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Here's a hat tip to Nick Finck at Digital Web for finding the awesome color scheme picker that was developed by Petr Stanicek. Not only does the color scheme picker provide Web safe hexadecimal values for colors, it also allows you to select a color blindness so that you can preview how the color combinations may appear to users with that form of color blindness!
Happy Second Anniversary!
This accessibility Weblog is two years old today.
Thanks again, Cam, for your
help and encouragement during the creation of this site!
If you need a good chuckle, you might appreciate David MacDonald's song lyrics, "It's Fun to Write the WCAG", (sung to the tune of "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People). He's also talented enough to actually perform it! Download the mp3 version off the lyrics page for free. This reminds me of the Jakob Nielsen parody song I wrote last year. Alas, I'm not musically talented. If there are any musically-gifted geeks who would like to perform my lyrics, please email me: <anitra at anitrapavka dot com>.
Now for something useful. Have you ever wondered what the W3C meant when they wrote "Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast"? If so, JuicyStudio's Colour Contrast Analyser should clear up any confusion. Enter the hexadecimal values for two colors and the Analyzer will use the W3C's color contrast algorithm to calculate if the colors have "sufficient contrast". Very convenient!
Brown University recently released a study of state and Federal government Web sites. The study focused on site usability and accessibility, (among other things). They measured compliance with the W3C WCAG 1.0 Priority One checkpoints and US Section 508 guidelines. Here is an excerpt from an article about the study that summarizes some of the findings:
In this year's study, 33 percent of state and federal sites satisfied the W3C standard of accessibility, and 24 percent met the guidelines for Section 508. Federal sites (47 percent) are more likely than state sites (33 percent) to meet the W3C standard of accessibility. Researchers found little difference between state sites (24 percent) and federal sites (22 percent) in meeting Section 508 accessibility standards.
If you want to know what Web accessibility resources are available online, check out AccessibleNet.org. It's a directory of accessibility-related links. It's still beta, so if something's missing, submit a site and help complete the directory.
HiSoftware recently released AccRepair for Flash MX 2004. This is the first third party software I've heard about that aims to correct and ensure Flash presentations are accessible. Here's an excerpt from the press release that describes it:
AccRepair for Flash steps users through several tests that allow them to validate that their Flash presentation is accessible, providing a facility for developers to correct accessibility issues in an interactive manner. The solution provides an interactive interface through which Flash developers can create presentations that will conform to recommended accessibility guidelines.
The EuroAccessibility Consortium recently added lots of new content to their site. That includes defining the group's Working Rules, electing groups to the Steering Committee, and creating Web accessibility-related Task Forces. They also invite new members and technical partners to join. As you peruse the site, their Glossary page may come in handy since acronyms and abbreviations abound.
