Web Accessibility News (83)

"The shortlist for the Jodi Awards 2006, which recognise excellence in museum, library, archive and heritage website accessibility, has been announced. The six shortlisted websites all meet demanding criteria and were chosen by a panel of four experienced judges from the sector, three of whom have personal experience of disability. Automated testing was also carried out on the sites..."

"Target [a US retailer] is being sued because the retail giant's website cannot be accessed by blind internet users. The lawsuit cites violations of accessibility laws; but their application to websites is uncertain and the case highlights the vague nature of the obligations faced by US website operators..."

"Website accessibility statements are mostly inaccurate and accessibility logos frequently appear on sites that dont deserve them, according to a study of 500 financial and e-commerce websites. Operators may not realise their failings – and risk losing users trust..."

"Seventy three per cent of EU government websites fail to conform to known accessibility standards according to a new report. The results of the survey, launched at the EU Ministerial Conference yesterday showed that only three per cent of 436 websites across the EU Member States passed Level A of the W3C web content accessibility guideline (WCAG 1.0) developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, based on a series of automated and manual checks..."

"Nominations are being sought for the 2006 Jodi Awards, which aim to recognise excellence in museum, gallery, library, archive or heritage web accessibility. The deadline for nominations is February 24 2006 and a winner, selected by a panel of expert judges, will be announced at the British Museum in London on April 5 2006..."

"Travel websites in the UK are falling short on accessibility. Expedia and Butlins were rated as the best of a bad bunch in a new study of 10 of the UKs most popular travel agency destinations on the web..."

"Organisations representing four continents announced the official launch of the Web Accessibility Tool Consortium (WAT-C). The new consortium is developing a series of browser-based web accessibility analysis tools under a general public license agreement..."

"IBM is planning on making the web more accessible to those with disabilities. Big Blue will be contributing software to narrate and magnify web pages and to navigate with keystrokes to Firefox version 1.5, and is contributing to the W3Cs standards for impaired users...."

"The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has recently launched the Mobile Web Initiative (MWI), which aims to make web access from a mobile device as easy as web access from a desktop device...."

"Computer scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have joined forces with animation specialists at Televirtual, and the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) to create a signing avatar capable of translating written web pages into British sign language..."

"The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) is unhappy with the lack of action that followed last years report on the dire state of British web site accessibility. So it is working with the British Standards Institution (BSI), with help from the RNIB, to develop clear guidance...."

"A three-year project to improve blind access to the internet has started at Queens University in Belfast. Researchers at the university are working to devise ways to guide the blind and visually impaired through the web, as part of the Enabled initiative..."

"Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion..."

"Managing inclusive design is the subject of a new guide from the British Standards Institution (BSI) that aims to help companies improve the design of products to make them accessible to all, including disabled and elderly customers..."

"The combined UK internet usability and accessibility market is to be worth more than €145m (£100m) in 2005, according to new research published by E-consultancy, a London-based internet marketing group..."

"The European Commission launched today a consultation on how best to make computers, mobile phones and web sites accessible to the widest number of people, including the disabled and the elderly. One of its suggestions is to pass new legislation...."

"Some FTSE 100 companies receive three or four complaints every week saying that their web sites are not accessible, according to a corporate forum which this month attacked the lack of guidance to accompany the UK's disability rights legislation...."

"The Court of Appeal has partially overturned a disability discrimination ruling against Ryanair. The no-frills airline was discriminating, the judges agreed, but so was Stansted Airport, and both airline and airport must share the consequent liability...."

"Eight leading UK websites were last night presented with Visionary Design Awards for their outstanding efforts in ensuring their content is accessible to visually impaired people..."

"Abbey has relaunched its customer website as part of its aim to communicate openly and clearly. The new-look site presents product information in a dramatically different way, simplifying the most important information so that users can quickly decide if it is appropriate for them..."

"Moore Innovations has launched WiderWeb, a DTI-backed web accessibility tool that can transcode a website into a more accessible format, in real time..."

"Odeon Cinemas website is so frustratingly bad that last year accessibility campaigner Matthew Somerville took it upon himself to recode a version of it that worked. The original site only allowed access to people using Internet Explorer and Windows and was in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act. Despite predictions when his site first went up that the lawyers letters would arrive immediately Odeon Cinema initially welcomed the site - as did many disabled people who could access the site for the first time. Somerville offers the site as a public service and makes no money from it..."

