We might all be convinced by the benefits of web standards, and the importance of usability and accessibility, but how can we best communicate the importance of best practices to others, be they clients or managers?

A panel of highly experienced web professionals from very different backgrounds share their experiences and offer suggestions for the best ways of tackling something that is a lot more difficult than it should be.

moderated by Paul Boag, with Rachel Andrew, Patrick H. Lauke, and Murray Rowan.

the audio and full transcript for this panel discussion are now up. enjoy...@media 2008 panel discussion Communicating best practices.

tags: standards conference @media

two weeks ago i had the pleasure of being interviewed by the mighty paul boag on the subject of WCAG 2.0. the podcast is now live...grab it while it's hot.

In this weeks show we talk with Patrick Lauke about WCAG 2 and we discuss the perils of blindly following conventions.

and, as paul noted:

I've got the longest interview *ever* with Patrick Lauke. who is a very clever guy, but doesn't stop speaking. [...] Patrick, we love you dearly and it was a very good interview, but i'm just saying...shut the hell up!

guilty as charged...once i get going talking about accessibility, it's usually difficult to get in a word edgeways...

Boagworld podcast episode 120. WCAG 2

update: after a bit of chopping and audio editing, you can now get the extract containing just the interview from archive.org. i've also re-posted the transcript here on my site.

tags: boagworld podcast wcag accessibility

although i'm not feeling too hot today, a short notice mention that i will be participating in a panel discussion on real world accessibility vs WCAG: views from PSWMG sub-group and WCAG advocates this afternoon at the public sector forums event the future of local authority websites and how they're assessed.

one of the aims of the day is to explore and rectify current issues and problems with the better connected report by initiating a dialogue between web teams and senior representatives from socitm, publishers of the report.

tags: presentation conference workshop birmingham accessibility

here's the full original text (call it the "director's cut", if you will) of my little rant / opinion piece in this month's .net magazine:

Browser version targeting — Microsoft opts-out on opt-in

Why Internet Explorer 8's browser version targeting won't be as bad as originally feared.

In the January issue of web standard-bearer A List Apart, Aaron Gustafson's article "Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8" outlined Microsoft's plans to introduce browser targeting in the next version of IE. Through the addition of a custom HTTP header (X-UA-Compatible) or equivalent META element declaration, developers will be able to switch between different CSS and JavaScript engines.

The rationale for this move is understandable. With the release of IE7 in 2006, Microsoft made a huge leap towards bringing web standards support to their browser. Unfortunately, this also resulted in many existing sites and intranet applications coded specifically to the whims of IE6 to break, resulting in complaints from developers, corporate customers and end users.

With IE8, Microsoft has two contradictory aims: providing backwards compatibility, while also improving standards-compliance. But many web standards proponents have been less than enthusiastic about Microsoft's proposed solution to this dilemma.

History repeating?

Arguably, we've been in a similar situation before. Today's web standards development was only made possible by the introduction of DOCTYPE switching in 2002, allowing for improved standards support while maintaining backwards-compatible quirks mode for legacy content. Even Mozilla introduced its own flavour of version switching in Firefox 1.5 and 2.0, extending the behaviour SCRIPT to allow the use of ECMAScript for XML (E4X) and JavaScript 1.7.

However, in both cases the versioning was descriptive of the particular specification the pages and scripts were authored against, leaving it up to each browser to decide how to handle the content. IE8's proposed browser targeting moves away from browser-agnostic development and back to the old "this page best viewed in..." days.

In his article, Aaron optimistically suggested that other browsers may want to adopt this form of version targeting. Judging by the responses from lead developers at Mozilla, Opera and Safari, this may well remain an IE-only solution — similar to conditional comments.

Considering that X-UA-Compatible primarily solves a problem with IE-specific sites, the potential damage is at least contained.

Standards as an opt-in?

The most polarising aspect of Microsoft's January announcement was the plan to have IE8 default to IE7 emulation, making improved standards-compliance an explicit opt-in — forcing developers to add the X-UA-Compatible incantation, or to adopt new DOCTYPEs like HTML5. Microsoft's rationale of "don't break the web" seemed pragmatic and inevitable, but it sparked a heated debate among web standardistas.

Perhaps it was this vocal opposition from developers, backed by Microsoft's newly-drafted "Interoperability Principles" and its focus on standards support, that led to an impressive reconsideration. Just as we thought the standards opt-in was a fait accompli, the IE team surprised everybody — including those WaSP members secretly involved in Microsoft's original proposal — by announcing that IE8 would default to its most standards-compliant mode after all, bringing it in line with the behaviour of other browsers.

