- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 18:53:08 -0800
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
[From the HTML Writers Guild's newsletter. More announcements re: accessibility will be coming in future HWG-News issues in April.] 2. April is Accessibility Month (Kynn Bartlett, AWARE Center Director, kynn@hwg.org) April 2001 has been designated as the Guild's fourth annual Web Accessibility Month, a month-long focus on the very important issue of web accessibility! By "accessible", we mean a web site that can be used by everyone, regardless of disability. Unfortunately, many web pages being created are not accessible, because they have unnecessary, artificial barriers to access -- cutting out parts of their own audience! Accessibility problems are very common and present major obstacles to a number of web users. For example, images that are not labeled with the ALT attribute cannot be understood by the screenreaders often used by blind computer users. Deaf users cannot understand the sound tracks of multimedia files, unless transcripts are provided. Users with dexterity or mobility disabilities may not be able to use a mouse or keyboard to access a site. In order to make an accessible web site, web authors need to have an understanding of "non-standard access methods" -- in other words, more than just the latest version of Netscape or Internet Explorer running on a desktop or laptop. The techniques that provide access for people with disabilities can also make a web site usable by people with mobile access devices such as cell phones or PDAs; by users connecting via web appliances such as WebTV; and by users who have older hardware and software. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) -- the industry organization that crafts the standards for the web, such as HTML, CSS, and XML -- created the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in 1997 to define the techniques necessary to produce accessible web sites. The HTML Writers Guild, the only organization of web designers that holds membership in the W3C, has been an active participant in WAI activities. Some important WAI milestones include the issuance of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in May of 1999, and the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines in February 2000. (Under development now are accessibility guidelines for browsers and other user agents.) The HTML Writers Guild established the Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education (AWARE) Center as a resource center for web designers who want to learn more about web accessibility. The Guild invites you to become AWARE of web accessibility this April by visiting: http://www.awarecenter.org/ -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> http://kynn.com/ Technical Developer Liaison, Reef http://www.reef.com/ Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet http://idyllmtn.com/ Online Instructor, Accessible Web Design http://kynn.com/+d201
Received on Sunday, 25 March 2001 21:51:16 UTC