Presentations about accessibility

Podcasts, slides, videos and more

Sandi Wassmer — Inclusive design is for everyone

Sandi Wassmer PortraitInclusive Design is cur­rently the domain of peo­ple who design phys­i­cal things, like prod­uct design­ers and archi­tects, but Sandi Wassmer is firm in her belief that Inclusive Design applied in the online envi­ron­ment just makes sense.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Damien McCormack — Accessibility means business

Damien McCormack PortraitOver 4 mil­lion peo­ple in Australia have a dis­abil­ity. As a result they may use the web in a dif­fer­ent way to you: a key­board instead of a mouse; a screen reader instead of a screen. Accessibility is the way that you can tap into this large and grow­ing audience.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Scott Hollier — Boosting new media accessibility

Scott Hollier PortraitThis talk focuses on the efforts engaged by W3C and its mem­bers to pro­mote and improve web stan­dards and in par­tic­u­lar HTML 5 with mech­a­nisms to allow peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to access mul­ti­me­dia con­tent, includ­ing audio and video.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

WCAG2 — Gian Wild

Gian Wild PortraitSo WCAG2 — ver­sion 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as set out by the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative — has been released as a Candidate Recommendation. What does that mean for Australia? There are many issues that were addressed in WCAG1 which have been left up to pol­icy mak­ers and devel­op­ers in WCAG2. This ses­sion will high­light these issues and talk about what kind of impact they will have on your devel­op­ment and on your audience.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Ruth Ellison — Integrating accessibility into design

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 2.40pm.

Ruth Ellison PortraitWhen devel­op­ing web­sites or web appli­ca­tions, we often fol­low the prin­ci­ples of web stan­dards, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and other acces­si­bil­ity guide­lines. But is this enough? In this ses­sion, Ruth will look at how we can develop acces­si­ble web prod­ucts by tak­ing a holis­tic approach to web acces­si­bil­ity. She will look at dif­fer­ent ways of incor­po­rat­ing acces­si­bil­ity into the design process to pro­duce acces­si­ble and use­ful user expe­ri­ences. This pre­sen­ta­tion will focus on the user expe­ri­ence design process by draw­ing on exam­ples and learn­ings from Ruth’s work in Government.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Derek Featherstone — Accessibility beyond compliance

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 25 10.45am.

Portrait of Derek Featherstone New tech­nolo­gies for web appli­ca­tions open up inter­ac­tions to a highly sophis­ti­cated level. Learn how these new tech­nolo­gies can help design­ers move beyond sim­ply com­ply­ing with acces­si­bil­ity rules to cre­ate appli­ca­tions that work for everyone.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Lisa Herrod — Usability: more than skin deep

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

Lisa Herrod PortraitWeb Usability is far more com­plex than user test­ing and inter­ac­tion design alone. And while inter­face design is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion, there’s more to a usable site than what’s on the surface.

We all know the impor­tance of acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards, so let’s take that knowl­edge one step fur­ther and into the realm of usabil­ity. In this ses­sion Lisa Herrod will rede­fine the com­mon def­i­n­i­tion of usabil­ity by intro­duc­ing a greater focus on acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards. By tak­ing a more holis­tic approach you will soon see why usabil­ity is more than skin deep.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Derek Featherstone – Real World Accessibility For Real World People

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.

Derek Featherstone Portrait When we fol­low the prin­ci­ples of web stan­dards, we write valid HTML and CSS, unob­tru­sive JavaScript and fol­low WCAG and other acces­si­bil­ity guide­lines. This sim­ple act goes a long way to cre­at­ing an acces­si­ble web site, appli­ca­tion or ser­vice. At the same time, many sites that don’t uti­lize all that is good and whole­some about web stan­dards per­form sur­pris­ingly well when they are used by peo­ple with disabilities.

How can we get the best of both worlds to cre­ate standards-​​based solu­tions that are highly usable for real peo­ple (includ­ing those with dis­abil­i­ties) in the real world?

In this ses­sion, we’ll dis­sect sev­eral exam­ples from real sites and apps to learn about acces­si­bil­ity prob­lems that arise from design and devel­op­ment deci­sions and what we can do to cre­ate a more acces­si­ble user expe­ri­ence for all peo­ple, regard­less of their ability.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Joe Clark — Accessibility in the Design Process

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

When peo­ple talk about incor­po­rat­ing acces­si­bil­ity into the design process, they usu­ally refer to select­ing colours that cor­re­spond to some­body else’s ‘acces­si­ble’ con­trast ratio or using a large enough font size. Trivial, really.

But the design process  —  obser­va­tion, ideation, eval­u­a­tion, refine­ment, and pre­sen­ta­tion  —  gives us many oppor­tu­ni­ties to build acces­si­bil­ity in from the very start. We’ll look at some real-​​world exam­ples of Web-​​based ser­vices (like a transit-​​system route plan­ner) and clas­sic acces­si­bil­ity prob­lems (like masses of old PDFs) and use those exam­ples to build in acces­si­bil­ity from the ground up.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Jeremy Keith & Derek Featherstone — Web Apps — Ajax Kung Fu Meets Accessibility Feng Shui

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

Where can you find Ajax enlight­en­ment? At the mys­ti­cal point where a kick-​​ass appli­ca­tion con­nects per­fectly with the Flow of the best user expe­ri­ences. Let Masters Jeremy and Derek guide you there.