Cui bono — who profits?

So, as the dust settles, what are we left with?

Web-standards-savvy developers should rejoice. No opt-in, no X-UA-Compatible...if you code to standards, IE8 will render it accordingly. There will be bugs, as with every other browser, but the development methodology won't change: code to specifications, test in standards-compliant browsers, then add graceful degradation and DOM scripting capability checks where needed.

Developers who are still ignorant of web standards or somehow forced to code to specific versions of IE will be able to call "time out" and freeze the browser's rendering and behaviour to a particular version, without any "frantic scramble" to fix things for new versions.

And, instead of having to block browser updates, corporate IT departments can set their servers to output the magic X-UA-Compatible HTTP header, trigger IE7 emulation mode, and wait until their enterprise intranet applications are updated to work with IE8.

Where do you want to go today?

Browser version targeting may not be ideal from a purist's perspective, but at least standardistas now aren't forced to buy into it. Despite providing a get-out clause for non-compliant sites, the IE team does seem genuinely committed to standards. The recently released beta version of IE8 already shows dramatic improvements in layout (passing the ACID2 test and shooting for full CSS 2.1 compliance on release) and JavaScript. Thanks to the version targeting trade-off, Microsoft's new browser may see a wider adoption than IE7, allowing us to finally take advantage of up-to-date standards and features without the usual workarounds.

The IE team seems to finally be listening to developers — so get involved in the beta testing, provide feedback and bug reports, and help steer IE8 in the right direction.

see also the PDF version of my article, as it appeared in edited form in the magazine.

tags: .net article

it's that time of the year again ... @media 2008 — the best web design and development conference in europe — is just around the corner. 29-30 may 2008, to be precise.

this year, i've been invited to take part in the business and management panel discussion on communicating best practices:

We might all be convinced by the benefits of web standards, and the importance of usability and accessibility, but how can we best communicate the importance of best practices to others, be they clients or managers?

A panel of highly experienced web professionals from very different backgrounds share their experiences and offer suggestions for the best ways of tackling something that is a lot more difficult than it should be.

led by the mighty paul boag, my co-panelists will be rachel andrew and murray rowan.

see you there?

tags: standards conference

i'm honoured to have been invited to take part as an expert (though i'd never self-identify as one) / workshop speaker at the upcoming Einfach für Alle Tagung on the 6 may 2008 in gelsenkirchen, germany.

i'll be discussing accessibility as a management duty, with my main themes covering:

• all too often, organisations sell accessibility through its "side effects"
• in many places, accessibility is often just a result of individual engagement from web authors, instead of being the result of management
• in heterogeneous organisations, it's often difficult to comprehensively and successfully enforce accessibility

ich habe die ehre, als eingeladener experte (obwohl ich mich nie selbst als solcher bezeichnen würde) / workshop sprecher an der bevorstehenden Einfach für Alle Tagung am 6. mai 2008 in gelsenkirchen teilzunehmen.

meine diskussions-themen zum workshop Barrierefreies Internet als Managementaufgabe:

• organisationen verkaufen barrierefreiheit zu oft über "nebenwirkungen" anstatt ein entsprechendes selbstverständnis zu entwickeln
• barrierefreiheit ist vielerorts nur das resultat von individuell engagierten web-autoren anstatt ergebnis eines konsequenten managements
• in heterogenen organisationen fällt es schwer, barrierefreiheit konsequent und erfolgreich durchzusetzen

tags: accessibility workshop conference presentation

my small contribution to molly holzschlag's presentation "why web standards aren't" at this year's webstock (14 Feb 2008).

see designing with web standards on youtube.

designing with web standards isn't just about making sure that your pages and stylesheets validate...just the same way that good copywriting, or literature, aren't just about making sure that you spellcheck your text.

designing with web standards is thinking about the meaning of your content, first and foremost, before you even start considering how it might be laid out on a page, or on printed paper, or what the audio output of a screen reader might be.

it's about understanding how all the parts of your content fit together, and trying to convey that relationship in the most unambiguous way, using the most appropriate markup constructs available.

tags: video standards

here's the full text of my little rant / opinion piece in this month's .net magazine:

The artisan and the mass producer

Creating web pages is not the exclusive domain of those hardcore enough to hand-code anymore. WYSIWYG editors, blogging tools, content management systems and CSS frameworks have helped lower some of the technological entry barriers. Does this spell the end for the traditional craft of the web "artisan"?

