Planet-Accessibility

Back in November, 2007 I blogged my results of testing the tabindex attribute in several browsers. I recently retested with the latest versions of the browsers and included Safari 4. Luckily the recommended methods for working with the tabindex attribute do not change. Here is the updated version:

All you never wanted to know about tabindex

The tabIndex attribute can be used to allow nearly any element to be put into the tab order or receive focus programmatically. This has been implemented in Internet Explorer starting with version 5, Firefox starting with version 1.5, Opera 9.5 and Safari 4.
Being able to set focus to any element on the page is important for accessibility in order to implement full keyboard navigation. Elements that represent the intial interaction with a user interface component
can be but into the tab order. Other elements which are part of a particular user interface component can be interacted with via other key combinations. The keystroke interaction and identification of the user interface components to assistive technologies depends upon being able to set focus to these elements.

How Focus and tab key navigation work

• Normally only input and anchor elements are put into the tab order of a page by default.
• Setting a tabIndex attribute of 0 onto an element will put it into the tab order of the page and allow it to receive focus via the keyboard.
• Setting a tabIndex of -1 on an element will allow the element to receive focus programmatically. For input and anchor elements, setting tabIndex of -1 will remove the element from the tab order and allow focus to only be set programmatically.
• Setting a tabIndex of >0 onto an element will put that element sequentially into the tab order based on the tabIndex value. Elements with a positive tab index are put into
  the tab order before other elements with a tabIndex of 0 or which are in the tab order by default.

There are different behaviors for the tabIndex attribute and capitalization of the I makes a difference in how the attribute is interpretted in html and xhtml.
After testing different combinations of setting and querying the tabindex attribute, a set of best practices is outlined below followed by a table listing the results of each test.

Using tabIndex across browser and content type

1. Always use tabindex with lowercase i in markup. See row 1 in table below.
2. Use tabIndex with uppercase I when setting in script via element.tabIndex. See row 4 in table below.
3. Check browser and/or content-type when setting in script via element.setAttribute()
   • if is IE or content-type is text/html - set via elem.setAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase. See row 6 in table below.
   • if is content-type application/xhtml+xml or not IE 6 or 7 - set via elem.setAttribute(tabindex) lowercase. See row 7 in table below
4. Use lowercase when querying a value using getAttribute(tabindex) that was set in markup as lowercase. See row 9 in table below.
5. Use lowercase when querying a value using getAttribute(tabindex) that was set directly on element using element.tabIndex uppercase. See row 15 in table below.
   Setting tabIndex directly on the element using element.tabIndex avoids having to check browser or content type when getting the value.
6. If the rules above have been followed, use lowercase when querying a value using hasAttribute(tabindex) where available. See rows 25, 31 and 33 in table below.

Simplified Rules

• use tabindex lowercase to set in markup
• use element.tabIndex with uppercase I to set in script
• query via getAttribute(tabindex) lowercase

TabIndex testing results

The following table shows the results of testing on Windows with Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, and 8, Firefox 2.0.0.20, Firefox 3.0.1, Firefox 3.5, Opera 9.64 and Safari 4.
IE 6, 7, 8 where tested using HTML 4.01 strict. Firefox 2, 3, 3.5 as well as Opera and Safari were tested with HTML 4.01 strict as well as with XHTML 1.0 strict
served with content-type of application/xhtml+xml. Unless otherwise noted, a div was used as the test element.

