Buzz Archives for March 2006
Government Web Site Failure - Is It So Shocking?
Report reveals poor pass rates for standards in UK government web sites.
By Ian Lloyd | Filed in Accessibility, General, Validation, Web Standards (general)
- Microformat Extensions for Dreamweaver
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As part of our remit to encourage the use of web standards amongst the Dreamweaver community, the DWTF has produced a suite of extensions to help make working with Microformats easy.
By Drew McLellan | Filed in Dreamweaver TF, General
- Trying to explain the differences between DHTML and DOM scripting with an example
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A summary of the issues around DHTML, and the value behind DOM Scripting.
By Christian Heilmann | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Acid2 Supported in Opera One Year Later
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Opera 9 passes Acid2, next step for Opera is mobile, and preliminary mumblings about Acid3 have begun.
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Acid2, Action, General
- Browser Junkies, Get a New Fix
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Mozilla announce early alpha of Firefox 2, codenamed Bon Echo
- IE 7 Beta Preview 2 Out Now
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Microsoft announce release of IE 7 beta 2 after which no more CSS fixes will be addressed - this is as far as it goes for version 7.
- Dean Edwards Speaks
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Jonathan Snook interviews Dean Edwards.
By Jeremy Keith | Filed in DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Accessibility First - A Novel Teaching Method
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Educator Brian Rosmaita proposes an ‘accessibility first’ approach for teaching web design.
By Ian Lloyd | Filed in Accessibility, Education, Training
- The Buzz is Black
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On March 13, 2006 at SxSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, WaSP unveils a redesigned site.
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in WaSP Announcement
- Queen's New Clothes
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WaSP eduTF interviews Tim Hannigan on Queen’s University’s conversion to Web standards.
By Steph Troeth | Filed in Education, Education TF
- First ATF F2F Meeting
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The ATF had its first chance to meet face-to-face during SxSW Interactive in Austin, Texas.
By Matt May | Filed in Accessibility TF
- Help Free the Web with WaSP
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We've stung, we've swarmed, we've buzzed. Sometimes we've failed to make our mark, other times we've been far more successful. But there's one thing that's certain, and that is as of Monday, March 13th, the Web Standards Project enters a new time in its history, opening the hive up ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in WaSP Announcement
- Cross-Browser Comparison of Scripting Libraries
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A scorecard of scripting libraries.
By Christian Heilmann | Filed in Accessibility, DOM, DOM Scripting TF
- Microsoft IE7 Progress: Sneak Preview of MIX06 Release
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I'm sitting here with Malarkey and Markus Mielke in Mandelieu, a beautiful town in the south of France. We're here attending the W3C Technical Plenary and Markus has been kind enough to give us a sneak preview of the IE7 release that's expected for the MIX06 event. We've been looking ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Browsers, Microsoft TF
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation
By Matt May | December 11th, 2008
After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I’d like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards.
I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation:
WCAG 2.0 and a new Guns ‘n’ Roses album in the same year. What’s the world coming to.
Interesting comparison. They’ve each had about as many pre-releases. In any case, I can say, having spent over 8 years with it, that WCAG 2 is not as entertaining as Chinese Democracy. But I do think that it’s better equipped to stand the test of time.
If I had to pick one thing I’m most happy about, I’d say it’s that the HTML- and text-centrism in WCAG 1 is largely gone. In its place is a much more flexible (dare I say robust?) concept of accessibility-supported technology. So when newer technologies can show themselves to be directly accessible, they too can be used in WCAG 2-conformant content.
Over the years, many people have conflated “WCAG-conformant” with “accessible,” and that’s led to people making statements like: “Don’t use JavaScript–it’s inaccessible.” That’s bad for everyone, from users with disabilities who actually can work with JavaScript (which is to say, the vast majority), to Web designers and developers, to policymakers, to those developing new technologies.
With WCAG 2, “Don’t use x” is no longer valid. (Was it ever?) It is now up to you, the developer, to work on the direct accessibility of your content, no matter what technology you choose. I believe we’re about to experience a new wave of accessible design techniques, as a result.
But first, we need to flush “Don’t use x” out of our system. Some are accustomed to saying it about anything they’re not comfortable with. That’s only holding accessible design back. It’s time to learn what’s out there, today, and use it in everyday Web design. It’s time to make everyone’s Web more accessible. Have a look at the WCAG 2.0 Recommendation, and its supporting material. Then, start thinking about what a more accessible Web could be. We still have a lot of work to do.
Filed in Accessibility, Accessibility TF, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general) | Comments (8)