In my day job, I work as Web Editor for the University of Salford, managing a small central web team directly responsible for the institution's core site. The management of all other sites that make up the salford.ac.uk domain is devolved, with individual web authors in faculties, schools and research institutes looking after their own web presence - though centrally we still strive to ensure the overall consistency and adherence to standards and requirements. The knowledge and skill of these authors can vary quite considerably, ranging from grizzled techies with a penchant for hand-coding in a text editor to complete novices who have been handed a copy of Dreamweaver.

Over the last few years, we've been looking for a simple content management system to roll out across these various sub-sites, in order to level the playing field for the whole gamut of web authors. This led to interesting discussions with some of the more technically-minded individuals, who were bemoaning the fact that they "liked to hand-code" their pages, that they took great pride in the skill and expertise required to craft appropriate markup and style sheets, and that a CMS would take away that level of control, potentially making them redundant in the process.

It's certainly true that building each individual page - perhaps starting from scratch, or with nothing more than a very basic template structure - provides a lot of scope for "clever" HTML/CSS constructs, oozing with plus-parfait semantics. When page content is known in advance, an author can optimise and tweak how this content is marked up in fine detail.

However, when moving to a "mass production" model, some of this detailing needs to be sacrificed. Compared to the elegance of a lovingly hand-crafted page, even the output of a "standards-compliant" CMS can appear crude. Templates need to work in a variety of situations, adapting to a diverse range of content that may not be known in advance, through the use of generic constructs - a few extra DIV containers, a plethora of ready-made style rules tied to specific class names, placeholder elements, decorative images dropped into the markup as IMG elements, rather than by virtue of CSS trickery. And often that obscure, seldom used HTML element that would be just right for a particular piece of content is not given as an option in the CMS' built-in page editor, forcing authors to opt for something more generic.

As an accessibilista and web standards evangelist, I admit that this prospect seems anathema to the ideology I've been advocating for years. However, the pragmatist in me is willing to make certain small concessions when it comes to the purity and finesse of markup and styling if these are outweighed by increased production capacity and faster turnaround times, which ultimately aid in keeping a large content-driven site accurate and up-to-date.

If a web author's role consisted solely of writing HTML/CSS, I could understand how this "revolution" may threaten their monopoly on web page production. However, there's more to creating and maintaining sites than the mere technical act of coding and markup. Rather than taking a Luddite stance and decrying the devaluation of their technical skills, web authors should see content management systems as opportunities. Just as CSS frameworks and JavaScript libraries, they are simply tools that, when judiciously applied, can greatly enhance productivity by automating repetitive and mundane tasks. The creative act of crafting appropriate templates still requires technical expertise. Industrialisation and mass production did not eliminate the need for skilled designers - just not at every single step of the production process. By not having to constantly focus on the microscopic level, web authors are free to concentrate on the bigger picture: information architecture, quality assurance of the content, usability and accessibility.

Certainly, even in a content-managed environment there is still the occasional microsite that calls for a hand-crafted, cleverly optimised bit of bespoke development, just as there's still a market for small sites where a CMS would be overkill.

But particularly in organisations where "anything to do with the web" is dumped onto the lap of a single individual or very small team, any tool which can enable us to work smarter, not harder, should be seen in a positive light.

a PDF version of my article is also available.

tags: .net article

congratulations to dennis lembrée and ross johnson for the 2 year anniversary episode of web axe - practical web accessibility tips.

For a special feature, the following web experts were gracious enough to send me input on their thoughts about recent events and trends in the world of web accessibility:

• Mark McKay
• Joe Dolson
• Roger Johansson
• Patrick Lauke
• Jared Smith
• Ross Johnson

and here's the transcript of my portion of the podcast:

Hi, this is Patrick Lauke for Web Axe.

For me the most significant development of the last year has been the way in which accessibility discourse in general has widened beyond the narrow confines of WCAG 1.0.

Although for very simple sites WCAG 1.0 is still quite valid, it's ill equipped to deal with the reality of today's web.

Rich internet applications, flash sites, complex javascript and AJAX, even widespread use of PDFs...as a developer, if you're just sticking with WCAG 1.0, most of those are simply out of the question.

It's true that in most situations you should really try to offer simple HTML/CSS based alternatives...but it's not an either/or proposition anymore. For instance, it's not purely a case of having a non-javascript accessible version of your site, since screen reader users don't necessarily have javascript disabled by default. And in fact, judicious use of javascript can enhance the usability and accessibility of a site, even for these users...if it's done properly.

