A5: The 'other' Accessibility Guidelines - the Importance of Authoring Tool Accessibility Evaluation in a Web 2.0 World

Comment

Comment by David Sloan on July 24, 2008 at 4:22pm

To everyone who attended this session, thanks for coming along!

To those who didn't attend but are interested in what was discussed, a brief synopsis follows:

I used the session to try to emphasise the importance of addressing authoring tool accessibility not only in terms of the accessibility of the output, not only in terms of the accessibility of the tool interface, but to focus on what is to me the neglected question:

"how well does the tool support the creation of accessible web content to all authors, regardless of experience?"

I wanted to firstly raise awareness of the importance of this challenge, and secondly to explore how we can meet the challenge, citing the W3C Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) as the key resource. It won't be easy - there are many battles to be fought and won over organisational, technical and social issues that might inhibit ATAG conformance. But whether we are commissioning or procuring authoring tools, or developing/modifying/implementing them. at least by knowing how we can most effectively evaluate an authoring tool for accessibility, we can become more informed about their shortcomings and how we can manage the issues that might arise as a result. At the same time, this gives us a louder voice with which to tell tool developers and vendors what we want/need in terms of accessibility support.

Session Presentation (Powerpoint)