Post-CSUN Resources

My last podcast previewed CSUN (The 26th Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference), which happened last week. It was a great success. Fortunately a few folks have written great summaries of the event, listed below. Also, I've posted some CSUN11 photos on Flickr.

Here are two excellent resources for session presentations and more:

• The Great Big List from the 2011 CSUN Conference by Curb Cut.
• CSUN 2011 Web highlights by Leonie Watson.

A couple notable blog posts:

• My March Madness - John Foliot.
• Lightening Talk on Accessible Twitter updates at CSUN Tweetup - Dennis Lembree.

Suggested presentations relating to web accessibility are:

• Accessibility of HTML5 and Rich Internet Applications (WebAIM and The Paciello Group): ARIA Morning Session | ARIA Afternoon Session
• Accessible HTML5 media players, captions, audio description and search (PDF) - Terrill Thompson.
• Making rich internet applications accessible through jQuery (PDF) - Chris Blouch (AOL) and Hans Hillen (TPG)
• Using the barcamp/unconference format - Jennison Asuncion, James Timony and John F Croston.
• Improving Web Accessibility for the Elderly - Roger Hudson.
• DISTCHA: an attempt to kill CAPTCHA - Vincent François & Samuel Sirois.

Any more to add? Please comment!

Additions

• Successfully Integrating Accessibility in your Organization's Web Development Lifecycle - Denis Boudreau

Speech from AFB Awards

Last month, Web Axe announced that Accessible Twitter was presented with the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) 2011 Access Award. I attended the AFB Awards Ceremony last Friday at the JLTLI conference in downtown Seattle, Washington (Web Axe is sister site of Accessible Twitter). Afterwards, I had the honor of dining with the President and CEO of the AFB, Carl R. Augusto. I met several other AFB folks who were all wonderful people.

Here is the acceptance speech I prepared (and closely presented) at the award ceremony.

Thank you so much. I'm deeply honored and very thankful to be here.

A little over 2 years ago, which like 20 years in web technology time, Gez Lemon, on his blog Juicy Studio, wrote about a clever script he developed to correct Twitter.com's lack of keyboard focus.

I wrote a tweet about it and about another accessibility issue on the Twitter website, and a friend and former co-worker Doug Diego suggested I use the Twitter API and create an accessible version. My wife and kids were away visiting family at the time, so it was a great opportunity. And that's what I did. Just a few weeks later, "Accessible Twitter" was born.

I emailed a few peers about the site, and before I even officially announced it, people were offering suggestions, blogging about it, and even better, offering to test it for me.

This anecdote illustrates the power and the cohesiveness of Twitter, and even more so, the accessibility community. And it's a worldwide community. It's the people themselves who make it work, and strive to make it work better. Some of those people are:

• Matthew Smith (a.k.a. Smiffy) from Australia, who had suggestions for the user interface and helped with coding issues.
• Steve Faulkner, outside of London, for special code called ARIA which help screen readers interpret certain kinds of content.
• Kerstin Probiesch and Per Busch, both of Germany, who helped with early testing.
• Jennison Asuncion, of Toronto, Canada, who continues to be one of the most active users of Accessible Twitter; he provides feedback and helps promote the application.
• Everett Zufelt, who's also from Canada, with recently suggesting a new method for hiding special content for screen reader users.

So the takeaway here is that the Accessible Twitter project, like many others on the web and elsewhere, is a collaborative effort. My name and my company's name, Web Overhauls, are listed as the authors of the application, but in reality, it's the community that makes it all happen. Thank you.

Accessible YouTube & HTML5 Video

YouTube is obviously a great site for video, but not for everyone as it contains various accessibility challenges, particularly keyboard access. The use of Flash itself to play the video can be problematic, not be mention requiring support of the Flash plugin. HTML5 is a pending solution (HTML5 video is available on YouTube as a "trial"), but in its infancy, HTML5 video has accessibility issues that still need to be resolved, as does HTML5 itself.

In the meantime, here are a few alternatives to the YouTube website which provide more accessible controls and a much cleaner interface.

• Easy YouTube - by Chris Heilmann.
• Your Tube - Accessible YouTube - by Dylan Neale, in joint venture with Povidi.com.
• Accessible Interface to YouTube - by Tom at majestyc.net.

If you still don't have what you need or want, why not build your own interface?! The following are tools and resources for building more accessible YouTube videos including captioning:

• Accessible YouTube player controls
• Keyboard controlled YouTube player
• Captioning YouTube Video and Providing Accessible Controls
• Easy YouTube caption creator (Accessify)
• Captions and Subtitles (YouTube)

Further reading:

• Accessible HTML5 Video with JW Player as Fallback
• YouTube and the Push to Improve Tech for Disabled
• Flash and the HTML5 video tag (YouTube API Blog)
• 10 YouYube URL Tricks You Should Know

If you developed an accessible YouTube solution, or know of another not listed, please leave a comment.