Buzz Archives: Internationalization
WaSP International Liaison Group
With a growing interest around the world in Web standards, international relationships are becoming key. WaSP is seeking to create an International Liaison Group for the sharing of Web standards related information worldwide.
By Molly E. Holzschlag | April 18th, 2006
- Best Practices for Declaring Languages in HTML and XHTML
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There's a lot of misinformation about how, when and where to declare a language - or multiple languages - within HTML and XHTML documents. Fortunately, the GEO group at the W3C provides us with details as to how to do this. Here are some guidelines to help: Always declare the default ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | September 4th, 2005
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
British Standard for accessibility
By Bruce Lawson | July 11th, 2008
The British Standards Institution (BSI) has invited two members of the WaSP, Bruce Lawson and Patrick Lauke, to join the drafting committee for the first British Standard for Web Accessiblity.
Two years ago, the BSI was sponsored by the Disability Rights Commission to write a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) called PAS 78: Guide to Commissioning Accessible Websites. Publicly Available Specifications are written quickly and “expire” after two years, but because of the popularity of PAS 78, the BSI have decided to update it to become a full British Standard.
We’ve just started work on the draft, which doesn’t yet have a title, although our working title is “encouraging the development of fantastic user experiences for disabled people online”.
Consequently, it’s too early to say what will be in BS8878, which will be released next spring. I can say that it will not tread on the toes of whichever version of WCAG is live then, as it’s a document to help site owners rather than developers. Like PAS 78, it will encourage adherence to current web standards.
Neither can I say who else is on the committee, except that it’s chaired by Julie Howell, and there are representatives from all over industry—broadcasting, banking, legal, education and (crucially) representatives of disability groups, including groups working with those with cognitive disabilities.
Patrick and I gratefully acknowledge our employers, Opera Software and the University of Salford, who are supporting us by paying our travel expenses and giving us time off to attend meetings and write the drafts. They have nothing material to gain by supporting us, and are exercising no editorial control, but are helping to make disabled people’s experiences of the web better.
As a procedural footnote, now that Derek Featherstone has moved role within WaSP to be Group Lead, I’m working with Patrick to be co-lead of the Accessiblity Task Force. Our main projects will be the British Standard, continuing to work with the microformats community testing various date-time patterns with screenreaders, and monitoring the developments in HTML5.
Filed in Accessibility, Accessibility TF | Comments (15)
More Buzz articles
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| Opera Web Standards Curriculum | Rob Dickerson |
| hAccessibility redux? | Patrick Lauke |
| RNIB Surf Right Toolbar available for IE | Bruce Lawson |
| Easy-to-use Flickr and YouTube | Bruce Lawson |