I am looking for your views on an issue I am having with a design for a new website at work. I am a fan of elastic design (which you might of noticed if you are reading this via my blog). The original intention was to have a basic design for the smaller (< [...]
The site of the Western Australian Premier is one of the alarming number of websites that are built just for broadband users, while ignoring those on dialup or those on expensive mobile broadband networks. The home page in question weighs in at over hefty 750kb. Which is fine for business and home users with decent broadband, but not everybody has access to fast and cheap broadband in Western Australia.
I am not just talking about outback Western Australia …
Up until a couple of years ago, I mistakenly believed that captioning was just a souped up version of subtitling. I was very wrong.
I learnt a lot about captioning working with a hearing impaired colleague to arrange captioning of a work video, a few years ago.
One of the main issues is there is no standard or even code of practise for captioning in Australia …
Or at least the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group are. I have just reading the latest changes to the WCAG 2.0 last call draft and I am impressed, it looks like a lot of mine and other people’ concerns have been address. It requires further reading, but it looks like a big improvement over the last draft.
Joe Clark is using micropatronage to support the funding of a research project. Micropatronage is getting lots of small donations from many people. If you participate you will not be funding the Open and Closed Project, but supporting Joe as he tries to raise the money some $7 million dollars canadian for the life of the project (or at least CA$400,000 for the first year).
I participated, not because I am friends with Joe. From what I know about Joe, if we physically meet, violence (of a verbal nature) is the most likely outcome. But because I believe in what the Open and Closed Project is trying to do write standards for captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing. And know that Joe is passionate about the cause and is the best person for the task.
I am currently reading Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance and I am learning a few interesting things. I have been selectively reading chapters, the chapter I have found most interesting so far is Accessible Flash. Which says for flash to be accessible to a screen reader, the user must have:
Unfortunately, I spent a too much time preparing my Accessibility Law in Australia presentation and not enough time preparing this presentation. What should of been 30 minutes plus on techniques to make forms more accessible and usable, end up being 10 minutes or so going through a number of points that should of been expanded…
Some people who listen to podcast or read the transcript (both available soon) of my presentation on Accessibility Law in Australia to the Perth Web Standards Group may think I was downplaying the importance of accessibility law (the Disability Discrimination Act 1992) in Australia. That was not my intention, what I wanted to do was reflect the current situation.
Very few people make complaints about website accessibility in Australia…
I had interesting time trying to get home and content insurance quotes online. Most of Australia’s major insurance companies and brokers have online applications to provide quotes online. The problem is that of the six I tried, five demanded that I use Internet Explorer. Most required IE 5.0 though one wanted me to upgrade to the latest and greatest Internet Explorer 4.0. …
A follow up to my previous post on the button element, a little history, why doesn’t anybody use buttons, fun with Internet Explorer and Lozenges of Death