		IE 6/7	IE 8 HTML	FF 2/3/3.5, Opera 9.64, Safari 4 HTML	FF 2/3/3.5, Opera 9.64, Safari 4 XHTML
1	tabindex set in markup (lowercase)	yes	yes	yes	yes
2	tabIndex set in markup (uppercase)	yes	yes	yes	no
3	tabindex set via elem.tabindex (lowercase)	no	no	no	no
4	tabIndex set via elem.tabIndex (uppercase)	yes	yes	yes	yes
5	tabindex set via setAttribute(tabindex) (lowercase)	no	yes	yes	yes
6	tabIndex set via setAttribute(tabIndex) (uppercase)	yes	yes	yes	no
7	query elem.tabIndex uppercase when set as 0 in markup as lowercase	0	0	0	0
8	query elem.tabIndex uppercase when set as 0 in markup as uppercase	0	0	0	-1
9	query getAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set as 0 in markup as lowercase	0	0	0	0
10	query getAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set as 0 in markup as lowercase	0	0	0	null
11	query getAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set as 0 in markup as uppercase	0	0	0	null
12	query getAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set as 0 in markup as uppercase	0	0	0	0 1
13	query getAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via elem.tabindex lowercase	0	null	null	null
14	query getAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via elem.tabindex lowercase	0	null	null	null
15	query getAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via elem.tabIndex uppercase	0	0	0	0
16	query getAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via elem.tabIndex uppercase	0	0	0	null
17	query getAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via setAttribute as lowercase	0 2	0	0	0
18	query getAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via setAttribute as lowercase	0	0	0	null
19	query getAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via setAttribute as uppercase	0	0	0	null
20	query getAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via setAttribute as uppercase	0	0	0	0 3
21	query elem.tabIndex uppercase when it has not been set in markup	0	0	-1	-1
22	query getAttribute(tabIndex) upper or lowercase when it has not been set in markup	0	null	null	null
23	query elem.tabIndex from with no explict value set	0	0	0	0
24	query getAttribute(tabIndex) upper or lowercase from with no explict value set	0	null	null	null
25	query hasAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set in markup as lowercase	NA	true	true	true
26	query hasAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set inmarkup as lowercase	NA	true	true	false
27	query hasAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set in markup as uppercase	NA	true	true	false
28	query hasAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set in markup as uppercase	NA	true	true	true 1
29	query hasAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via elem.tabindex lowercase	NA	false	false	false
30	query hasAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via elem.tabindex lowercase	NA	false	false	false
31	query hasAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via elem.tabIndex uppercase	NA	true	true	true
32	query hasAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via elem.tabIndex uppercase	NA	true	true	false
33	query hasAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via setAttribute as lowercase	NA	true	true	true
34	query hasAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via setAttribute as lowercase	NA	true	true	false
35	query hasAttribute(tabindex) lowercase when set via setAttribute as uppercase	NA	true	true	false
36	query hasAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase when set via setAttribute as uppercase	NA	true	true	true
37	query hasAttribute(tabIndex) upper or lowercase from with no explict value set	NA	false	false	false

Table Notes:

1. Setting in markup as uppercase tabIndex does not work in XHTML to allow focus to element.
2. setAttribute(tabindex) lowercase does not work in IE to allow focus to element.
3. setAttribute(tabIndex) uppercase does not work in XHTML to allow focus to element.

• Test file for HTML 4 strict
• Test file for XHTML 1 strict

It was just announced that openFATE, openSUSE’s feature tracking system, will now be open to non openSUSE members.  What this means anyone can submit new feature requests.  For more info: openFATE – Adding New Features Now Open for Everybody.

Firefox 3.5 has been released, and now it’s time to take a look at what features of WAI-ARIA are being supported by which Windows screen reader. Competition is healthy in this market, and two new screen readers have started supporting Firefox during the 3.5 development cycle: Dolphin’s Hal/SuperNova and Serotek’s System Access (including the free SAToGo offering). So to document the current state of affairs, I’ve taken each one of the following screen readers running on the Windows platform on a tour through some WAI-ARIA implementations that are out there for everyone to use. I’ve chosen not to do a widget-by-widget walkthrough of the Dojo DIJIT Toolkit or some other JS library already including WAI-ARIA, but instead concentrated on stuff users will actually encounter while surfing the web under non-clinical conditions.

The following are the candidates:

• NVDA, using the latest snapshot build, which actually does not behave much different from the current 0.6p3 release.
• JAWS 10.0.1154.
• Window-Eyes 7.1.
• SuperNova 11.02.
• System Access in the form of the free System Access To Go service.

The scoring is simple: For each important feature that is fully supported, each screen reader gets 1 point. A particular web app may have more than 1 feature, so it is possible to score multiple points for web apps.

Note that, even if WAI-ARIA support is not explicitly documented, it is still possible to score points because Firefox exposes many widgets through MSAA and IAccessible2 that are not standard HTML widgets. The interesting question here is: Are the various forms of Forms/Focus mode flexible enough to deal with these?

Landmarks

WAI-ARIA landmarks are one of the most widely used features of the spec already. They allow another means of navigating a web page, finding things such as the banner, main content, search, complementary or footer information. The newly relaunched Mozilla Add-Ons website uses them now, as does this blog.