"IBM's (Quote, Chart) emerging technologies site, alphaWorks, now features a Java-based application that lets developers see how their site looks and sounds to a person with low-vision impairment or blindness. Called aDesigner, the tool was developed in the IBM Tokyo Research Lab to make Web access easier for the thousands of Internet users around the world who go online to conduct their business, read e-mails and shop online..."

"An employee who lost her sight yesterday won a case of constructive dismissal from the Court of Appeal – the second landmark judgment in the UK this month that extends the rights of disabled workers..."

"The BBC, Channel 4 and ITV announced last week that they would shortly be providing additional audio commentary that describes what is happening on screen, a service described as "a great step forward" for visually impaired viewers of digital satellite TV..."

"Postwatch, the UK watchdog for postal services, today announced its new fully accessible website. With the increased publicity of its work, the Postwatch website has seen a large increase in traffic over the past few months. The new website was formed after consultation with, and development by, Webcredible, a company that specialises in web accessibility and usability..."

"Some of the UK's leading supermarkets are failing online shoppers with disabilities, according to charity AbilityNet. AbilityNet carried out tests on supermarket websites to find out how easily accessible they were for users with disabilities such as visual impairment, dyslexia or a physical disability that makes mouse use difficult..."

"Tesco.com was yesterday praised as the only web site of a leading supermarket to accommodate Britain's disabled internet users. The same day it also become the first place where web users can drop bread, milk and divorce kits into the same shopping basket. The Law Society's chief executive Janet Paraskeva welcomed the new service, which Tesco hopes will demystify the law for the man on the street. Paraskeva's only qualification was that shoppers should seek expert legal advice for anything but the most simple of transactions..."

"How much progress have we really seen on Section 508? The Section 508 electronic and IT accessibility amendment is the single most influential disability mandate since the Americans with Disabilities Act came into law in 1990. But how much has changed since Section 508s inception in June 2001? We find it varies widely—from agencies that have embraced the spirit of the mandate to those that barely measure up...."

"Macromedia is hoping to cash in on the need for improved web accessibility across the public sector with the launch of a business unit directly targeting government. Macromedia Government, officially launched in the UK this week at an event at the House of Commons, is dedicated to 'enabling the public sector to create websites and rich internet applications'..."

"The web sites of 37% of Britain's top companies are meeting minimum accessibility standards, according to a new report, up from just 11% last year. Despite the improvement, however, millions of disabled people still find themselves barred from most sites. The findings are from a survey of the sites of FTSE 100 companies, carried out by digital design company Nomensa..."

"The Guild of Accessible Web Designers marked its launch today by calling upon Web designers to embrace accessibility as the cornerstone and guiding principle of their profession..."

"His is an amazing story. At the tender age of eight years, glaucoma pitched a scared Dinesh Kaushal’s world into darknes. Twenty years later, Dinesh has helped develop the world’s first ‘Hindi screen reader’, which will revolutionise the manner in which the visually challenged access the information superhighway..."

"Surprise findings from a research survey 'Disability 50' show that the majority of disability organisations do not address accessibility needs sufficiently in their web and digital communications. The research carried out by Ethical Media reveals the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of disability groups' communications activities and points to an urgent need to address web accessibility, usability and effective digital communications in the disability sector..."

"The DRC's report released last week into the accessibility of 1,000 websites, concluded that most websites are highly inaccessible, with more than 81% not even meeting basic standards of accessibility. There's been a wave of publicity surrounding the DRC announcement, with national press such as The Times reporting on the story, but I think they blew it. Here's why..."

"The majority of the UK’s leading web sites are guilty of contravening legislation already in place requiring that organisations provide accessible online services to disabled people. This is the key finding of the Web Accessibility Study 2004 by web testing specialist SciVisum, which examined over 200 web sites on basic web site accessibility..."

"Apple is developing new technologies to make Mac OS X more accessible for people with visual and learning disabilities, though these won't be made available until 'the next major release of OS X', Apple says. The company is previewing these technologies (Apple Spoken Interface) at the 19th annual Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference in LA. Apple intends extending its long-needed accessibility solution to make the whole system navigable as it's an enhancement of OS X's Aqua UI..."

"The on-line banking service of NatWest has been praised by national computing and disability charity AbilityNet in an accessibility review of the sites of ten major UK banks. However, the other nine are potentially breaking the country's Disability Discrimination Act..."

