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Thread: Accessibility criteria

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Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)

From: Martin Pistorius
Date: Fri, Jun 15 2007 9:50AM
Subject: Accessibility criteria
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Hi there,

I've been asked to look it Accessibility criteria, so that we can develop a
list of criteria for our organisation similar to the one's listed here:
http://accessites.org/site/criteria/

I'd really appreciate any input you have.

All the best,

Martin Pistorius

From: Moore, Michael
Date: Fri, Jun 15 2007 10:20AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility criteria
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Martin wrote:

I've been asked to look it Accessibility criteria, so that we can
develop a list of criteria for our organisation similar to the one's
listed here:
http://accessites.org/site/criteria/

Mike's reply:

I would start with the criterial listed at the site that you have linked
above, I would agree with just about everything there. Some of their
criteria, like using a strict dtd and avoiding layout tables are more of
a best practices "standard" than absolutely require for accessibility
but you should seriously consider adding them to your list.

Next, review the WCAG and Section 508 guidelines and make sure that you
understand the reasons behind those guidelines. An excellent resource is
the book by Jim Thatcher et. al. "Web Accessibility, Web Standards and
Regulatory Compliance" (2006, ISBN 1-59059-638-2).

Finally there are some excellent web resources available through WebAIM,
the organization that sponsors this list, <http://www.webaim.org>;,
Knowbility, another non-profit organization that is a leader in
accessibility training <http://www.knowbility.org>; - check out their AIR
Judging form, and the WEB Standards Project (WASP)
<http://www.webstandards.org/>;. The checklists and evaluation templates
that we are currently using here at the Texas Department of Assistive
and Rehabilitative Services were developed using those resources.
Accessibility and usability is critical for our organization to function
since we serve the disabled community of Texas (over 4 million people)
and have over 200 staff members who rely on assistive technology to
perform their jobs.

Mike Moore

"If you don't have time to do it right,
when will you have time to fix it?"

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Martin
Pistorius
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 4:17 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Accessibility criteria

Hi there,

From: Susan Grossman
Date: Fri, Jun 15 2007 10:30AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility criteria
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Hi

I generally write all this information into my Best Practices documentation,
though I'm a bit more specific then this example.

For instance, I define the exact Doc Type and supply a header example that
includes the language tags, char meta-tags, a help meta-tag that i link to
an accessibility page, etc. so I know that they're getting everything needed
for accessibility into the header.

Just continue on making sure that you cover all important issue and give
examples that fit your needs.

I would also suggest using the WCAG Sanuri Errata for defining your
accessibility, but make it specific to your needs.
http://wcagsamurai.org/errata/intro.html

Susan


On 6/15/07, Martin Pistorius < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Hi there,
>
> I've been asked to look it Accessibility criteria,
>

From: Peter Krantz
Date: Fri, Jun 15 2007 12:50PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility criteria
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On 6/15/07, Martin Pistorius < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> I'd really appreciate any input you have.
>

Also, have a look at the Unified Web Evaluation Methodolgy:

http://www.wabcluster.org/uwem/

It contains a number of accessibility tests and a description on how
to do the evaluation (http://www.wabcluster.org/uwem/tests/). If you
want to construct your own evaluation checklist UWEM can be a good
starting point.

Regards,

Peter Krantz
http://www.standards-schmandards.com

From: Emma Duke-Williams
Date: Tue, Jun 19 2007 3:30AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility criteria
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On 15/06/07, Susan Grossman < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

>
> I would also suggest using the WCAG Sanuri Errata for defining your
> accessibility, but make it specific to your needs.
> http://wcagsamurai.org/errata/intro.html

I've not seen that before, but I particularly like the fact that it states:
"WCAG 1 and 2 are both inadequate to address the needs of people with
cognitive disabilities like dyslexia (though that is only one of many
such disabilities, which often have conflicting needs). We couldn't
bring ourselves to delete the only guideline below Priority 3 that
attempts to address cognitive disabilities ("Use the clearest and
simplest language"), but we also haven't devised a full suite of new
guidelines."

I've found that far too often the needs of those with cognitive
disabilities are glossed over, I suspect because it's something that's
very hard to test automatically, yet, they are, by quite large % the
biggest group. If you include the fact that using clear and simple
language also help all those who are accessing the web in a language
that isn't their first language, then it's an even bigger %.

Emma

--
Blog: http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/

From: Christophe Strobbe
Date: Tue, Jun 19 2007 4:00AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility criteria
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At 20:42 15/06/2007, Peter Krantz wrote:
>On 6/15/07, Martin Pistorius < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> >
> > I'd really appreciate any input you have.
> >
>
>Also, have a look at the Unified Web Evaluation Methodolgy:
>
>http://www.wabcluster.org/uwem/
>
>It contains a number of accessibility tests and a description on how
>to do the evaluation (http://www.wabcluster.org/uwem/tests/). If you
>want to construct your own evaluation checklist UWEM can be a good
>starting point.

Hi Peter,

Thanks for posting the link to the Unified Web Evaluation
Methodology. The WAB cluster is currently working on a new version
(1.1) based on input and reviews that have been received since July
2006. Questions and comments about the current version are still welcome.

Best regards,

Christophe
(UWEM contributor)

--
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
Research Group on Document Architectures
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442
B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
BELGIUM
tel: +32 16 32 85 51
http://www.docarch.be/


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