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- BSI British Standards invites comments on new draft standard on accessible web contentDecember 1
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BSI British Standards is inviting all interested parties, and in particular marketing professionals and disabled web users, to review and comment on the draft of a new standard on accessible web content. DPC BS 8878 Web accessibility – Building accessible experiences for disabled people – Code of Practice is applicable to all public and private organizations wishing to offer accessible, usable web content to their customers. [...]
Based on PAS 78: 2006, Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites, DPC BS 8878 informs organizations of their legal responsibilities in relation to web accessibility, calling on them to appoint a specific person or department to oversee activity. [...]
Julie Howell, Chair of the committee responsible for drafting DPC BS 8878, commented, “Once published, this standard will be a fantastic tool for organizations wishing to understand their responsibilities in enabling disabled people to use web content. DPC BS 8878 encourages the enhancement of the overall user experience - a much more holistic approach than we have seen previously and one that I hope will yield exciting results. Right now we want to encourage as many people as possible to read and comment on the draft standard to ensure it is as relevant as possible.”
- Want to set up a Web Standards Café?November 28
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As a hat tip to Blue Beanie Day 2008 and in the spirit of helping spread the word of web standards, the International Liaison Group thought we’d celebrate by putting together a Web Standard Café Kit.
Web Standards Cafés have been held all over the world bringing together people passionate about the web and making it work for everyone. They’ve always been a great place for web professionals to share, learn and network while being local and free of charge.
Recently people have been asking what is involved in running a Web Standards Café so we thought we’d document what we know to help you get started and give you some ideas of what they’re about if you want to run your own meetup.
The kit includes information about who events are for (everyone!), venue’s, sponsorship, promotion and sharing photo’s, slides, video and so on. It’s really just a few ideas to help you get started and is for you to take and use in a way that works for you in your region.
The kit is a work in progress so if you have any questions or tips you want to share we’d love to hear them. If you already run a Web Standards Café or meetup and would like to be listed in our soon to be published list of global meetups then leave a link below with any comments and we’ll add you to our list. We’ll also be adding conte
- Web standards in ChinaNovember 24
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In early October I was lucky enough to spend some time in China talking to web professionals and students alike about web standards and their current status. It was an interesting couple of weeks that really opened my eyes to what the challenges are when following best practices. What hit me most is that those who support standards are a small and often isolated voice with little or no resources in Chinese to help back up or explain why we need standards and what the benefits are. Here I give a broad overview of what I learnt, challenges and hopefully some ideas of how we can help improve things.
Please do leave a comment if you have any suggestions, thought or insights. I’d also like to expand on the list of resources below so if you have any then post links and I will update the list.
Market forces
In the main those drivers that we see supporting web standards in some European countries, Australia and the States almost act as the opposite in China. There is no legal requirement to make your website accessible and market forces don’t seem to provide a significant enough push. Market forces is an interesting one. I’ve long held that the business case around web standards is essential even in a country that has a legal requirement for sites to be, for example, made accessible. The reasoning for this is that a site owner may be aware they legally have to make a site accessible but unless they see the direct benefit to them they may not implement
- WCAG 2.0 resourcesNovember 6
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Here’s a starter list of some resources to help transition to WCAG 2 from the world of WCAG 1, now the new standard goes to proposed recommendation status.
This is just a starter list; please add other resources that you recommend in the comments. It would be great to have some for clients as well as hard-core techies.
- WCAG 2 and mobileOK Basic Tests specs are proposed recommendationsNovember 4
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WCAG 2 and the mobileOK Basic Tests specifications have been moved to “proposed recommendation status” by the W3C, which means that the technical material is complete and it has been implemented in real sites.
WCAG 2
Shawn Henry writes of WCAG 2,
Over the last few months, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has been going through a process to ensure that WCAG 2.0 can be implemented. Developers and dsigners from around the world gave WCAG 2.0 a “test drive” in their own Web content.
The result: Successful implementations in a wide range of sites including education, commerce, government, and a blog; in languages including Japanese, German, English, and French; and using a wide range of technologies including scripting, multimedia, Flash, and WAI-ARIA. You can get the nitty-gritty details from the Implementation Report.
It’s possible that WCAG 2 could be the new accessibility standard by Christmas. What does that mean for you? The answer: it depends. If your approach to accessibility has been one of guidelines and ticking against checkpoints, you’ll need some reworking your test plans as the priorities, che