Buzz Archives for March 2007
Amazon.com to enhance its accessibility
I had to pinch myself to check it's not 1 April yet, because Amazon has always been an invalid, nested-table horror that was a poster-child for inaccessible images, but it seems to be true: Amazon.com, the leading online retailer, and the National Federation of the Blind have entered into a cooperation ...
By Bruce Lawson | Filed in Accessibility TF, General
- Spring Fling
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April 5, 2007 sees the Highland Fling in Edinburgh, Scotland - a one-day conference aimed at web developers and businesses with an interest in web standards and accessibility.
By Derek Featherstone | Filed in Education, Web Standards (general)
- A band-aid for browsers
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With tongue firmly in cheek, DOM Scripting Task Force member Dean Edwards says: Just what the world needs, another JavaScript library. That hasn't stopped him from creating Yet Another JavaScript Library Without Documentation™. But this isn't a big full-featured library along the lines of jQuery or YUI. Instead, this works more along ...
By Jeremy Keith | Filed in Browsers, DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Apollo alphas released
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Today Adobe released the first alpha of their new cross-operating system runtime, codenamed Apollo.
By Aaron Gustafson | Filed in Emerging Technology
- A Shopping List For Standards?
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Molly is heading for Microsoft and wants to know what your hot topics are where standards and Microsoft are concerned.
By Ian Lloyd | Filed in Microsoft, Web Standards (general)
- WaSP needs you
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At the WaSP Annual Meeting at SXSW today, the Web Standards Project announced the WaSP Street Team. Based around the concept of a record company Street Team, the aim is to give you ways to get involved with web standards evangelism in your local area and in the places you ...
By Rachel Andrew | Filed in General, Street Team
- Which is better for the web: single vendor homogeneity, or OSS/Web 2.0-style innovation?
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Brendan Eich, the principal creator of JavaScript and one of the leading developers for the Mozilla project, follows up his SXSW presentation, which illustrates parallels between historical examples of user-community-driven innovation and the current state of affairs in the web useragent space. (Say that fast ten times.) In today’s post ...
By Ben Henick | Filed in Authoring Tools, DOM, Emerging Technology, HTML/XHTML, Microsoft, Web Standards (general)
- WaSP SXSW Annual Meeting Today
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Attend our annual SXSW meeting today! Hear our latest news and updates, ask our member questions, and find out more about a new and interesting project. Panel: WaSP Annual Meeting: Takin' it to the Street Room 8ABC Monday, March 12th 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
By Holly Marie Koltz | Filed in General
- Another way to look at validation
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In the new issue of A List Apart, WaSP Emeritus Ethan Marcotte questions the way we advocate for standards.
By Aaron Gustafson | Filed in Web Standards (general)
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation
By Matt May | December 11th, 2008
After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I’d like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards.
I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation:
WCAG 2.0 and a new Guns ‘n’ Roses album in the same year. What’s the world coming to.
Interesting comparison. They’ve each had about as many pre-releases. In any case, I can say, having spent over 8 years with it, that WCAG 2 is not as entertaining as Chinese Democracy. But I do think that it’s better equipped to stand the test of time.
If I had to pick one thing I’m most happy about, I’d say it’s that the HTML- and text-centrism in WCAG 1 is largely gone. In its place is a much more flexible (dare I say robust?) concept of accessibility-supported technology. So when newer technologies can show themselves to be directly accessible, they too can be used in WCAG 2-conformant content.
Over the years, many people have conflated “WCAG-conformant” with “accessible,” and that’s led to people making statements like: “Don’t use JavaScript–it’s inaccessible.” That’s bad for everyone, from users with disabilities who actually can work with JavaScript (which is to say, the vast majority), to Web designers and developers, to policymakers, to those developing new technologies.
With WCAG 2, “Don’t use x” is no longer valid. (Was it ever?) It is now up to you, the developer, to work on the direct accessibility of your content, no matter what technology you choose. I believe we’re about to experience a new wave of accessible design techniques, as a result.
But first, we need to flush “Don’t use x” out of our system. Some are accustomed to saying it about anything they’re not comfortable with. That’s only holding accessible design back. It’s time to learn what’s out there, today, and use it in everyday Web design. It’s time to make everyone’s Web more accessible. Have a look at the WCAG 2.0 Recommendation, and its supporting material. Then, start thinking about what a more accessible Web could be. We still have a lot of work to do.
Filed in Accessibility, Accessibility TF, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general) | Comments (8)