First things first: Resource Interactive (yeah, I’m looking at YOU, Resource!) posted a new technology blog. First real topic post (as opposed to the welcome post) is about web accessibility — in my experience as a consultant on past development teams, a much feared, possibly misunderstood (and somewhat maligned) concept by developers, project managers, and business analysts alike.
Once I actually heard “Why do we care so much about BLIND people, anyway?” uttered by a STATE employee over the course of one of my projects. Evidently it was not apparent that they worked with a blind person, and several vision-impaired individuals in their own department. I assure you, they weren’t trying to be a jerk, but they genuinely did not understand why my team put so much effort in designing, testing, and retesting each of our interfaces.
The RI article itself is pretty good, a decent overview of what developers and designers face when building a site these days, a short survey of possible impairments or barriers, as well as a few clever browser-oriented evaluation resources. However, there are some resources not cited in the post that I feel have incredible value — both as a method for automated testing, but even more so as a resource to truly understanding the experience of those with disabilities as they use internet technologies. I’ll be working on a complementary article this week addressing some of the other meaty aspects of accessibilty evaluation (it’s not just a government-mandated checklist anymore!) as well as providing a context for why accessible practices are so important in web development.
Next: Adobe Beta Versions: Anyone want to try out some beta-version Adobe Software?
- Dreamweaver Beta –> http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/dreamweavercs4/
- Fireworks Beta –> http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/fireworkscs4/
- Soundbooth –> http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/soundboothcs4/
Also: Buzzword Update: I’m pretty stoked about this one, because I’ve been using Buzzword for a while, and it would appear that our voices have been heard to export Buzzword docs as PDFs. Seems like a no-brainer as Buzzword has not been branded as an Adobe Acrobat product officially as of this weekend. To my clients and cohorts — yup, it means you’ll have to update your logins to an Adobe Id. Sorry about that.
That was fast! Our tech blog just launched a few hours ago
I’m the author of the post, so I appreciate seeing how it was received. I’ll definitely be interested in your companion article.
I generally see there as being two motivating factors for accessibility: regulatory compliance and usability. Most of these tools were geared towards the compliance side of the house, simply from an ease-of-entry standpoint into accessibility. I come from a UCD background, however, and I feel VERY strongly about the necessity of user testing.
This was my first post in what I hope will become more of a series around accessibility on the RI:Technology blog. In the meantime, I write much more about accessibility on my own blog: http://www.afhill.com/blog. (My research focus in my Masters program was on RIA Accessibility).
thanks for the nod, and as I said, I’ll be checking back in later to hopefully learn some new tricks!
Hi Andrea!
The world of accessibility in internet application development is a big one. I think you did a nice job introducing the topic — and you can thank Krotscheck for the tipoff (thru his earlier twitter).
I’ll keep watching the tech blog for updates and additional posts. Thanks for being so O.P.E.N.