While there are many things to praise in the Government 2.0 Taskforce Draft Report, ‘Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0‘, sadly I find it very light-on when it comes to the whole issue of social inclusion for people with disabilities. How governments around the world balance the potential of web 2.0 with the reality of [...]
Web accessibility is at the cross-roads. The WCAG of 1999 is not able to meet the needs of the web today, with its enhanced interactivity, greater community engagement and the proliferation of new technologies. WCAG 2.0 is supposed to address this problem by looking not at the technologies used to generate web content, but at [...]
It’s funny how quickly we sometimes forget. When cable first became available in my neighbourhood, most people connected to the internet via dial-up. Since my work involves providing advice about the usability and accessibility of websites, I made a conscious decision at the time to go with the masses and remain on dial-up. Within a [...]
It is six months since the release of WCAG 2.0 and I thought it might be interesting to see how extensively it has been adopted as a bench mark for determining web content accessibility. Over this time, I have felt that the rate of adoption has been relatively slow and the number of countries and [...]
Many people have not had the opportunity to see someone use a refreshable Braille device to access the web. I recently videoed Bruce Maguire describing how he uses the internet with a refreshable Braille display. He also demonstrates finding a book on the Amazon site. Transcript of the video is at the end of this [...]
The recent Domino’s Pizza “horror” video and its aftermath got me thinking once again about the apparent disconnect some people experience between their antics in the virtual world the real world consequences. We have all seen stories of people who after a heavy night out, use Facebook, Myspace or something similar, to share their experiences [...]
I recently reviewed a couple of PDF forms for compliance with WCAG 2 and the inconsistent way the test screen readers handled these forms threw up several interesting issues or questions. Sorry I am unable to show the forms or describe them in detail due to a NDA; however in general they both contain a [...]
Senator Conroy is participating in the Q&A panel-discussion program on the ABC this evening. Needless to say, many people are sending in questions relating to the Internet Filtering proposal for Tony Jones to ask the Senator. I have sent in the following as President of the Web Industry Professionals Association: Like Senator Conroy, I am [...]
I recently returned from another great Webstock Conference in Wellington: Magic venue, fabulous speakers, terrific vibe! When opening the conference, I think Mike Brown picked the mood perfectly, commenting on the financial and environmental crisis facing the world, the importance of finding solutions quickly and how the web, and the people who work in it, [...]
During September 2008, I did a quick survey to gain some insights into how people use some of the newer features of the web such as blogs, tags and social networking sites. I was also interested compare the extent to which these tools are used by people who work making sites with those who just [...]