NVDA

No.

JAWS

Yes. Landmarks are announced, they can be navigated to using the Semicolon quick navigation key, and there’s a list of landmarks available through JAWSKey+Ctrl+SemiColon. 1 point

Window-Eyes

No.

SuperNova

No.

System Access To Go

No.

So after the first round, JAWS is in the lead with 1 points.

Contact form from my Easy ARIA tips

The example contact form I created for my Easy Aria tip #3 offers several features that can be incorporated without having to create widgets, and which have appeared in some form or another on pages throughout the web already:

• Does the fact that the Name, E-Mail and Message fields are required get indicated by anything other than the label saying “required”?
  • By navigating the virtual buffer
  • When in forms/focus mode and tabbing around
• When entering an invalid name by just entering the first name:
  • Does the alert get spoken when tabbing away?
  • When tabbing back, does the field get indicated as having an invalid entry?
  • Does the fact that this field has an invalid entry get indicated when navigating in the virtual buffer?

In total, there are 5 points to score for this test.

NVDA

NVDA indicates the field as being required in v cursor mode and when tabbing around. 2 points. It speaks the alert. 1 point. It indicates the invalid attribute both when navigating the virtual buffer and when in focus mode and tabbing around. 2 points. Total: 5 points

JAWS

While the label gets spoken in virtual cursor mode, when JAWS switches to forms mode automatically when hitting the entry field, the plopping sound drowns out every indication of attributes such as required or invalid. Only when deviating from default settings and turning AutoFormsMode off one will hear those attributes in V cursor mode. No points for these two. The alert gets spoken. 1 point. When tabbing around, the attributes such as required and invalid do get announced with the default settings. 2 points for these. Total: 3 points

Window-Eyes

The fact that the field is required gets spoken in both browse and focus modes. 2 points. The alert gets spoken. 1 point. The fact that the field has an invalid entry gets spoken in both browse and focus modes. 2 points. Total: 5 points

SuperNova

None of the asked for features work. Sorry, 0 points.

System Access To Go

The alert gets spoken. 1 point. None of the attributes are spoken when navigating or tabbing. Total: 1 point.

After round 2, NVDA and Window-Eyes take the lead with 5 points each, JAWS follows on third place with a total of 4 points, System Access has 1 point, and SuperNova has 0 points.

Yahoo! Search

The new Yahoo! Search is an interactive widget allowing browsing of possible search terms and related concepts that fit the currently selected search term. It uses a whole range of WAI-ARIA widgets, properties and states, live regions etc. When performing a search, the following things should be working:

• When focusing the textbox:
  • Does the screen reader speak the name “Search query”?
  • Does the screen reader announce the description “Use the up and down arrow keys to select suggestions, or press down and then right to explore concepts.”?
• When typing, does the screen reader announce that search suggestions are available?
• When search suggestions are available, does pressing DownArrow properly announce that focus shifted to the list of suggested search terms, and what to do to get back to the search field?
• Does pressing RightArrow announce the shift to the “related concepts” list and the selected item?
• When arrowing through either list, does the highlighted/focused item get spoken, and does the search that will be performed when pressing Enter get announced by the screen reader?

So, there are 7 points to score for this one.

NVDA

It speaks the “Search query” label. 1 point. It speaks the “Use the..” description. 1 point. When search suggestions are available, the fact is announced. 1 point. When pressing DownArrow, the transition to the list of suggested terms is announced along with the full instructions and the selected item. 1 point. When arrowing left and right to the related concepts and back, each focus transition is properly announced and the highlighted item read. 1 point. When arrowing up and down through either list, the newly highlighted search term is announced, and the search that is going to be performed is announced automatically. 2 points. Total: 7 points

JAWS

When focusing the search field, the “Search query” label is announced. 1 point. The “use …” description is not announced automatically. It is also not being announced when pressing JawsKey+Tab or Insert+F1. The only way to get to it is to use their HomeRow utility functions and cycling to the “Description” item with HomeRow+F10 and then listening to it with HomeRow+F9. For this almost non-discoverability I can’t give a point, sorry. When search results are available, this gets announced. 1 point. When pressing DownArrow, the transition to the list is announced along with the prompt. 1 point. When RightArrowing, the transition to the “Explore related concepts” list is announced. 1 point. When arrowing up and down, the newly highlighted item is not announced, and neither is the search that is going to be performed. One can get the currently focused item by using Insert+Tab, but the description is once again burried in HomeRow. I’m willing to give half a point for this one since initially it will be confusing to users that they don’t hear anything when arrowing up and down. Total: 4.5 points

