Challenging the Challenge of Accessibility on Yahoo! Homepage |
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| Event | Interactive 2011 |
| Format | Dual |
| Organizer | Victor Tsaran – Yahoo! Inc. |
| Description | The Web and its core technologies are inherently accessible, yet there are still a large amount of sites that are hard for those using assistive technology. Oftentimes, the problem is more of a mindset than anything else. Learn how the new Yahoo! homepage (visited more than 300 million people monthly) was created with accessibility in mind from the start by getting buy-in from the key parts of the business. You’ll discover how the use of semantic markup can improve the user experience, how managing browser focus helps those user screen readers and screen magnifiers follow the flow of information, and how ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) can be used to progressively enhance the application for additional usability improvements. Where many sites stop at “baseline functionality,” we went a step further to ensure that all of the dynamic and Ajax-powered functionality is usable by anyone using a computer in any way. Additional semantics provided by ARIA attribute, search assist that announce the suggestions to screen readers via ARIA live regions, keyboard-accessible drag and drop can be found on the new Yahoo! homepage, and we’ll walk you through it. In the end you’ll discover that building an accessible web site doesn’t actually take more time, it just takes a different mindset. Because developing a site that is accessible improves the oval user experience and navigation for all people of all abilities. |
| Questions Answered |
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| Level | Intermediate |
| Category | Accessibility |
| Tags | accessibility, disabilities, Technology |