Web Standards, Accessibility & More

CSUN12 Favorites

Dennis — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 21:36:11 +0000

A few weeks ago, I attended the CSUN 2012 conference in San Diego, California. Another great time learning about accessibility and networking. I met several folks for the first time in-person including Jimmy Chandler, Laura Legendary, Sarah Lewthwaite, Makayla Lewis, and previous Web Axe guest Joe Dolson. And it was very nice to hear Easy Chirp mentioned in sessions a few times. Here are some fun highlights.

Biggest Hit

The CSUN Tweetup was a smashing success. Video games and certainly an open bar this year helped acquire more attendees! Check out these hilarious photos. Special thanks for Jared Smith and Mike Paciello for organizing.

Amusing Slide

This presentation slide cracked me up. It’s from the end of @PaulJAdam’s presentation “HTML5 & WAI-ARIA Forms-jQuery Validation”.

Amusing slide from Paul Adam.

Reality Check

This slide from ARIA Widgets presentation by @Todd Kloots pretty much says it all. In the web development world, we are in between HTML4 and HTML5 right now (we developers can start coding HTML5, but much support is currently missing from browsers and assistive technology).

Great simple slide from Todd Kloots.

Session With Most Style

The session Accessibility is the New Black by Wendy Chisolm and Elle Waters is definitely most stylish. Photo from tweet by @GoodWitch.

Accessibility Is The New Black!

Practical

The slide “Benefits of web standards” by Howard Kramer from A Web Standards & UD Approach to Access gives some great info on why coding properly is important.

Makes it easier for people & search engines to find your content (including AT users)
Separating structure and behavior makes your site easier and less expensive to develop & test. (And much easier to update.)
Makes your site lighter (smaller file size).
Semantic markup makes your site more accessible to different kinds of browsers and devices, incl. mobile devices and AT.
Designing with standards in ensures that your site is forward compatible.

Want more?! Check out my Flickr CSUN12 photo album the Web Axe Women of CSUN12 podcast! And I’m already looking forward to next year…

Easy Chirp, Web Axe, Articles, and Travels

Dennis — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:16:05 +0000

I’ve had a busy summer! First off, my web-accessible Twitter application Accessible Twitter was renamed to Easy Chirp. The name change was done soon before taking a trip home to Michigan. There, I took an overnight trip to Port Huron with my wife; went camping in Port Austin with my dad; my boys and newphews; and attended an excellent Detroit Tigers baseball game.

I wrote an article for DesignFestival.com. Popular Mistakes in Universal Web Design. It was later tweeted by Smashing Magazine (who has nearly half a million followers) which made me quite happy.

My brother visited me here in Northern California, and we took 3 jam-packed day trips to Monterey area, Napa valley, and Highway 1 to San Francisco. My cousin Italo was also in the area and we took a visit at Villa Montalvo in nearby Saratoga.

On my Web Axe podcast and blog, I wrote an analysis of (lack of) keyboard accessibility on Google Plus. I published, although a bit late, Podcast 92 “Frustrated”. I wrote a few other blogs including a listing of web accessibility events for the second half of 2011.

Lastly, and most recently, my wife and I saw Sade in concert (you know, “Smooth Operator”) at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Great show, but not-so-good concert pictures (but the short video clip is pretty cool).

[Macedonian translation of this web page by Web Geek Science]

Lightening Talk at CSUN11 Tweetup

Dennis — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:28:17 +0000

Last week at the CSUN Tweetup in San Diego, I gave a lightening talk about updates and happenings around the Accessible Twitter web application. It was received well, and even drew much applause on a couple items. That was great, but unfortunately I didn’t get the laughs I was hoping for in the kitten and Halloween slides! Maybe you’ll find it humorous, here are the slides:

Accessible Twitter Update at CSUN11 Tweetup

View more presentations from Web Axe

PS: Check out the pictures from the CSUN conference that I took!

PPS: On Saturday morning at CSUN11, I participated as a judge in the SS12 is a Code-A-Thon Challenge organized by Project:Possibility.

