WebAIM Blog

Screen readers and my HP laptop have never been friends. JAWS causes major stability issues. Window Eyes stutters a lot. Now that I have an Intel-based Mac with Parallels and Boot Camp for running Windows, I have found the perfect screen reader testing system.

Parallels is a program that allows Windows to run within a window under OSX. Boot Camp allows you to boot into Windows on a Mac computer. Both of these applications work with Intel-based Macs only and support the most popular screen readers - JAWS and Window Eyes. Below are a few tips to ensure they install and function well.
Continue reading Jaws, Window Eyes, Parallels, and Boot Camp

Only a few days remain for public comment on the recent draft of WCAG 2.0. I’ve compiled some questions and issues and have a short list of things that just don’t make much sense. While I will certainly post my comments to the working group, I thought I’d post some thoughts here for your review and/or clarification first.

I am not intimately familiar with WCAG 2.0. I’ve followed its development and was even accepted at one time as a WCAG working group member, although I’ve ashamedly never really participated. So, I am mostly looking at WCAG 2.0 from an outsider’s perspective. As such, many of my concerns may be entirely due to misunderstanding the language or structure of the guidelines themselves. Yet if I have encountered such misinterpretations, it’s quite likely that someone less familiar with accessibility will have them also.
Continue reading WCAG 2.0 - Polishing the rough edges

Gian Sampson-Wild’s A List Apart article provides an excellent overview of WCAG 2.0 testability issues. Like Joe Clark’s article and many others before, it’s difficult to view an article as entirely objective when the author is clearly carrying a grudge against the WCAG working group. Despite my inherent suspicions, Gian provides several strong arguments for removing or modifying testability in WCAG 2.0. To summarize, Gian argues that the WCAG working group’s requirement that all success criteria be testable has resulted in less-than-optimal guidelines.
Continue reading Testability in WCAG 2.0

I was happy to be invited by Dennis Lembree and Ross Johnson of WebAxe to join Joe Dolson on their latest podcast on WCAG 2.0. We had a good time discussing how WCAG 2.0 has progressed, where it still falls short, and what the future holds. We tackled some of the hottest topics regarding the (possibly) politically motivated exclusion of valid code, whether success criteria are better than checkpoints, and the ‘loophole’ for accessible alternatives.

Listen to the podcast

I’m still working on my formal (and informal) comments on WCAG 2.0. Overall, I’m quite happy with it, but there’s still a few rough edges. I’ll post them here on the blog in a few days. Remember, the deadline for comments is June 29.