pre CSUN announcement of Wave

Judy,
The Wave is at a point where I'd like feedback from IG, and I'd like to 
post it before CSUN if possible.  I've attached a brief description.

Do I just post it?  Or should it come from you?

Len

========
There's a new tool available to help evaluate accessibility of Web 
sites.  It's called the WAVE (Web accessibility Visual Evaluator) 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/ .  The WAVE superimposes 
icons and labels on a web page to show what information is available via 
ALT text and applet alternatives, and show the reading order.  This gives a 
person a quick way to compare the ALT text with the images, and the applet 
alternatives with the Applets, and see if the reading order makes 
sense.   Also, missing, suspicious, and blank ALT text are flagged for 
scrutiny.  In other words, the focus is to help a person make the basic 
manual checks needed to evaluate accessibility.

Although the WAVE's input and output is designed to be accessible, right 
now it doesn't appear to be that useful for people who are blind (e.g. 
presenting the ALT text next to an image doesn't help a person who doesn't 
see the image).   Suggestions are needed on features to make the WAVE more 
useful to people who are blind, and to help evaluate more accessibility 
checkpoints, especially checkpoints for disabilities other than blindness.

The WAVE was developed at Pennsylvania's Institute on Assistive Technology, 
a program of the Institute on Disabilities/UAP at Temple University, and 
incorporates techniques and suggestions from the WAI Evaluation and Repair 
Tools Interest Group.

Please post feedback to list and/or to the tool's author (Len 
Kasday,  kasday@acm.org ).

============

Len
-------
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
Department of Electrical Engineering
Temple University
423 Ritter Annex, Philadelphia, PA 19122

kasday@acm.org
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday

(215) 204-2247 (voice)
(800) 750-7428 (TTY)

Received on Thursday, 16 March 2000 16:42:44 UTC