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From: Michael Roush
Date: Dec 5, 2005 12:20PM

I am presently at a regional technology conference in Dayton, Ohio, where I just finished a presentation on accessible web design. The session before mine was done by the regional representative for an organization called tech4learning that has a product called WebBlender which bills itself as (another) easy-to-use get-your-site-up-now design package. I always try to find out what I can about the packages that are being marketed to schools around where I live in the field of web design, so that on the rare occasions that I get questions about them, I can maybe have something intelligent to say about them.

In their pring catalog, the description of WebBlender includes the following: WebBlender sites adhere to accessibility guidelines and standards, ensuring that your site will be available to the widest possible audience. I asked the rep about this after the session, and he had no better information about it than that. I have sent off an e-mail to their tech support asking for some more specific information about what standards they mean.

I may also be getting a testing edition of the software to use myself, so that I can check for myself how accessible the content is. Sometime this week, I may just download the trial edition and see what sort of code it produces.

I am wondering if anyone else has any experience with this package in particular. I realize, its very easy to be suspicious if not downright scoff-y at the claims of wysiwyg editors to produce accessible code, but Im reserving judgment at least until I actually see code that the package produces.

Meanwhile, Ill let you all know if/when I get a response from their tech folks.


Michael D. Roush, Technology Coordinator
Hopewell SERRC