Window-Eyes

The label “Search query” is announced. 1 point. The “Use…” description is announced. 1 point. The availability of search results is not announced. The transition to the search term suggestions is partially announced: The focused item is, but the prompt is not. Half a point. The transition to the “Related concepts” and back is announced partially: The newly focused item is, but the prompt isn’t. half a point. When arrowing up and down, both the search suggestion and the search that is going to be performed are being announced. 2 points. Total: 5 points.

SuperNova

Announcing the “Search query” label works. 1 point. But unfortunately, that’s where the fun ends. The description is not announced, the availability of search term suggestions is neither. And the rest of the functionality of this widget is broken. DownArrow is captured by SuperNova and will not fall through to the widget, getting one stuck inside the textbox. Tabbing around will only get up to the “Submit your site” link, but the search terms aren’t reachable. SuperNova will say “bottom”, and no further can one go. Total: 1 point.

System Access To Go

The picture is roughly the same as with SuperNova. The label “Search query” is spoken. 1 point. The description is not spoken. The availability of search term suggestions neither. DownArrow gets you to the “Search” button instead of the list of search terms. In fact, this virtual buffer also ends at the “Submit your site” link. Total: 1 point.

At the end of this round, NVDA leaps ahead with 12 points. Window-Eyes is second with 10 points, followed by JAWS with 8.5 points. System Access scores a total of 2, and SuperNova got their first point!

GMail Chat

GMail has an integrated Google Talk widget that I talked about before. The following should be working:

• Ability to activate the “Set status here” label by pressing Enter on it to input a personal status message.
• Ability to activate the “status menu” and navigate inside it with speech output.
• Navigate inside the list of buddies and hear their names and status.
• Inside the Chat window, announce typed and incoming messages.
• Track going to the Chat window toolbar.

Once again, there are 5 points to score. Let’s see how everyone fares!

NVDA

Pressing Enter on “Set status here” works fine, and one can input a status message. 1 point. Activating and navigating in the status menu works fine. 1 point. The list of buddies talks fine. 1 point. Chatting works fine. 1 point. Trying to access the toolbar items by first going out of focus mode with Escape made NVDA hang each time I tried it. It somehow has a conflict with the chat widget. Sorry, no point for this one. Total: 4 points

JAWS

The label to input a status message is not activable by pressing Enter. It can only be activated using the JAWS cursor emulation. Since this is a well-known workaround, I’m giving half a point. The Status menu is activable and works fine. 1 point. The list talks fine. 1 point. The incoming and typed messages are spoken in the chat output. 1 point. The chat toolbar to pop out the chat into its own window is accessible. 1 point. Total: 4.5 points.

Window-Eyes

Accessing the label to input a status message works with workaround of routing WE cursor to element, then mouse to WE cursor, and clicking with the mouse. However, I cannot input a status message afterwards, even though I hear the prompt for it. a quarter of a point for that. The status menu cannot be activated through any means. The list talks fine. 1 point. The chat window works with restrictions: It can be activated and typed in, but incoming messages are not read. half a point for that. Trying to access the toolbar items of the chat window sort of works by turning browse mode back on, and then searching, but since the last position is not retained, I can only give half a point for this one. Total: 2.25 points.

SuperNova

Activating the “Set status here” works. I can input a new status. 1 point. The status menu button does not work, cannot be activated or found through other means. The list of buddies talks. 1 point. Activating a chat with a buddy does not work. Consequently, since the chat window never comes up, the toolbar items for the chat window obsolete themselves. Total: 2 points.

System Access To Go

The “Set status here” and Status menu items are not accessible. The list talks fine. 1 point. Activating a chat works. 1 point. Finding the toolbar buttons is not possible, because the cursor gets stuck within the textbox of the chat window and there’s no way to move it out. Total: 2 points.

…and the winner is…

Congratulations go to the NV Access team and their screen reader! In this WAI-ARIA shootout, you scored 16 points.

Number 2 is JAWS by Freedom scientific, scoring a total of 12.5 points.

