A
new British Web accessibility law has passed. It even applies to Web sites for private companies. It requires accessibility, but doesn't provide standards or guidelines for implementation. Unfortunately, this means that the lawyers are going to have a field day with it.
In another international story, the
European Union is taking a stronger stance on Web accessibility.
They urge both public and private Web sites to comply. They're pressuring not only current member nations of the European Union, but also candidate nations.
Evolt features yet another critique of the official Section 508 Web site. Last month,
my critique of the Section 508 site focused more on the design elements of the site. This new commentary looks more at page markup issues.
HiSoftware is teaming up with Microsoft to help ensure that Web pages created by FrontPage will comply with Section 508 accessibility guidelines.
The article, "Designing Accessible Navigation Part 2", offers some excellent advice and ideas on how to make your navigation both more accessible and more usable. It includes such things as how to handle those "skip navigation" links that are required by Section 508 accessibility guidelines.
Here's a huge stride towards creating accessible multimedia. The
Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR)
held in Austin, Texas, was the first public program to train Web developers to create accessible Web sites that feature music and video clips.
