Fredy D. Ore — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:00:23 GMT

Hi Fran,

I just read your article on the Nomensa website.

It’s great :) and touches on a number of important areas, such as clear sign posting, and how applying meaningful links helps within non-visual assistive technologies like screen readers e.g. your “more, more, more” read- out-loud example.

Identifying tone of voice, language and applying meaningful links (like you mentioned) is very important I feel. As it defines the context of how people interact, but more importantly, how it is put within the perspective of user needs, their journey(s), mental models or particular scenarios.

You’re right, by thinking about Accessibility early within any project, allows for adequate budget to be allocated for the entire process (including development), and that’s only a good thing :)

In the UK and in March earlier this year, a Publicly Available Specification (PAS 78), was developed by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) in collaboration with the British Standards Institution (BSI). This document outlines good practice in commissioning websites that are accessible to and usable by disabled people.

http://www.bsi-global.com/ICT/PAS78/index.xalter

Although it is targeted at a slightly different audience to the W3C WAI guidelines, PAS78 does a similar thing to describing the WAI guidelines but in a more palatable way for Projects Managers, CMS Administrators, Copy writers, IA’s, Usability and User Experience professionals.

We have a copy here in the office at work, but an accessible PDF version of PAS 78 is available as a free download from the Disability Rights Commission website, http://www.drc.org.uk/pas

It is also available in other formats such as: large print, easy read, audio, braille, daisy and Welsh

Cheers,
Fredy :)

Fredy D. Ore — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:52 GMT

“Each forked path will teach you something, and as you choose one, the others are not closed off. Rather if you change paths again, you’ll do so with a new body of knowledge and insight.”

Hi Christina,

Thank you for the great article, and sharing it with us. It’s a nicely timed one for me :)
Pssst: I love the new B&A design!!

Fredy :)

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Fredy D. Ore