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Second Real World Accessibility Workshop

Barbican, London 8th August 2007

Following the outstanding success of their previous workshop in Birmingham in May, by popular demand the 'A Team' of the accessibility world are re-assembling in August for a re-run (with added refinements and embellishments).

Hear some of the top speakers in their field explore the following:

Agenda

Web Accessibility: What, Why, How, and Who Cares?
Bruce Lawson
An introduction to accessibility: whistlestop tour around why and how you should use Web Standards to make sites that are accessible to disabled people, usable for all and profitable for your client.

How disabled users use the web
Ann McMeekin, RNIB
A closer look at assistive technologies and how people with disabilities can - and do - use websites.

Too much accessibility - good intentions, badly implemented
Patrick Lauke, University of Salford
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"?

GIS, PDF and other monsters in the closet
Grant Broome, Shaw Trust
Certain proprietary technologies sit on our servers secretly hoping that no-one will find them. Grant Broome from the Shaw Trust Accessibility Services examines how disabled users find these technologies and offers advice on how they can be made more accessible.

Quality assurance - testing, monitoring and maintaining accessibility
Dan Champion, Champion IS

Real work examples of common accessiblity cock-ups in the wild
Ian Lloyd, Nationwide BS and Accessify
To include video examples of public and private sector sites

Speaker Biogs

Bruce Lawson (www.brucelawson.co.uk) is a member of the Web Standards Project’s Accessibility Task Force, and was one of the reviewers of the British Standards Institution’s PAS 78 “Guide to good practice in commissioning accessible websites”. He was recently technical reviewer and co-author of Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance (www.friendsofred.com/book.html?isbn=1590596382) He is a yellow belt in Karate, and he drinks too much Guinness.

Ann McMeekin is passionate about accessibility and good design, whether on the web or in the real world, and doesn't believe that one has to be sacrificed to achieve the other. This is something she's argued for several years, both in her work (currently as a Web Accessibility Consultant for the RNIB, and previously as a web designer) and to anyone who'll sit still long enough to listen. She blogs for work at http://www.rnib.org.uk/wacblog .

Patrick Lauke currently works as Web Editor for the University of Salford, where he heads a small central web team. In 2003 he implemented one of the first web standards based XHTML/CSS-driven UK university sites. He has been engaged in the discourse on accessibility since early 2001, regularly contributing to a variety of web development and accessibility related mailing lists and forums. He also takes an active role in running www.Accessify.com, moderates Accessifyforum, and is co-lead of the Web Standards Project Accessibility Task Force (WaSP ATF). His published works include a chapter in "Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance," released by Friends of Ed in 2006.

Grant Broome is the Web Accessibility Manager for CDSM (www.cdsm.co.uk) who are the technical partner of the Shaw Trust Web Accreditation (www.shaw-trust.org.uk). He is an administrator for the Guild of Accessible Web Designers (www.gawds.org), and works closely with the acclaimed Legal and General (www.legalandgeneral.com) web team to ensure that their online applications are accessible. Grant likes it when he gets to work with web teams who are enthusiastic about usability and accessibility and gets a buzz out of finding practical solutions to difficult problems.

Dan Champion has over 11 years of web development experience. A passionate advocate for web standards and accessibility regularly speaking at conferences and training events, until recently Dan was Web Development Manager at Clackmannanshire, where he was responsible for creating the Council’s award-winning website ClacksWeb. He now runs the web development, consultancy and training company Champion Internet Solutions, helping clients in the private and public sectors to improve their web presence.

Ian Lloyd runs Accessify.com, a site dedicated to promoting web accessibility and providing tools for web developers. Ian works full-time for Nationwide Building Society where he tries his hardest to influence standards-based design ("to varying degrees!"). Ian is part of the Web Standards Project Accessibility Task Force (WaSP ATF) and is a occasional contributor to the WaSP Buzz blog.