come back from speaking to a lady who works in the same company that pays my wages and who has rapidly diminishing eyesight - a rare eye condition has left her with something similar to cataracts, and a feeling of seeing everything through a heavy white curtain. The reason for my visit was to interview her and capture it on video, and ultimately the edited clip will be used in presentations that I’ll be doing within the company. Because it’s all well and good to talk about accessibility affecting people ‘out there’ but for many people these kinds of people are ‘mythical beasts’, so what better way than to show that "these people are here, working under the same roof as you - and they won’t thank you for not making your web pages or web apps accessible".

So it’s fantastic that as I sit here, with freshly videotaped evidence in hand, that I discover this set of videos on the web. Admittedly, these are promotional videos for AssistiveWare’s technology rather than a general collection of videos of people using other assistive tech, but it’s still darned useful for the likes of us who sometimes need to demonstrate to people the various ways that disabled users interact with web pages. I’d be more than happy for the likes of Freedom Scientific or GW Micro to take the same approach. More video resources are very welcome indeed!

[Note - I know that this is not a new resource, just new to me, as it was new to Roger. That’s the beauty of using del.icio.us - I found it in the popular page for the accessibility tag]

Summary: Target case now open for class action and every blind person in the U.S. who has tried to access Target.com can become a plaintiff.

Summary of summary: Target, you’re screwed.
[Well, maybe … possibly, but I am not a lawyer, usual disclaimers apply]

Many times in the past when explaining to people why accessibility is important, I’ve rolled out the legal argument – why it’s something that you should do if you want to be on the right side of the law, whether that’s the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the States or the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in UK. But when asked for examples, I’ve always had to pull out the Australian Sydney 2000 Olympics case .. and that’s about it. The legal threat has always felt just that – a threat, not a reality. To that extent, I don’t tend to lead with the legal reason now, instead focusing on the business benefits of getting accessibility right and the moral reasons. But that may be about to change.

Early last year, a California resident brought a legal case against Target.com because of their web site’s inaccessibility. It looked for a while like it might ‘quietly go away’ as has often happened in the past, mainly because Target made some changes and also Amazon announced that it would be working with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), a move which seemed out of character to many - and the significance of this is that Amazon, often touted as an example of inaccessible page design, is powering Target.com’s e-commerce capabilities. In short, it looked like Amazon might be cozying up with ‘the enemy’ to appear to be doing the right thing. Well, that’s largely irrelevant now, as it doesn’t appear to have helped in the long run.

The Target case has reared its head once more and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has certified the NFB lawsuit against Target as a class action and ruled that websites like Target.com are required, under California state law, to be accessible. This means that any blind user in the states who has tried to access Target.com can join the class action which must, surely, spell a whole heap of trouble for Target. It’s the test case that the accessibility community knew had to happen one day – and indeed were welcoming it – while the business world tried the old emu avoidance method by sticking their head in the ground and hoping they don’t get caught. Or is that ostriches? Matt May wrote the following on the topic in February last year:

But I’ve also seen cases where it’s a legal game of chicken: some companies refuse to comply with a legal mandate that they feel doesn’t clearly apply to them. They’re gambling that the cost of being found guilty of non-compliance is lower than that of conforming to a standard that may not apply to them. This strategy falls apart like a house of cards as soon as one of them is found liable. And it’s a tactic I find particularly odious when they’re consciously acting to keep users with disabilities out.

So this one looks like it’s going to run and run and not, as Target might have hoped, quietly go away. One question to ask at this stage is how this might spill over to other countries – will UK look at this case and take it as a precedent? Like I said, I’m not a lawyer, so if you are please add your thoughts in the comments.