You seek to infuse your work, whether an app or a web site fea­ture, with the power of Ajax. But, tak­ing the wrong path at the begin­ning of your project will lead to frus­tra­tion for vis­i­tors, rather than a grace­ful, intu­itive expe­ri­ence. True Masters start with the right ques­tions: When is Ajax an enhance­ment? When is it a hin­drance? How can its energy be chan­neled ele­gantly? This insight­ful ses­sion will be grounded in real-​​life exam­ples and demon­stra­tions, reveal­ing the impact of the choices we make. Above all, you’ll learn the strate­gi­cal think­ing and higher per­spec­tive that will ensure a bril­liantly user-​​centered web site.

Where can you find Ajax enlight­en­ment? At the mys­ti­cal point where a kick-​​ass appli­ca­tion con­nects per­fectly with the Flow of the best user expe­ri­ences. Let Masters Jeremy and Derek guide you there.

You seek to infuse your work, whether an app or a web site fea­ture, with the power of Ajax. But, tak­ing the wrong path at the begin­ning of your project will lead to frus­tra­tion for vis­i­tors, rather than a grace­ful, intu­itive expe­ri­ence. True Masters start with the right ques­tions: When is Ajax an enhance­ment? When is it a hin­drance? How can its energy be chan­neled ele­gantly? This insight­ful ses­sion will be grounded in real-​​life exam­ples and demon­stra­tions, reveal­ing the impact of the choices we make. Above all, you’ll learn the strate­gi­cal think­ing and higher per­spec­tive that will ensure a bril­liantly user-​​centered web site.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Andrew Downie and Grant Focas — Javascript and other coding for good or evil

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

Andrew Downie PortraitGrant Focas PortraitWhen Version 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines is finally released, the sta­tus of Javascript will be quite dif­fer­ent to that assigned to it in Version 1.0 back in 1999. Back then, Javascript was to “degrade grace­fully”. Currently AJAX offers increased usabil­ity for visual users, but may detract from acces­si­bil­ity. In future, use of JavaScript will be encour­aged but, of course, must enhance rather than detract from acces­si­bil­ity. During this pre­sen­ta­tion, Andrew and Grant will demon­strate how Javascript, when imple­mented well, offers enhanced acces­si­bil­ity. By way of bal­ance, they will also present exam­ples of script­ing that causes prob­lems. Importantly, they will pro­vide cor­rec­tions to the errant coding.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Lisa Herrod — Usability: more than skin deep

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

Lisa Herrod PortraitWeb Usability is far more com­plex than User Testing and Interaction Design alone. And while inter­face design is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion, there’s more to a usable site than what’s on the sur­face. We all know the impor­tance of acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards, so let’s take that knowl­edge one step fur­ther and into the realm of usabil­ity. In this ses­sion Lisa Herrod will rede­fine the com­mon def­i­n­i­tion of usabil­ity by intro­duc­ing a greater focus on acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards. By tak­ing a more holis­tic approach you will soon see why usabil­ity is more than skin deep.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Gian Sampson-​​Wild — Managing accessibility compliance for the Commonwealth Games

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2006.

Melbourne recently hosted the 18th Commonwealth Games. Gian Sampson-​​Wild worked as the acces­si­bil­ity spe­cial­ist for the Games for over two years, respon­si­ble for a vari­ety of issues includ­ing the acces­si­bil­ity com­pli­ance of the web site and train­ing of on-​​site and off-​​site devel­op­ers such as Ticketmaster7 and Microsoft. Management at the Commonwealth Games were par­tic­u­larly cog­nisant of the prece­dent set by SOCOG and there­fore made acces­si­bil­ity a pri­or­ity. Gian will talk about the acces­si­bil­ity issues rel­e­vant to such a major event, such as cre­at­ing acces­si­ble ver­sions of venue maps and ensur­ing HTML frag­ments pro­vided by third par­ties did not con­tra­vene acces­si­bil­ity require­ments. See the slides and hear the podcast »

Derek Featherstone — Accessibility 2.0

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2006.

Derek Featherstone Portrait

Using the cur­rent state of web acces­si­bil­ity as our launch point, Derek will explore some of the fun­da­men­tal issues that are hold­ing us back from an acces­si­ble web that truly makes a dif­fer­ence to peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. See the slides and hear the podcast »

Derek Featherstone — Designing for Accessibility

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 29 2006.

Derek Featherstone Portrait

A com­bi­na­tion of prac­ti­cal “how-​​to” exam­ples along­side sev­eral “how-​​not-​​to” cases from real acces­si­bilty assess­ments and test­ing ses­sions. See the slides and hear the podcast »