MDA 2004 Conference:A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility
MDA 2004 Conference:Brian Kelly gave a 20 minute talk on A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility at the mda 2004 Conference. The talk was given on Thursday 23rd September 2004 in the "The Marginalised User" session which took place from 1.45 pm - 3.45pm.
The importance of universal access to Web resources is widely acknowledged. The W3C WAI has been tremendously successful in raising awareness of the potential of the Web for providing access to resources to people with disabilities, and in producing a series of guidelines which can help to ensure that Web resources are widely accessible.
However, as reported in the DRC's Formal Investigation Report: Web Accessibility a great many public sector Web sites appear to fail to comply with the W3C WAI guidelines. The DRC report argues that there is a need to provide greater encouragement to ensure that Web site comply with the guidelines.
In this talk Brian Kelly will report on work he has been involved in with the JISC-funded TechDis organisation. He will argue that there is a danger of over-reliance on the WAI guidelines and point out some of the shortcomings of the guidelines. However rather than ignoring Web accessibility, he will propose that the WAI guidelines should form a part of a holistic approach to Web accessibility.
Brian Kelly's job title is "UK Web Focus". His remit is to support the cultural heritage and higher and further education communities in making effective use of Web technologies. His post is funded by the MLA and the JISC.
Brian is an experienced Web developer having set up his first Web site in January 1993 whilst working in the Computing Service at the University of Leeds. Convinced of the potential of the Web Brian was an early pioneer and evangelist, giving many presentations across the UK higher education community and writing a handbook on Running A WWW Service. Since then Brian has written many articles and given many presentations about the Web and has attended several of the International World Wide Web Conferences, acting as a member of the programme committee on a number of occasions.
Since November 1996 Brian has been employed at UKOLN - a national centre of expertise in digital information management which is located at the University of Bath.
