Edge of the Web
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14&15March 2013 Perth, Australia
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There has been an error fetching/displaying RSS feed http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/16362036.rss(The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.)Dr Scott Hollier Manager for Media Access Australia
Scott will be presenting:
Web accessibility in Australia: a perfect storm for developers?
For people with disabilities, the Web experience has often been seen as challenging and frustrating despite its many benefits. This has mainly been due to the need for consumers to purchase expensive assistive technologies, and for developers to implement complex and redundant Web standards.
Yet in recent times, the situation has changed significantly:
consumers now have the ability to choose built-in or open-source assistive technology tools, developers can make use of new and emerging W3C accessibility-related standards, and the Federal government has provided support through its National Transition Strategy (NTS).
As a result, the key question remains: will the combination of affordable assistive technologies, new W3C standards and a government initiative finally remove key Web accessibility barriers for people with disabilities, or is it all simply too hard for Web developers to implement? Dr Scott Hollier from Media Access Australia will explore the three elements of the Web accessibility storm by examining the benefits and barriers of free assistive technologies, the WCAG 2.0, HTML5 and WAI-ARIA Web standards and the Federal government's NTS.
about Dr Scott Hollier
Scott Hollier is a Project Manager and the Western Australia Manager for Media Access Australia, a not-for-profit, public benevolent institution. Scott's work focuses on making computers and Internet-related technologies accessible to people with disabilities. Scott also represents MAA on the Advisory Committee of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organisation primarily responsible for developing and promoting access to media through technology for people with disabilities.
Scott has completed a PhD titled ‘The Disability Divide: an examination into the needs of computing and Internet-related technologies on people who are blind or vision impaired’, and has a background in Computer Science and a wealth of experience in both the information technology and not-for-profit sectors. Scott is legally blind and as such understands the importance of access at a personal level.