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Boston-IA sponsors events and meetings to hear speakers, share information of mutual interest, and network with each other regarding Web accessibility.

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April 30, 2009:
A Panel of Speakers on "Ten-Minute Accessibility Talks"

On Thursday, April 30, 2009, Boston-IA presented a panel of speakers on an interesting array of accessibility talks. Each speaker spoke for ten minutes, with a period for questions after each talk.

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Topic

On Thursday, April 30, 2009, Boston-IA presented six great speakers talking about topics related to the accessibility and universality of electronic information.

After each ten-minute talk, members of the audience had an opportunity to ask questions.

• VPATs 101: Documenting Product Accessibility

  Mary Utt of The Paciello Group (TPG) spoke about documenting product accessibility using Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs). VPATs are usually required whenever a development company does business with the Federal government. The Paciello Group has been working with a local software company for almost three years, developing training in accessibility development techniques and reviewing VPATs. Using the TPG project as a case study, the talk addressed: What is a VPAT, why are VPATs important, and how the use of VPATs has changed as accessibility work has gained traction in the company's development organizations.

• Speech Input and Web Accessibility

  Kim Patch of Redstart Systems and developer of Utter Command, software that simplifies the use of voice commands for controlling a PC, spoke about making the Web easier for speech, and using speech to improve Web access. She summarized how standards make the Web more accessible for speech, and how not following standards sets up traps for speech users. The keyword is consistency. She also showed some ways that, given an imperfect world, her company has sidestepped some of these accessibility problems using speech capabilities.

• Using Word to Create Accessible PDFs

  Barbara Casaly, a long-time technical communications professional, spoke about how to use Microsoft Word style sheets to make documents (typically converted to PDF format) accessible. She described Word's style sheet files (with a .dot extension) and standard paragraph styles. As time permits, she provided an overview of how to create, store, and apply Word style sheets.

• Working with Visual Designers for Universal Access

  P.J. Gardner, founder of Boston-IA and front-end web developer, talked about how to work with visual designers to achieve more accessibility, especially for people with visual impairments such as color blindness or low vision. Visual designers rarely receive training in accessible web design. What can we teach them to help make beautiful web designs more accessible to a wider audience?

• Web Site A-Z Indexes

  Heather Hedden of Hedden Information Management talked about the use of alphabetic indexes to make web sites more accessible. An A-Z index for a web site (a hyperlinked book-style index) can be a useful tool in helping users find information within a site. Heather demonstrated the useful features of a site A-Z index using the Boston-IA Topic Index, which she designed, as an example.

• Making a Site Built with a CMS Accessible

  Charmian Proskauer, project management consultant, talked about making a site designed with a Content Management System (CMS) accessible. Low cost, easily maintainable websites can be built by utilizing components of open-source software, such as a content management system augmented by free "plug-ins." What are the challenges of this approach with regard to making such a website accessible? Do promises translate into reality? She used www.masscfids.org, built with Joomla! (an open-source CMS), as an example.

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Speakers

• Mary Utt has worked in technical documentation, UI design and development, and usability testing for Digital Corporation and various internet startups. Most recently, she has been conducting usability testing with people with disabilities for The Paciello Group and helping local companies prepare Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs).

• Kimberly Patch is President and Founder of Redstart Systems, a company dedicated to improving the speech interface. In 1993, Kim was forced to switch from typing to speech software as a result of repetitive strain injuries while a technology journalist. Several years later, she co-founded the Web publication Technology Research News and wrote custom speech interface software to enable hands-free writing, editing, and production of the weekly Web publication. Redstart Systems' Utter Command software, and the human-machine grammar that underpins Utter Command, grew from that experience.

• Barbara Casaly has been a contract technical writer for 16 years. In addition to writing user documentation, online help, and web pages, she worked with webmasters at the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to develop the Web Accessibility Standards version 2.0 in 2005. She has maintained an interest in web accessibility ever since.

• P.J. Gardner, founder of Boston-IA and principal at Gardner Information Design, Inc., is a recognized Web accessibility expert and front-end web developer. Recent clients have included Cramer (Digital Marketing | Event Solutions), the Citizens Housing and Planning Association (Massachusetts Accessible Housing Registry), Fresenius Medical Care North America, and Staples.

• Heather Hedden offers consulting services in taxonomies, information architecture, and indexing through Hedden Information Management in Carlisle, Massachusetts. Heather teaches workshops through the continuing education program at Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and has given presentations and workshops on the subject of web indexing both nationally and internationally. She is past manager of the Web Indexing SIG of the American Society for Indexing. Heather has published numerous articles on web site indexing and is the author of Indexing Specialties: Web Sites, published in 2007 by Information Today Inc.

• Charmian Proskauer has supported large corporate websites for the past 10 years at BankBoston/ Fleet Bank/ Bank of America. Over the past 18 months, she has worked as a volunteer with the Massachusetts CFIDS/ME & FM Association, a tiny all-volunteer non-profit, to develop a new website to support and educate patients, families, and health care providers with and about these illnesses. While a novice in the field of accessibility, she has a strong interest in the subject and has been on the Board of Boston-IA for several years. (And she doesn't know HTML!)

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