Window-Eyes by GW Micro is third with a total of 12.25 points.

Fourth place goes to Serotek with their System Access screen reader product line, with a total of 4 points.

And SuperNova by Dolphin receives 3 points.

In summary

This was a close match, although there is clearly a dividing line between the three screen readers that have been supporting Firefox for a longer period of time, and those that came on board fresh within the past year or so.

I hope this little competition encourages each of the vendors to better themselves for the benefit of the users. We’re here to help each and everyone of you with technical advice and discussion on how things should be implemented.

Keep on rockin’!

Frank Hecker has recently blogged about two new Mozilla accessibility projects. Great to hear! Also, I really need one of the new Firefox 3.5 tag cloud t-shirts.  Imagine a cloud of colorful words describing Firefox 3.5, like “open”, “friendly” and “standards” arranged to fit together. Some words are vertical, some horizontal, it’s quite interesting looking. My [...]

At the recent Open Video Conference, I was asked to chair a working group on HTML5 and the

The biggest topic around the

Unfortunately, the panel was cut short at the conference to only 30 min, so we ended up doing mostly demos of HTML5 video working in different browsers and doing cool things such as working with SVG.

The challenges that we identified and that are still ahead to solve are:

• annotation support: closed captions, subtitles, time-aligned metadata, and their DOM exposure
• track selection: how to select between alternate audio tracks, alternate annotation tracks, based on e.g. language, or accessibility requirements; what would the content negotiation protocol look like
• how to support live streaming
• how to support in-browser a/v capture
• how to support live video communication (skype-style)
• how to support video playlists
• how to support basic video editing functionality
• what would a decent media server for html5 video look like; what capabilities would it have

Here are the slides we made for the working group.

Download PDF: Open Video Conference: HML5 and video Panel

I was delighted last month to spend a couple of days with Leisa Reichelt and Mark Boulton looking at the work they’re doing for the d7ux project from an accessibility point of view.

During that couple of days, we got to talking about how to make it easier for people who make Drupal themes to make them accessible, and we came up with the idea of writing a kind of hints and tips document that could be viewed online or downloaded and printed.

The resulting document – Designing Accessibility Into Themes – is now available from d7ux.org and I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response it’s received on twitter so far. I’m even more pleased that it’s in the queue to be included in the Drupal Handbook.

It’s not an exhaustive guide to everything you should do to make a website accessible, because that would take many, many more words, but I hope it strikes the right balance of information, pragmatism and tone and gives a good overview of the main things to keep in mind if you’re designing a theme for any kind of content management system – not just Drupal.

If you’ve got any feedback on it, I’d love to hear it, and please feel free to pass it on to anyone who you think might find it useful.

Getting online is not always easy when you are visually impaired. Font sizes can be too small, images hard to see and colors hard to make out. But there are ways to minimize these problems. I have been tinkering with my web browsers ever since I used my first one many years ago. I have [...]

With singer Michael Jackson’s unexpected passing and constant news coverage and replayings of his most successful songs, it sparked a bit of a “blast from the past” moment for me.

You see, in a former life, I was actually a performer.  A song-sign performerand I started performing and touring when I was 7.  There’s a lot of good memories I have from those days until I changed direction at the age of 21.  But for this post, I’ll just talk about the Michael Jackson aspect.    I covered quite a few of his songs back then, including Billie Jean, Thriller, The Way You Make Me Feel, and Man in the Mirror.

Even though I last performed in 1991. the memories are still fresh and still even today, when I attend deaf events around the country, someone I’ve never met before comes up to me and recalls some performance I’ve done.  It does some good for this aging ego. 

Probably my most memorable performance was when I was invited to join the Prism West dance company in Los Angeles and so I packed up my bags and moved to L.A.  A short while later, I debuted on the west coast with Thriller on Halloween Night.  Oh man, it was a perfect thriller night, with one of the worst rainstorms in L.A. in years and streets were flooded and there was lightning and thunder outside.

This past weekend, I found my old videotape of my performance and had it transferred to digital.  The quality isn’t so great, but at least its something.

