Beyond Compliance - A Holistic Approach to Web Accessibility

About This Proposal

Brian Kelly gave a talk on Beyond Compliance - A Holistic Approach to Web Accessibility at the Techshare Conference 2007 held on 4-5^th October 2007 at the Novotel London West, 1 Shortlands, London, UK, W6 8DR.

The talk was given on Thursday 4^th October 2007 from 16.50-17.30.

Abstract (100-200 words)

The role of W3C's WAI has been instrumental in raising awareness of the importance of accessibility of Web resources and in providing guidelines which can help developers to provide accessible Web services.

But 8 years on it is appropriate to revisit the WCAG guidelines and to explore their strengths and weaknesses. Are the guidelines still appropriate in a Web 2.0 environment of blogs and wikis? And has the emphasis on compliance with WCAG been successful in encouraging development of accessible services, or have concerns regarding the associated difficulties and costs resulted in organisations avoiding deploying services and stifled innovation?

This paper describes a holistic approach to Web accessibility developed to support e-learning, which emphasises the importance of the accessibility of the learning outcomes rather than the e-learning resources. The extension of this approach to other areas, including access to cultural resources will be described. The paper concludes by outlining the benefits that this holistic approach to accessibility can provide, since it is user-focussed and technologically neutral, and does not place a limit on developments to accessibility.

Further Information

Objectives

The aims of the talk are to highlight a number of the limitations of the WAI approach to Web accessibility and the ways in which WAI guidelines have been interpretted and to describe a holistic approach which has been developed to enhance accessibility in the educational and cultural heritage sectors.

Outcomes

By the end of the talk participants should:

• Be aware of possible dangers in over-simplistic application of WAI guidelines
• Be aware of how holistic and blended approaches to accessibility can provide complementary ways of addressing Web accessibility.
• Be in a position to apply such approaches within their own organisational context.

Prior Knowledge

An understanding of WAI and the WAI guidelines for Web accessibility will be helpful, but no detailed knowledge is expected.

Contact Details

Name

Brian Kelly

Job Title

UK Web Focus

Email address

b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk

Materials

Slides

Beyond Compliance - A Holistic Approach to Web Accessibility

[HTML format] - [MS PowerPoint 97/2000 format]

The PowerPoint slides are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK licence.

Related URLs

Resources mentioned during this workshop will be bookmarked in the del.icio.us social bookmarking services using the tag techshare-2007.

Biographical Details

Brian Kelly's job title is "UK Web Focus". His remit is to support the higher and further education and cultural heritage communities in making effective use of Web technologies. His post is funded by the JISC and the MLA.

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. After spending a year as a Senior Trainer for Netskills. In November 1996 Brian moved to UKOLN - a national centre of expertise in digital information management which is located at the University of Bath.

Brian's current interests include standards for Web development, Web accessibility and Web 2.0 technologies.

Brian's email address is b.kelly AT ukoln.ac.uk