Web Accessibility

October 2014 – The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) update to Working Draft of HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives was published this month. The document is a working draft and contains best practice guidance for authors of HTML (HTML5) documents on providing text alternatives for images. The update incorporates changes and corrections from as early as October 2012 and addresses common issues related to accessible web browsing.

The 12^th Annual Web 4 All (W4A’15) Conference, an event highlighting innovations in wearable and accessible technologies, will take place May 18-20, 2015 in Florence Italy. The W4A’15 theme is “The Wearable Web,” promoting the best of web, mobile, and wearable innovations designed for people with and without disabilities. Some highlights for the event include:

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) invites researchers, professionals, and users with disabilities to participate in their online symposium on Accessible Way-Finding using Web Technologies, scheduled for December 3, 2014. Accompanying the invitation is a call for papers encouraging contributors to examine issues, technology, applications, and solutions that will assist people with disabilities when navigating the web and the world.

September 2014 – The Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM) Survey of Web Accessibility Practitioners results are now available. Conducted in July 2014, the survey collected data from 900 respondents within the web accessibility field. The survey focused on practitioner demographics, roles, technology preferences, certifications, and various other aspects of web accessibility efficacy.  Some of the details of the survey findings include: