Accessibility for Your Web Site

CLF 2.0 and Accessibilty:
Liberate Your Web Site

Seminar Description | Resources for Attendees | Resources for Hosts

"Eye-opening. Love your method of teaching."

- Jean Descrochers, National Research Council

"I love David's approach."

- Carole Dubuc, Canadian Armed Forces

"Clear, concise, and very useful."

- Annette Kallevig

LATEST EVENTS	LOCATION	HOST/REGISTRATION	FEE*
Thu Nov 13, 2008	Ottawa, ON	David Berman Communications	$495.
July 6, 2008	Daegu, Korea	Icograda Design Week in Daegu 2008	see host site
Tue April 29, 2008	Ottawa, ON	David Berman Communications	$495.
Thu March 13, 2008	Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa, ON	Statistics Canada	private event
Tue February 19, 2008	Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa, ON	Health Canada	private event
Wed November 7, 2007	Minto Business Centre, Ottawa, ON	David Berman Communications	$495.
Thu November 9, 2006	Minto Business Centre, Ottawa, ON	David Berman Communications	$495.
Thu February 16, 2006	Minto Business Centre, Ottawa, ON	David Berman Communications	SOLD OUT
Tue December 6, 2005	Oslo, Norway	Norwegian Design Council	SOLD OUT
Thu October 20, 2005	Minto Business Centre, Ottawa, ON	David Berman Communications	SOLD OUT
Thu June 9, 2005	Minto Business Centre, Ottawa, ON	David Berman Communications	$495.
Tue December 22, 2004	Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa, ON	Health Canada	private event

*Discount packages for non-profits, and travel subsidies available. Additional discounts available for groups over three people. If you refer at least four registrants to one of our seminars, we'll give you a complimentary registration to a seminar of your choice. Call (613) 728-6777 for details.

All prices, offerings, and dates subject to change without notice.

To register for a seminar given by our own organization, register online or call (613) 728-6777.

Event Schedule (all events)

"Wonderful handout! The way extra information, like links and explanations, is included works beautifully."

- Elizabeth Strand, Making Waves, Oslo (Norway)

"Very understandable and fun."

- Liz Breines, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Oslo (Norway)

"Highly valuable."

- Maureen Quirouet, Parliament of Canada

Seminar Description

Demystify accessibilty standards! Most adults suffer from some level of disability or difficulty that can be mitigated through accessible Web site design. By using the immediately-applicable tips and techniques you'll learn in this powerful one-day Web accessibility seminar, not only will you comply with standards: you'll be broadening the audience for your Web site while enriching the experience of all your visitors.

"Inspiring, engaging... techniques I can use."

- Liv Stenersen, Government Administration Services, Oslo (Norway)

David Berman will convince you of why accessibility and standards are important for everybody, then provide in-depth familiarity with federal and international guidelines that will help your Web presence be a more effective resource for your entire audience. You'll also gain familiarity with technologies that help people with specific disabilities and difficulties. The full-day seminar includes a thorough review of pertinent standards to comply with the Canadian government's world-leading Common Look and Feel 2.0 policy and international W3C guidelines, as well as testing recommendations for both. Finally, you'll venture into where accessibility meets usability. Not only will you leave with ideas you can use right away, you may also gain a whole new attitude towards how technology can improve lives. By the end of the day you willnot only be aware of why accessibility and standards affect everyone: you'll be equipped with a thorough understanding of what needs to be done and how.

"Excellent... knowledge I can use."

- Sandra Clark, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Oslo (Norway)

Each full-day participant leaves with a comprehensive 75+ page learning guide, detailing every major accessibility guideline.

"Inspiring!"

- Morten Budeng, King Design

"Excellent."

- Sylvie Nyman, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

"Excellent storytelling. Thanks!"

- Sarah Rosenbaum, Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services

What's Wrong

Computer-mediated accessibility to information perhaps represents the greatest liberation in human history. Most people in our societies have some sort of physical or mental difficulty which can stand in the way of clear Web communication unless proper design steps are taken.

Although most professional Web developers now create their sites with an awareness of technical design issues such as browser incompatibilities and platform dependencies, they are still experiencing difficulties with emerging accessibility standards. Many Web sites continue to be designed based on assumptions that don't address the specific needs of people with disabilities and difficulties and thus fail to deliver the promise of the Web to all users.

"Very good speaker - good sense of humour."

- Johan Fong, House of Commons

"Entertaining."

- Sjur Kristiansen, Telenor Telecommunications Group

What Makes This Seminar Unique

Our seminar leader, David Berman is a consultant on common look and feel implementation for large Web sites, and has worked on CLF projects for many large organizations including Statistics Canada, the National Research Council, and IBM. He has been the project manager of numerous accessible Web projects, has developed strategy and design for CRA, Health Canada, Canadian Heritage, Industry Canada, CMHC, and the International Space Station …as well as many private sector and non-profit organizations.

By addressing and understanding accessibility issues, Web developers can more effectively deliver their message to their whole audience, while complying with the legal and moral responsibilities, regardless of physical or mental impediment.

"I enjoyed it all."

- Robert Hallat, Public Service Commission

"Right on target."

- Marius Monsen, Reaktor ID

What You Will Learn

You will learn how to make your current sites more accessible by complying with current standards and guidelines. Specifically, you will learn:

Why accessibility matters to everyone, not just those with disabilities
The major disabilities and challenges: what they are and what technologies are typically used to mitigate them
W3C WCAG checkpoints
Common Look and Feel 2.0 standards and guidelines
Specific technologies and design techniques used to satisfy accessibility concerns
Testing frameworks for accessibility issues
How to make PDF files more accessible
Where accessibility meets usability

"Very good: made me think..."

- Bente Mollevik, Norwegian Savings Bank Association

Goals

At the end of this event, you will:

Know many simple techniques you can apply right away to make Web content more accessible
Have a comprehensive understanding of CLF and W3C accessibility guidelines and how to tackle them
Be able to make informed decisions as to what degree you can practically comply with accessibility standards
Understand better the experience of those with disabilities using the Web and new media products
Know you're doing the "right thing" by ensuring accessibility for all

"Excellent."

- Steinar Sandum, Adax, Svelvik (Norway)

What You Get

When David Berman Communications hosts this seminar*, each participant receives:

a complimentary, comprehensive learning guide (also available separately for $89 with optional 1-on-1 distance coaching)
complimentary meals, snacks and beverages throughout
a thirty-minute personal coaching tele-session within a month of the seminar
the option to attend this seminar again in the future, as a refresher at no additional cost
a money-back guarantee: if, after coaching and refresher, you don't think you've got your money's worth, we'll refund your entire registration fee

(*If you are attending one of our seminars hosted by another organization, confirm with them which of these items apply.)

Prerequisites

Some familiarity with the management and/or development of Web sites.

About the Expert Speaker

David Berman is the principal of David Berman Communications in Ottawa. He has over 20 years of experience in graphic design and strategic communications. He has worked extensively in adapting the printed word for electronic distribution, including software interface development.

David has extensive experience as a senior consultant in applying accessibility and CLF standards to federal government Web sites, as well as to public sector clients such as IBM, both as a strategist and compliance testing leader. He regularly teaches accessibility principles as part of his professional development workshops, and developed a custom two-day workshop for the National Research Council on common look and feel. His plain writing, design, and accessibility work include award-winning projects for the City of Ottawa, the Ontario government, and Canada's federal government. Clients include IBM, Justice Canada, HRDC, Canada Revenue Agency, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the Region of Ottawa-Carleton and the Ontario Literacy Coalition. David has been featured in the Financial Post, Marketing, and Applied Arts magazines.

In addition to operating as one of the leading design strategists in our nation's capital, in recent years David has also recommitted his career toward sharing his knowledge and unique talent as a manager and organizer through professional development seminars for creative organizations. He is an internationally-celebrated speaker, having taken engagements in over 10 countries.

David is a National Professional Member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) and the International Federation for Professional Speakers. David is currently the Ethics Chair of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, and was named a Fellow (the highest professional honour for graphic designers in Canada) in 1999.

Who Should Attend

This seminar is targeted to all project managers, Webmasters, production coordinators, programming leaders, strategists, and controllers, involved in developing Web or other new media projects.

People who need to get their Web site compliant with CLF 2.0 and/or W3C accessibility standards
People who manage or plan Web sites
People who coordinate people who build Web sites
People who design or program Web sites
People who represent clients who hire others to develop Web sites

Language: English

Duration: One-day seminar, or keynote presentation

This seminar is also available customized and on-site for your organization. Please ask for more details.

To be notified via e-mail of when we schedule new instances of this topic, subscribe to our Events E-Newsletter.

RESOURCES FOR ATTENDEES

For the convenience of seminar attendees, we provide this list of hypertext links and books cited in this seminar's manual:

Comparison of accessibility features in various versions of Microsoft Windows: http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/chartwindows.aspx

Search for assistive technology products: http://www.microsoft.com/enable/at/search.asp

Jaws for Windows:
http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws.asp (warning: the demo is a 52 megabyte download)

IBM Home Page Reader:
http://www-306.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html

Browsealoud:
http://www.davidberman.com/design/browsealoud.php

Some popular sites that do not respect text size:
www.cnn.com
www.canada.com

Some sites that respect text size well:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/index-eng.asp
http://www.norskdesign.no
http://www.davidberman.com

United States “Section 508” of the federal Rehabilitation Act Amendments (1998):
http://www-306.ibm.com/able/laws/uslaws.html#508

eNorway 2009: Norwegian Ministry of Modernization strategy for e-government:
http://odin.dep.no/mod/norsk/aktuelt/pressesenter/pressem/050001-070060/dok-bn.html

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10

W3C Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS

W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20.php

National Center for Accessible Media rich media samples:http://ncam.wgbh.org/richmedia/index.php

Magpie (for creating captions and audio descriptions for rich media): http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie

Color deficiency simulator: http://www.vischeck.com

Colour deficit palette tester:http://www.iamcal.com/toys/colors

“Effective Color Contrast”http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/effective-color-contrast

Colour Contrast Check:http://www.snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html

Colour Blind People and Link Colours: http://www4.gvsu.edu/~leahym/ColorBlindness.html

“How To Design Web Accessible Page For The Colorblind”: http://www.allwebdesignresources.com/webdesignblogs/graphics/how-to-design-web-accessible-pages-for-the-colorblind

SMIL to create multimedia presentations:
What is SMIL: http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/#SMIL
Accessibility Features of SMIL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/NOTE-SMIL-access-19990921/
SMIL example: http://www.geocities.com/ramirez_j2001/freedom/xhtml-smil_example.html

XHTML 1.0: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1

Migrating to XHTML 1.0 Strict:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/mxhtmls-eng.asp

Alternatives for deprecated elements and attributes:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/adea-sread-eng.asp

CSS Validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Browser support for CSS Properties:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/cssbs-csspcn-eng.asp

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines:
www.w3.org/TR/WAI-USERAGENT/

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines:
www.w3.org/TR/WAI-AUTOOLS/

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative: http://dublincore.org

Metadata harvesting: http://www.asis.org/IA03/fast.ppt

Treasury Board of Canada Recommended Policy for Common Look and Feel for Intranets (CLFIE):
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/int-ext/intranet/intranet_e.doc

Government of Canada Metadata Implementation Guidelines for Web Resource Discovery: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/im-gi/mwg-gtm/ts-sf/docs/2006/metaweb/metaweb00_e.asp

TBITS 39: Treasury Board Information Management Standard, Part 1: Government On-Line Metadata Standard: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/its-nit/standards/tbits39/crit391_e.asp

Complete list of Health Canada metadata:http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/tb-bo/guide/meta/nov-2005-eng.php

Writing Effective Web Documents:http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/wewd-rdwe-eng.asp

Core Techniques for Web Accessibility Guidelines 1.0: www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORETECHS/#writing-style

CLAD Readability Mark certification: http://www.eastendliteracy.on.ca/ClearLanguageAndDesign/services/service4.htm

More Reading on clear English:
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves" (by Lynne Truss ISBN: 1-592-40087-6)
"Writing Readable Regulations" (by Thomas A. Murawski, Carolina Academic Press ISBN: 0-89089-849-9)
"Beyond Readability" (by Dr. Janice C. Redish, American Institutes for Research, no ISBN)

Great Books about Usability Testing:
"Don’t Make Me Think" (by Steve Krug, Que Publishing, 2000 ISBN: 0-7897-2310-7)
"Handbook of Usability Testing" (by Jeffrey Rubin, John Wiley & Sons, 1994 ISBN: 0-471-59403-2)

Great Books about Information Architecture:
"Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-scale Web Sites (2nd Edition)" (by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, 2002, O’Reilly ISBN: 0-596-00035-9)
"The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" (by Edward R. Tufte, 2003, no ISBN)

Great Books about Typography:
"Stop Stealing Sheep" (by Erik Spiekermann ISBN: 0-201-70339-4)

More Reading:
“The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information” (by George A. Miller, 1956, no ISBN): http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Miller

Current standards for Government of Canada CLF 2.0:

Free online PDF conversion tools: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_onlinetools.html

PDF and accessibility: http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/main.html

Creating Accessible Adobe PDF Files: http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/pdfs/acro6_pg_ue.pdf

Institutional signature: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/fip-pcim/index_e.asp#ident

Directive on the Use of Official Languages on Web Sites: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/OffLang/duolw-dulow_e.asp

Directive on the Use of Official Languages in Electronic Communications: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/OffLang/duolec-dlloce_e.asp

“Canada” wordmark: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/fip-pcim/index_e.asp#symbols

Government Communications Policy: http://www.tbssct.gc.ca/Pubs_pol/sipubs/comm/siglist_e.asp

Sample Accessibility Notice: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/an-aa-eng.asp

Sample Accessibility Notice on the “Help” Page: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/hpan-paaa-eng.asp

“Making Text Legible”: http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/legible/

Auto-acknowledgement template: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/4/auto1_e.asp

Privacy template: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/5/5ex2_e.asp

Privacy Notice for the Collection of Personal Information template: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clfnsi/5/5ex1_e.asp

CLF 1.1 Sample Common Menu Bar: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/6/6common_e.asp

‘Skip navigation link’: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/6/skip_e.asp

Institutional Menu Bar: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/6/6institution_e.asp

W3C HTML validation service: http://validator.w3.org/

GC.CA Subdomain Registry: http://www.registry.gc.ca/

Bilingual Welcome Page template: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/6/exmpl1_e.asp

FIP Symbols of Government: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/fippcim/index_e.asp#symbols

FIP Signatures for GoC Web Sites: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/gcalttext_e.asp

Unilingual Welcome Page: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/fip-pcim/nav3_e.asp

Where to get WATS: www.gotraining.ca or www.davidberman.com

Where to buy usability testing: www.davidberman.com

TBS Common Look and Feel Self-Assessment Guide (1.1): http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/guide/guide_e.pdf

W3C CSS Validation service: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

W3C Markup Validation: http://validator.w3.org/

W3C Link checker: http://validator.w3.org/checklink/

W3C RSS feed checker: http://validator.w3.org/feed

HTMLTidy: http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy

TBS Pages Templates for CLF 1.1: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/6/1-tools-outils_e.asp

TBS Model cascading style sheets 1.1: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/1/model/model-css-general-guidetb_e.asp

Browser compatibility testing: http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html

Browser emulator for really early browsers: http://www.dejavu.org

Screen size testing: http://www.anybrowser.com/ScreenSizeTest.html

Checking for broken links: http://www.anybrowser.com/linkchecker.html

Link maintenance: http://www.changedetection.com/monitor.html

Checking for bad links, HTML syntax, broken tags: ChangeAgent, http://www.xlanguage.com

Color deficiency simulator: http://www.vischeck.com

Making Tables Accessible:http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/mta-rta-eng.asp

Making Forms Accessible:http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/mfa-rcfa-eng.asp

Replacing Radio Buttons With Selects:http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/radio-eng.asp

Government of Canada Treasury Board CIO Common Look and Feel for the Internet: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/index_e.asp

Government of Canada CLF: Accessibility (1.1): http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/inter/inter-01-tb_e.asp

Government of Canada CLF 2.0 Guidelines: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/index-eng.asp

Government of Canada CLF Guidelines 1.1 for intranets and extranets: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf-nsi/int-ext/intranet/intranettb_e.asp

Government of Canada Internet Guide - Universal Accessibility: http://www.canada.gc.ca/programs/guide/3_1_4e.html

CPB/WGBH – NCAM: http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/ncam/webaccess/index.html

HTML Writers Guild – AWARE Center: http://www.awarecenter.org/

WebABLE: http://www.webable.com/

IBM Human Ability and Accessibility site: http://www-306.ibm.com/able

Accessibility Testing:
http://www-306.ibm.com/able/guidelines/web/accessweb.html

Designing Web Content For Persons With Disabilities: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/dwcpwd-ccwph-eng.asp

Accessible Initiative Link Solution: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/tb-bo/td-dt/ails-slia-eng.asp

Sample Accessibility Features Statement: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/clf2-nsi2/ahlpaacc-eng.asp#afsecoa

Welcoming People With Disabilities To Your Workplace:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/tb_852/cwwed_e.asp

Employment Equity and Diversity for Managers:
http://www.psagency-agencefp.gc.ca/ee/index_e.asp

30 Days To A More Accessible Web Site: http://diveintoaccessibility.org/

Web Accessibility Checklist: http://www-306.ibm.com/able/guidelines/web/accessweb.html

Additional browsing:
http://www.websitesthatsuck.com
The Web Page From Hell: http://www.re-vision.com/hell
http://www.webaim.com

RESOURCES FOR HOSTS

Speaker introduction for this event [50KB]

FEATURED CRITIQUE OF SEMINAR FROM RECENT PARTICIPANT:
(If you've got something to say, please e-mail us at youspeak@davidberman.com)

I think I graded the whole seminar above average. This is because the information you gave during the walk through of the list of accessibility-requirements was very informative and educational. I appreciated this section a lot.

My critique comes at the beginning and somewhat at the end of the seminar, where I found both the argumentation that was used to be polarized and one-sided. I'm sure you did this in order to get the attention the topic deserves and to be convincing. But being one-sided and polarized can rapidly decrease the credibility of a speaker when the arguments that are used are too obvious.

I'll give you two examples.

1. I do not believe all accessibility improvements profit everybody. You said so yourself later in the seminar. Some read text best when it's black text on white background, while other read it best when it's the other way around.

2. Not everybody has a disability. I get your point with the above 40-year-olds. But I wish you would have had more nuance when explaining this.

In general, I think there is a need to support both clients and designers/ programmers with this lecture. Designers are tired of people viewing them as in the old joke:

"How many graphic designers does it take to put in a light bulb?"
Answer: "If it doesn't work it’s not my damn problem."

And I believe you need these people on your side in order to create better sites... and change the world.

Below I have put forward a walk through and an explanation of some of the comments I made during the lecture. Not all of them are in chronological order; I hope they still make sense.

1. It's how it feels
I am often confronted with usability specialists that forget that it's not how long it takes the user to complete the task that matters, it’s the perception of how long – or how difficult/easy it was – that matters. I see that with accessibility, the rules of the game change a bit – it's not about feeling – it's about the ability to be able to use it. But in the first half of the seminar, you were at many points attacking what you call bad design as if humans were machines, measuring things in steps, page changes and time.

2. I do not shower in hot or cold water
We are getting more and more wary of politicians and other "people in the media" that talk with a very rhetoric tongue. Personally I've become very wary of people who present their arguments in isolation from debate (I'm sure you would have preferred a debate with the audience, unfortunately there was none – I get back to this at the end). It might be that I am a tad sensitive on this part, but I felt that the credibility of the seminar dropped a lot in the beginning because the arguments only came from one side and where presented as un-attackable truths. Things are never black and white and I think it would be fruitful to have more nuance. As an example, I was looking for some understanding regarding the "fact" that some of the changes forced by accessibility would not benefit everybody.

3. The 7 things
I think I fell off here, but I never got the link between "the rule of seven" and the rest of the seminar. Anyway, that's not my point. My point is that most people using this example never put it into it's correct context. Thankfully Malcolm Gladwell has, in his book "Blink" (an extremely good book about gut feeling and marketing). In this book he refers to the test and says that it was done in the 1950's. The subjects were asked to look at a number of irrelevant objects and then recall them afterwards. Now, that is the clue to the whole research – irrelevant objects. Because if they are relevant, people tend to remember more of them, and the rule of 7 doesn't apply. Now I think that is an important fact to remember. If people feel your site is irrelevant, then there is no hope anyway.

4. Steve Krug – "Don't make me think"
Now Steve Krug’s book is good. I especially like his point about how humans make decisions, that we do not look at all the choices and evaluate them as a whole, but rather evaluate each until we find one that is in isolation determined as "good enough" or "no risk".