I'd say that the development of technologies such as ARIA plays a key role here. As more and more browsers and assistive technologies take advantage of ARIA, we'll hopefully see some of the major problems that javascript and AJAX can cause for particularly screen reader users being mitigated or maybe even completely eliminated.

Underpinning all of these developments, I would say that WCAG 2.0's tech-agnostic, results driven approach, which ditches the "only use W3C technologies" dictum in favour of "accessibility supported technologies" holds great promise. It can provide a solid, extensible framework that's valid today and in the future.

Based on the latest draft, WCAG 2.0 is indeed moving in the right direction...so my wish for this coming year is to see a stable version of the new guidelines.

And to really help web authors understand how WCAG 2.0 can be applied in practice, I also hope that the technology-specific, non-normative supporting documents for WCAG 2.0 will get some much needed attention...as that's what most web authors will need, and refer to, in their practical day-to-day work.

And with that out of the way, I just want to say congratulations on your two year anniversary and keep up the good work. Cheers.

tags: webaxe podcast

presentation slides (in various formats) and an audio recording from my session at the Second Real World Accessibility Workshop at the Barbican, London, 8 august 2007 are now available - a transcript of the audio should follow in the next week or so.

HTML offers many features and attributes that can make your sites more accessible...but only if they're used wisely. Can there really be "too much accessibility"?

see the Too much accessibility: Good intentions, badly implemented page for further details.

tags: presentation conference workshop london accessibility

after a rather long wait, the transcript for the power session that Ian Lloyd and I ran at this year's SXSW is now available: Accessified! Practical accessibility fixes any web developer can use.

There is a lot of confusion surrounding WCAG 2.0 and few developers have read or want to read the guidelines. But accessibility is, at its core, eminently achievable. This session will look at real-world accessibility problems and show how they can be fixed using tools and add-ons that are freely available. Less talk about stuffy documentation and specific checkpoints, more hands-on action to solve the underlying problems

tags: presentation conference sxsw britpack

the slides from my session on geolinked institutional web content at the institutional web management workshop 2007 (16-18 July, York; Upcoming event page) are now available in a variety of formats.

• geolinked institutional web content (OpenOffice / 2.66MB)
• geolinked institutional web content (PowerPoint / 2.82MB)
• geolinked institutional web content (PDF / 1.33MB)

on a related note, it was an absolute pleasure to meet up with fellow institutional web managers again, as well as old friends like the mighty paul boag, who was valiantly representing the commercial sector.

tags: presentation conference workshop iwmw iwmw2007 york

following on from the success of my previous Public Sector Forums event in may, i'm taking part in the Second Real World Accessibility Workshop at the Barbican, London, 8 august 2007.

this time, the workshop isn't limited to people working in the public sector ... anybody is welcome.

once again, i'll be in good company, with my partners in accessibility crime Bruce Lawson, Ann McMeekin, Ian Lloyd and Dan Champion himself also running sessions.

while at the previous event i talked about Managing and educating content editors, this time around i'm tackling another subject close to my heart:

Too much accessibility - good intentions, badly implemented

HTML offers many features and attributes that can make your sites more accessible...but only if they're used wisely. Can there really be "too much accessibility"?

tags: presentation conference workshop london accessibility

this wednesday i'm heading to prague for the OISTAT run scenofest 07, part of the prague quadriennale - an international exhibition of scenography and theatre architecture.

together with karen i'll be taking part in the laptop connections installation:

The installation/performance will include eight to ten pairs of sound designers, one member of each team onsite and the other member in a remote location, performing a live soundscore in the Railway Station. Each onsite designers will be strategically positioned around the station with their laptops, connected to a WiFi network, amplified through a pair of powered computer speakers and perform their contribution into the unique environment that is the Masarykovo Station.

[...]

Team 4 - Karen Hay (UK) and Kris Popat (UK) Patrick Lauke / Prague and Leeds / Investigation of language, place and space involving verbal information passed between groups of live participants in both locations.

looking forward to hooking up again with some friends from my previous sorties into the world of sound and installation art.

tags: conference scenofest pq sound

It's been over a year since the request for review on the Last Call Working Draft of WCAG 2.0 (April 2006) originally went out. Many readers will remember the general level of dissatisfaction, or just plain bewilderment, that it provoked. So, has the latest version — Public Working Draft of WCAG 2.0 (May 2007) — taken on board the comments and criticisms that were raised?

Read the full article: A review of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, May 2007 Working Draft.

tags: wasp article accessibility wcag