So without further ado, here’s that performance with the cast of Prism West, and yes, everyone in the company is Deaf::

• Lisa Hermatz (playing the part of Vincent Price)  She has gone on to be an awesome actress and sign language teacher in L.A.  You can catch her guest-appearing on a 2008 episode of Cold Case
• Anthony Natale:  He’s done quite a bit of work on television and film.  You might remember him as the deaf man making out in the elevator in the movie “Jerry Maguire”
• Sheila Gibbons -- Rest her soul, a brain tumor took her away from us too early in life.
• Susan “Boing” Motylinski
• Ray Chahayed
• Vicky Gonzales

Okay, the video quality sucks, but what do you expect from a vhs tape buried for 20 years? 

This fall marks WebAIM’s 10th anniversary. During that time, the WebAIM team has evolved and changed a lot. The work WebAIM does is truly a team effort from a diverse group of men and women with whom it has been an honor to work and become friends.

I’m especially happy to see two employees that I helped hire get married this month. Congratulations Aaron and Stefanie!

The field of web accessibility is not a typical work field. I struggle sometimes to explain what it is I do every day. I know my mother doesn’t really understand it. In many ways, those of us in web accessibility are trying to work ourselves out of a job. If we were entirely successful at what we want to accomplish, we’d no longer have work to do. Of course, that’s not likely to happen any time soon. Yet we try.

When people ask me how I became interested in web accessibility, I usually tell them that I love it because I’m a geek and I like people. Web accessibility gives me a unique opportunity to play with cool toys, learn amazing new skills, stay on top of new technology, but most importantly, to truly make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities.

While WebAIM’s mission is to expand the potential of the web for people with disabilities, it’s interesting that most of our work is not with people with disabilities directly. While the friendships and acquaintances we’ve made with many people with disabilities is what inspires us to do what we do, most of our days are spent working with and influencing those who typically do not have disabilities. We’ve found that by empowering web developers, administrators, and others to make their web sites accessible, that we have a broader, more significant impact on the lives of people with disabilities - those who benefit the most from the accessibility of the sites we help influence.

When WebAIM began, few people were aware of web accessibility issues. One of our primary goals has been to increase awareness. Today, while there is still debate in some places whether accessibility is even a human right, awareness has increased. Most people that we work with are aware of the issues and are truly interested in seeing the web become a better place for people with disabilities - and not simply because some law or policy says they have to. The dilemma of the next decade will be increasing commitment to web accessibility and dispelling myths and misunderstandings about accessibility and people with disabilities. We also have the ongoing challenge of decreasing the gap between cutting edge and accessible.

And we’re not alone in doing this. Some of the smartest, most passionate people on the planet work in web accessibility. I dare not name names, but I am constantly amazed at those in this field who continue to advance technology and accessibility.

So, while the field of web accessibility is a bit anomalous and always adventurous, there is tremendous need for intelligent, dedicated people to help further our efforts. As technology continues to advance, we need to redouble our efforts in ensuring that people with disabilities are given the opportunity to enjoy a truly accessible web experience. Why don’t you come join us?

I have something to confess. I am one of god’s most pathetic creatures. I am a Boston Red Sox fan. Even though I had to quit little league after getting hit in the face trying to play catch on sidelines, I still love the game. My one season of little league involved a total of [...]

Last week was one of those busy weeks which was all about conferences and meetups and not a moment of desk time inbetween.

We kicked off with an Opera BBQ on Wednesday followed by @Media, then rounded off with Standards.Next on Saturday. All in all it was a very HTML5 themed week  and thanks to a brilliant mix of people I learnt a lot and finally met some people who I’ve been chatting with over Twitter for some time now.

@Media

@Media rocked and ended on a high note with the announcement that Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp would be taking over organisation of the event under the Web Directions monika. After so many rumours that 2009 was to be @Media’s last this was a more then welcome thing to hear. A hat tip and huge thank you to Patrick Griffiths’s for building @Media into what it is today.

Standards.Next

For me though the highlight of the week was the first ever Standards.Next meetup focusing on HTML5 - the big news so far to come out of 2009 (well at least I think so). We had roughly 60 people show up to help us chew the fat over HTML5, myths, canvass, APS’s, HTML5.js and accessibility. Thank you to all the speakers for making the event more than Bruce and I could have hoped for and also to everyone who showed up on what was a beautiful summer’s Saturday.

