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Issue 26: February 2000

ATAG 1.0

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (ATAG) became a W3C Recommendation on 3 February 2000. ATAG provides guidelines for Web authoring tool developers to help them produce tools that generate accessible Web content and are themselves accessible.

This is one of three accessibility guidelines. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines is already a Recommendation and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines will soon become one.

Here is a flavour of what is in the guidelines:

Support accessible authoring practices: that is make sure that the output from the tool abides by the Content Accessibility Guidelines. The authoring tool should, for example, make sure that ALT tags are provided for images and, if they are there, not to edit them out.
Generate standard markup: make sure that the generated markup conforms to the relevant W3C Recommendation and tell the owner if the document to be changed is already in error.
Support the creation of accessible content: as well as asking the user to produce an ALT tag, say, give the user as much help as is possible. Use the ALT text from a previous use, if known.
Provide ways of checking and correcting inaccessible content: if two colours are being used together that are going to cause problems to colour blind people, tell the user. Make sure he can separate style from content easily etc.

In all there are seven main guidelines with a great deal of background information plus a priority check list for the tool designer.

IBM, RealNetworks, Sausage, SoftQuad, Amaya and others have all agreed to implement the relevant guidelines in their products. Also large companies like Boeing, Bell Atlantic and Electricty de France have welcomed the guidelines as valuable in allowing them to use tools that produce accessible output.

For more information see http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-ATAG10-20000203/

WWW9: Amsterdam: May 15-19, 2000

WWW9 Keynotes

A fifth keynote speaker has been added to the line up. He is Lawrence Lessig, Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He will talk to the topic: Cyberspace's Constitution.

New Members

The total number of members has risen to 399. The new Members since January are:

Allegis Corporation: based in San Francisco, the Allegis Open Engine provides a foundation for enterprise-wide, web-based applications development with XML and 128 bit encryption support. It has also added Partner Relationship management to eCommerce.
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ): UK's famous code breaking headquarters in World War 2.
HitchHiker Software GmbH: provides software for the German travel industry.
INTERSHOP Communications: the company provides software for selling goods and services over the web. INTERSHOP enfinity is a complete ecommerce system containing application, transactivity and catalog servers with an XML interface.
IPR Systems Pty Limited: this Australian company is concerned with Digital Rights Management (the tools that enable the trading of knowledge and Intellectual property rights).
Jacada Ltd.: this Atlanta-based company provides an interface between legacy mainframe systems and modern Java and HTML front ends for ecommerce.
Jasc Software: provides Windows-based tools for digital image editing and image management. PaintShop Pro is its best known product.
Lexica LLC: San Francisco-based company develops e-business supply chain management software. Its strategy is to deliver XML-based integrated platforms for the end-to-end automation of complex business-to-business transactions. Lexica Online supports InsureZone.com, a Web site that provides instant comparison shopping and the ability to buy an insurance policy online.
Locus Dialogues: this Canadian Company's Liaison speech portal software provides multi-lingual voice-enabled auto attendant support. The platform includes core speech technologies (automatic speech recognition, natural language understanding, speaker identification and speaker verification). It provides spoken access to web pages.
Metastorm, Inc.: the company's flagship product, Metastorm e-work, is a web-based Enterprise Work Management platform that allows organisations to integrate data, systems, and people in efficient and responsive business processes that extend across and beyond the enterprise.
Oxford Brookes University: home of the BrookesTalk web browser. Brookes have just recruited David Duce from RAL so they also have an interest in scalable vector graphics.
room33 AB: this Swedish company is mainly concerned with mobile Internet services that can be accessed from all digital communication devices connected to the Internet (WAP-enabled phones, handheld computers etc).
SurroMed, Inc.: based in Palo Alto, SurroMed is a startup biotechnology company which seeks to reduce the cost and improve the outcome of clinical trials through the analysis of cellular and soluble factors in blood.
Uniform Code Council, Inc.: the mission of the Uniform Code Council is to take a global leadership role in establishing and promoting multi-industry standards for product identification and related electronic communication. It is responsible for the Universal Product Code (UPC). It has a strong interest in XML.