A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility

About The Workshop Presentation

Brian Kelly and Lawrie Phipps (TechDis) gave a joint presentation on "A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility" at a workshop on "Assistive technology Disabled people accessing digital services".

The first workshop took place from 12:15-13:00 on 1^st February 2005 in London and was repeated on 28^th February 2005 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds.

The workshop is part of the Framework for the Future Digital Citizenship Workshop Series 2005.

Materials

Slides

A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility: [HTML format] - [MS PowerPoint 97/2000 format]

Accompanying Resources

Developing A Holistic Approach For E-Learning Accessibility: Developing A Holistic Approach For E-Learning Accessibility, Kelly, B., Phipps, L. and Swift, E. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 2004, Vol. 30, Issue 3.

How To Evaluate A Web Site's Accessibility Level: Briefing 12
Use of Automated Tools For Testing Web Site Accessibility: Briefing 02
Accessibility Testing In Web Browsers: Briefing 57

Compliance with HTML Standards: Briefing 01
Use Of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): Briefing 34
A URI Interface To Web Testing Tools: Briefing 59

Summary of the QA Focus Methodology: Briefing 57
Top 10 Quality Assurance Tips: Briefing 37
Implementing Your Own QA: Briefing 58

Feedback From Discussion Groups

Brian led one of the discussion groups. Participants were asked to audit their current position already underway, review plans for the futre and list priorities and concerns on barriers within the context of support for people with disabilities. The following issues were raised.

There is much valuable work currently in progress amongst the participants. The following concerns and challenges were identified:

Local Level

Establishing Community Links: It was felt desirable to establish links with appropriate groups within the local community, such as Age Concern and other voluntary bodies. It was felt that such links are needed in order to support consultative work with, for example, focus groups. It was also felt desirable that the outomes of such consultative work should support work across vcouncil directorates and ideally would feed into the council's strategic planning.

Regional Level

Sharing best practices: It was felt desirable to ensure there is a communications infastructure in place which can be used to share best practices across the region. As well as sharing experiences, this could also enable the community to question established practices which may no longer be appropriate.
Regional procurement: It was felt desirable to provide a mechanism for procurement of training services across a region and to provide regional technology fairs. There may also be advantages in the provisipon of regional mailing lists, bulletin boards, etc.

National Level

National procurement: It would be useful to provide national procurement of assistive technologies in order to benefit from bulk purchases, advantageous licensing conditions, etc. It would be desirable to ensure that awareness of potential useful free software and services (e.g. open source software) was also provided.
National databases: It would be useful to provide national databases of approved training bodies, assistive technologies, etc
Communications infrastructure: It would be useful to continue to provide appropriate national events and mailing lists to help to facilitate dialogue and sharing across the community.

Biographical Details

Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus, provides a Web advisory service to the UK cultural heritage and higher and further education communities. Brian works for UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management which is located at the University of Bath. UKOLN is funded by MLA and the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee).

Brian became active in Web development in the early days of the Web, having helped establish a Web site at the University of Leeds in January 1993. He immediately saw the potential of the Web and became a early pioneer and advocate of the Web. Brian joined UKOLN in 1996 and has been active in promoting use of Web standards and best practices since then, initially within the higher and further education communities, but now also to the cultural heritage sector.

Location

The meeting on Monday 28^th February 2005 was held in Leeds at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Playhouse Square, Quarry Hill, Leeds, LS2 7UP (see Multimap or the location details on the West Yorkshire Playhouse Web site).

Note that about 60 participants are booked on this workshop.