Below are a few links for those that didn’t make it and I’ll keep you updated as to when we post video of the event:

• Bruce Lawson - HTML 5: Are you mything the point? (.ods, 1.8 M). Yes you can start using some of HTML5 now, browser vendors aren’t evil, no HTML5 wont kill Flash, Silverlight and JavaScript and HTML5 does love accessibility (it’s just built in not bolted on).
• Dean Edwards - presented his excellent html5.js library which will be available soon. He demo’d implementations of Web Forms 2 that worked across browsers even adopting accessibility settings from the OS for some. An amazing piece of work.
• Remy Sharpe - HTML5 JS API’s (PDF) and demos. How JavaScript and HTML5 can play nicely together. With HTML5 taking care of the more mundane uses of JavaScript (date pickers and validation for example), JavaScript Ninja’s can now spend time on the more sophisticated stuff.
• Martin Kliehm - HTML5 and Canvass slides, links and video shorts. Martin is the go to man for canvass and presented some great research and use cases that go beyond shoot-em-out games and Etch-a-Sketch.
• Steve Faulkner - HTML5 accessibility. The Mighty Steve Faulkner talked about accessibility issues as well as the relationship of WAI-ARIA to HTML5.

HTML5 Doctor

An extra bonus was the launch of HTML5 Doctor, a collaboration between Rich Clark (of HTML5 Gallery), Bruce Lawson, Jack Osborne, Mike Robinson, Remy Sharp and Tom Leadbetter.

Next for Standards.Next

Plans are yet to be firmed up but we’re looking at doing cognition and accessibility Saturday 19th of September just after Techshare. If you’re interested in speaking or coming a long check the standards.nextwebsite for updates, we’d love to have you come along.

About three and a half years ago, I started the Blind Photographers group on Flickr. I was curious to see if I was the only blind (or visually impaired) photographer around. I certainly was not alone. I asked “Is anyone out there?“. Within a short time, I had my answers.  Since then, membership in the [...]

• Why won’t tweetsville display my timeline anymore? Rebooted iPhone, cleared cache - I can see messages and favorites but timeline is blank? #
• Testing a tweet from tweetsville - timeline won’t display? Thus have been out of touch last few days #
• working on adding aria-readonly to the dojox.DataGrid #dojo #ARIA #a11y #
• Anyone know where pressing enter to submit a HTML form (that has submit btn) is defined? Can’t find in HTML spec but seems is std practice #

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The W3C has published a third last call for the draft specification of DFXP, the Distribution Format Exchange Profile for the Timed Text Authoring Format – or short: for their new standard format for captions. Comments are due by the 30th June, so rush if you want to give any feedback. Here is what came to my mind as I was reading the 183 pages long document.

Please note: This review looks at DFXP from a Web view, i.e. how compatible is it with existing Web technologies, since my main use case will be on the Web, even if advocates will say that that’s not it’s main purpose, strangely enough, for a standard coming out of the W3C.

The state of affairs with caption formats

When it comes to caption and subtitles, there is no lack of formats. It seems, because it is an easy challenge to define a data format for something as simple as a piece of text and some timing information, every new project that wanted to deal with captions – or more generally timed text – created their own format. I am no exception to the rule.

Thus, the current state of affairs wrt timed text is that there are many different textual file formats to store such data, there are also many different video container formats each with their own data format (or even formats) for embedding timed text into them, and there is a lot of software that will deal with many input, output and encapsulation formats.

The problem with this situation is that the formats are all different in their complexity. The simple “piece of text and timing information” problem can be turned into as complex a problem as you desire. By adding layout information, styling information, animation functionality, metadata about the video and about the content, and possibly hyperlinks, we have ended up in a large mess of incompatible formats.

The aim of W3C Timed Text

The W3C Timed Text working group was chartered in January 2003 to attack this issue. It was supposed to become the super-format of all possible functionalities for timed text formats and therefore a perfect interchange format between applications (see requirements document). Its focus was for use on the Web and with SMIL and to make use of existing W3C technologies where possible

However, the history of captioning is TV and the scope of Timed Text is beyond mere use on the Web, so while W3C Timed Text took a lot of inspiration from other Web standards, it has become a stand-alone standard that does not rely on, e.g. the availability of a CSS engine, and it has no in-built hyperlinking functionality (see what requirements it fulfills).

Dissecting DFXP

So. let’s look into some of what DFXP provides.

Here is an example file taken straight from the draft – check the presentation here:

  
    
      Timed Text DFXP Example
      The Authors (c) 2006