Thanks to everyone who came out to the meeting last night. If you didn’t make it, you missed a great presentation on accessibility!
Watching how a screen reader user navigates a website was “eye opening”. Great discussion and lots of interaction by people who attended, including many “I didn’t know that” moments made this one of our best meetings ever.
Some highlights from the meeting:
- 85% of the population has a disability that affects computer use
- There is slow progress toward making sites accessible – Newspaper websites are “getting it”, laying out their sites in a more linear fashion
- When your website is not accessible, it’s not just affecting a blind user, it’s affecting a blind business person
- TEITAC recommendations for Section 508 (thanks to Mike Paciello of The Paciello Group)
- Google has accessible search, with no ads
- Web Accessibility Resource List (Word) from Cathy McAdam
- Web Accessibility Presentation Summary and Resources (Word) from Mary Donnelly
Thanks to Nick DeNardis and EduCheckUp for spreading the news about our meeting.
It was our first meeting at Washtenaw Community College, which meant we had plentiful, free parking, signage for the event, a fantastic meeting room, with projector and a computer. Small things, I know, but it meant I didn’t have to coordinate getting a laptop and projector or worry about other meeting logistics.
Video courtesy of VC Web Services
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For those people interested in a form marked up using a definition list (I believe Dan mentioned it at the meeting), check out this page: http://www.gunlaug.no/tos/alien/pb/test_08_1130.html
Comment by Deborah — December 1, 2008 @ 3:41 PM
[...] Are these issues going to hinder Twitter from going mainstream? No, but our job as web professionals is to be the best at our craft and that means including everyone. Take a look at the recent Yahoo! article WebAIM Survey Shines Light on Screen Reader Usage to get an idea of the usage of these elements by screen reader users. Most web developers/project managers have never seen a user use a screen reader on their site, if you are interested in watching one there is a video available from the November 19th Refresh Detroit meeting, it’s pretty interesting stuff. [...]
Pingback by Accessible Twitter | .eduGuru — February 16, 2009 @ 8:02 AM