The first working draft of the 'reader' media type has been published by W3C to get early feedback on whether 'reader' is necessary and implementable.

"The Disability Discrimination Act places certain obligations on employers in respect of disabled members of staff. This week, national computing and disability charity AbilityNet released a CD-ROM to help compliance..."

"Has the print on your computer screen gotten too small? Is that auto-alert you've set up too faint? Can't find your cursor? Hey there, Microsoft says, maybe it's not the technology troubling you, but the inevitable signs of aging..."

"Nine in ten of the UK's top companies are failing to make their Web sites accessible to people with disabilities. A study by Web accessibility consultancy Nomensa found that many FTSE 100 companies simply fail to consider matters of accessibility when creating their corporate Web sites..."

"In a new survey of web sites belonging to 30 UK banks and building societies, the Co-operative Bank and the Bank of England came top, with AIB in last place. The sites were tested in December for coding errors, response time and accessibility..."

"New software that will make websites accessible to people with learning difficulties will go on sale later this year. The software can translate websites using the Rebus symbol system The system, called Communicate Webwise, automatically turns information on pages into symbols or plain text..."

"Despite a computer revolution showing many seniors keen on playing games, e-business is losing out on a £50bn market through poor internet access..."

"The purpose of the Birmingham Focus on Blindness site was to highlight the work of this Birmingham based charity in an accessible way to enable people with sight impairment to find out information about the services offered on their behalf. The site was originally intended to conform with Bobby and W3C Level AA accessibility and have a method of allowing the Birmingham Focus staff to update the site themselves..."

"Microsoft has been granted a US patent for a method that allows a computer user to write applications in HTML, without knowledge of technical programming languages. Such a file will run in its own window, free of an internet browser’s security limitations..."

"Open source software is the solution to making information technology accessible to people with disabilities. That's the word from the Global Forum for People with Disabilities. The group held a series of presentations, debates and workshops at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) today about their role in the information society..."

"Design Science announced today it has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to research ways of making mathematical content accessible to people with vision disabilities. Section 508 of The Rehabilitation Act mandates that federal agencies make Web content accessible to those with visual disabilities, including blindness, low vision, dyslexia, and other learning disabilities. While assistive technologies exist today that make textual content accessible to such people, making the same technology work for mathematical content has been problematic. With this grant, Design Science hopes to make significant progress toward the goal of making math accessible..."

"The Government has published the draft Disability Discrimination Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The DRC is delighted to welcome the publication of the draft Bill which will offer long awaited rights for Britain’s 8.6 million disabled people..."

"Canada's disabled are being left out of the new economy, public sector advocates warn, and it's time we use technology to serve all citizens. An Ottawa conference offers a progress report..."

"Last night I attended the National Library for the Blinds Visionary Design Awards. Unfortunately, Im strapped for time right now and cant give this event the full write-up that it deserves, but suffice to say that it was very well attended, the food was great, the conversation also great, and the wine wasnt bad either..."

"The Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS) is now inviting new members. GAWDS is open for business and needs as many enthusiastic, members as possible. Consider this as the soft launch, a milestone on the way to the official launch date early in 2004. The Guild of Accessible Web Designers is a world wide organisation of web designers and developers committed to helping each other, and promoting the message that accessible web design is good for business..."

"The first accessibility accreditation scheme for suppliers of web design services is to launch early next year. The scheme has been developed by the recently formed British Web Design and Marketing Association (BWDMA) accessibility and usability working group. The accreditation will enable the digital industry to identify qualified suppliers in what is a legally essential requirement for all companies on the web..."

"Government websites are failing to comply with their own guidelines for interoperability and accessibility, according to new research. Business2www tests government sites for errors every month. This month the company tested 62 sites, and found only five that complied with the e-Government Metadata Framework..."

"Government agencies are continuing to flout the governments own guidelines for interoperability, and failing to comply with the most basic standards designed to make Web sites accessible to people with disabilities, according to recent testing..."

"The web sites of the UKs ten most widely read newspapers are failing to meet minimum accessibility standards on their web sites, effectively barring millions of disabled people, and potentially breaking the countrys Disability Discrimination Act. The findings are from a survey published this month by national computing and disability charity AbilityNet..."