Accessibility Article, Award, Conferences

Dennis — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:44:16 +0000

This year continues to be as busy as ever!

In January, I finally published my big article 25 Ways To Make Your Website Accessible. The idea was to get it on a major online magazine, but red tape got in the way, and I hate red tape. Anyway, the article got great response from the community on Twitter.

In February, The American Foundation of the Blind announced the winners of their AFB 2011 Access Awards, and my web application Accessible Twitter was a recipient! I’ll be traveling to downtown Seattle next week to attend the ceremony at the 2011 Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute (JLTLI) conference. Weird part of this is that Disney Parks & Resorts also won the award, but at the same time,Â Disney was sued for inaccessible websites!

The week after Seattle, I’ll be traveling back to San Diego for the CSUN conference (Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference). I published a Web Axe podcast which discusses the conference, CSUN 2011 Preview. I’m not speaking at the conference as I did last year, but I will be judging a contest!

Play and Say on New HTML5 Logo

Dennis — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:14:20 +0000

So if you haven’t heard by now, the W3C released a new HTML5 logo. This has caused much controversy in the web development community because it’s not just the logo being revamped, but the philosophy behind “HTML5″ itself and related web standards:

The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others.

I agree with the many who say that that HTML5 is just HTML5 (the markup) and shouldn’t be conglomerated together with other standards such as CSS; mixing them causes confusion. Then, the W3C responded with this statement The HTML5 Logo Conversation. Whether you agree or disagree, or like or dislike the new logo and W3C’s angle, there sure has been a lot of fun (and great coding!) as a result.

Fun Stuff

HTML5 Pants
Flash animated HTML5 logo
Zillions Of Hilarious Parodies
W3C HTML5 Spinning Logo (Flick it!)
Official W3C HTML5 T-Shirt
Official HTML5 Logo Is Out: Get Your Badge! from WebResourcesDepot
Pure CSS HTML5 Logo – By Darcy Clarke

Commentary

Two cheers for the W3Câ€™s HTML5 logo from the HTML5 Doctor.
New W3C HTML5 Logo: Looks Ok But Inconsistent, Fire W3C Communications Person Who Led Messaging by Tantek Celik.
Jeremy Keith Adactio Badge of shame.
HTML5 and the New W3C-Endorsed Logo by SitePoint.
Bonus: HTML5 is dead. Long live HTML. by @ChipCullen

What do you think of the new logo and the W3C’s line of thought?

Smashing Magazine Doesn’t Know Accessibility

Dennis — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:48:59 +0000

Smashing Magazine doesn’t know accessibility; article feedback from their (second) accessibility ‘expert’ said to use this code as an example:

Click here for more information on bat species

You should never use “click here”! This is a total accessibility fail!

I’ve been waiting on publication of a big article for 6 months now, and this is part of the hold up? Ugh, so frustrating!

Big Month on Web Axe (Nov 2010)

Dennis — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 01:01:03 +0000

I sure had a busy November 2010 with Web Axe, my podcast and blog on web accessibility and web standards. Here a summary of the posts:

Podcast #86: EDUCAUSE Review, AHG Preview, HTML5 Audio with Terrill Thompson (Nov 2)
Dennis speaks with Terrill Thompson about a variety of topics including a summary of the EDUCAUSE conference; a preview of the Accessing Higher Ground (AHG) conference; community efforts to fix the web; HTML5 audio, video, and controls; and captioning.

AccessU West Keynote by Web Axe Host (Nov 5)
About a conference in January in San Jose, California, for which I present my first keynote address!

Feedback on A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Web Accessibility (Nov 6)
Some corrections and clarification on a popular article.

HTML5 Sanity Check (Nov 21)
A warning about the readiness of HTML5 pertaining to web accessibility, and some great articles and resources too!

Response to Twitter Keyboard Shortcuts (Nov 23)
Comments on the irony of keyboard shortcuts on Twitter.com when the site isn’t keyboard accessible.

November Link Roundup (Nov 30)
Every month this year I’ve been publishing a list of links going around Twitter which pertain to web accessibility.