5. 256 Colors
A. One of the campaigns my company is running right now, has a target group that is "the whole smoking population of Norway". The statistics from this campaign shows us that only 2.7% of Norwegian computers use 256 colors.
B. Dithering doesn’t cut it. There is a reason for graphic designers' pickiness with color – color conveys emotions and they are extremely sensitive on this point. If we screw them up we are in danger of communicating the wrong brand message. When aprox. 97.3% of Norwegian computers display thousands or millions of colors, we should accommodate these people, not the minority that aren't going to enjoy the correct colors anyway.

6. Isn't technology driven by games, sex and war?
I appreciated your information on the "reason" behind the Internet, but I've always learned that it is the military, the sex industry and the games industry that has made technological advances. (This is computer-based enhancement off course.)

7. Point well taken
You demonstrated site navigation on a site that had it's content sorted alphabetically. There was a list of letters and you clicked on the letter "B" in order to show us how useable this was. Then you demonstrated how difficult it would be to use this site if you were using the "talk"-navigation. Telling the computer which rectangle of the screen to focus on, and then dividing this section into new rectangles. Then you chose the "I" for this demonstration. I felt that choosing the "B" again would both be a fair comparison and you still would have proven your point quite well. This is picky of me, but it was a detail that I found unnecessary. I was thinking "typical".

8. American analogy crazyism
I can’ t recall exactly the analogy here – it was something about a wheelchair on the "why should we care" slide. But some analogies are in no obvious or determinable relation to the subject being discussed and therefore applying them as proof does not prove a thing, or lead to a constructive debate. I said I was sensitive. This is an "American" way of making things simpler, fortunately the culture in Norway is a bit different. – at least for now.

9. Everything is not for the benefit of all
Especially during the "stand up" part when you managed to include everybody – and then said that anything you do for one disability will improve the usability for everybody. Just because two-thirds or 99% of the audience has some sort of disability, does not mean that they all will benefit from the same changes.

10. Now the PDA-example, I could see and appreciate!

11. Not everything was relevant
Especially the part on assistive technologies. It might help me understand how some people will navigate the site, but there is nothing in particular I can do to accommodate these directly. I would have included these technologies later on. As their slide appeared in the lecture they came before what was the topic of the lecture, and therefore I wondered what you were really going to talk about when we were going through this slide.

12. The graphic designer
Today the graphic designer gets less and less to say. And you should support these people, not pick on them. They are the ones you have to get on your side in order for the affects to be understood by the people who are going to design the interface that will use them. Just convincing the client that they "need more accessibility" does not improve the product as long as the graphic designer who is going to implement all the changes doesn't understand why they are required.

13. Do not use color as a primary cue...
According to Edward Tufte, this is one of the most powerful cues when it comes to differentiating between elements. Removing this tool from the designers toolbox will decrease the possibility for way finding and intuitiveness in the interface for everybody who can see colors properly.

14. Who visits a Web site and turns of the programming?
And do these people still require and anticipate full web usability?

15. Bigger landing zones are a bigger problem to able users
Landing zones need to be logical and users need to understand why clicking here or there leads to this or that. When a click outside of a logical element still leads to a page-change or an action, the users get confused.

16. Forms
You showed us the world's worst example, or not even a real example for that matter.

Now nothing needs to say that a direct and polarized lecturer doesn't convince and/or convey the truth. Look at Tom Peters. He simplifies, polarizes, isolates and draws conclusions based on the worst analogies. Still he is often right, it's just the way that he says it – in order to entertain and convince that raises the questions.

As soon as you reached the list of accessibility requirements I learned a lot and got quite impressed. But... I was an inch away from leaving the whole seminar after half time, because at that point you didn't give me any credibility.

I recently saw the Nobel lecture by Harold Pinter. He doesn't at any one point remove himself from the known facts, he even questions his own arguments. Still he comes out as the utmost authority. Just because of that, putting his own arguments up for the chop – only proving that they are un-attackable. I believe your lecture could do the same, and that would improve the lecture. Both by being more inviting towards a debate, and by being more open towards the designers. They are sensitive and need some understanding for the difficult job they are doing.

I hope this has been helpful and interesting.
Please contact me again when you are coming back to Norway if you need some fresh statistics that you could use in your lecture.

Best regards,
Helge Tennø, interactive designer, Norway

Reviewed April 4, 2008