"The Visionary Design Awards are part of an ongoing campaign by the National Library for the Blind (NLB) to encourage website publishers and designers to consider access technology such as magnification, text to speech and refreshable Braille when they are designing their sites. The winners will be announced at an exclusive Awards ceremony to be held at the Radisson Edwardian Marlborough hotel, Bloomsbury, London on Tuesday 2 December 2003..."

"The W3C Multimodal Interaction Activity group is developing specifications for a new breed of Web application that allows multiple modes of interaction—for instance, speech, handwriting, and keypresses for input, and spoken prompts, audio, and visual displays for output..."

"The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) issued on Wednesday a draft criticizing visual verification tests Web-based e-mail services and other Internet businesses use. The tests are designed to prevent software robots from registering numerous accounts and harvesting information for spam schemes and the like..."

"If you are after examples of accessible sites that are visually appealing you could do worse than check out For The Children, Casa of Travis County, Austin Adaptive Sports and the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. The complete list of entries for this year are grouped into two categories - stock car and formula one..."

"For deaf users, the Internet was initially a great leveler. But that is quickly changing. "With broadband and multimedia, the Internet is moving away from being a level playing field," said Thomas Wlodkowski, the director of accessibility for America Online..."

"At a news conference yesterday at the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) headquarters, USA, technology consultant and representatives from the NFB and General Electric Co. unveiled GE's new Internet site as a leading example of a corporate Web site made more accessible to the blind. The site was redesigned to work more effectively with software that "talks" through Web sites..."

"Digital TV equipment is often difficult to use and inaccessible to the disabled, according to E-commerce Minister Stephen Timms, who today unveiled a new report into the industry which implies a lack of compliance with disability discrimination laws..."

"The Royal National Institute of the Blind in Peterborough is warning that anyone running a site faces prosecution if they fail to comply with the law..."

"The technology is being developed as part of an EU funded research project called GRAB (Computer Graphics Access for Blind people), and its end goal is to create workspaces that will let blind and visually impaired people navigate virtual 3D environments. The technology could, eventually, allow users to 'feel' a virtual street map or pie chart or play a 3D game -- all examples of tools already developed as part of the project..."

"Companies running websites that throw up barriers to disabled users could soon receive a startling reminder of their responsibilities - in the form of a lawsuit demanding they defend their designs in court..."

"In the most recent release of its Web development kit, Macromedia Inc. has made it easier to handle cascading style sheets and other tools for building sites that are accessible to users with visual and mobility impairments..."

"The majority of UK businesses are still unaware of laws on disability discrimination which require them to make their Web sites accessible to people with disabilities, according to a new report..."

"Waitrose is relaunching its Web site to ensure compliance with new accessibility legislation, and has criticised its rivals for offering second-rate versions of their site to disabled users..."

"Twenty-one percent of the top UK companies have web sites that fail basic accessibility tests, according to a report by site monitoring company Business2www..."

"AOL-Time Warner has started the ball rolling by making most of its Netscape browser division redundant..."

"An increasingly popular technique for preventing e-mail abuse is frustrating some visually impaired Net users, setting the stage for a conflict between spam busters and advocates for the disabled..."

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"Advocates for people with disabilities want Congress to be forced into improving accessibility of its Web sites. Members of Congress have made progress in making their Web pages more available to people with disabilities in the two years since a law to improve the accessibility of taxpayer-supported sites was passed, but they likely would do even more if their compliance with the law was mandatory rather than voluntary, experts and advocates for people with disabilities said..."

"The end of the year, which typically signals slowdown in the technology industry, instead saw a flurry of activity in the Web applications and Web services standards space..."

"The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has issued the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG 1.0) as a W3C Recommendation, representing consensus among developers and the disability community on accessibility features needed in browsers and multimedia players used to access the Web..."

"Hewlett-Packard Co. is leading an initiative to design "template" solutions that libraries can use to configure computers and workspaces for people with disabilities..."

"In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces, such as restaurants and movie theaters, and not to the Internet..."

"America Online Inc. announced yesterday that it will stop accepting new pop-up ads on its Internet service, becoming the latest online company to curb the practice after receiving widespread complaints from users..."

"The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) received the Roland Wagner Award at the International Conference on Computers Helping People (ICCHP) on 17 July in Linz, Austria..."

"The RNIB - the UK charity that helps people with sight problems - has described as "disappointing" Macromedias attempts to make its Web design software accessible to people with disabilities..."