Fourth Annual Accessibility Internet Rally for Austin Improves Web Access for People With Disabilities
Austin-area organizations honored for developing accessible Web sites
AUSTIN, Texas – October 16, 2001 – Web access to more than two dozen Austin-area non-profit organizations has been greatly improved for people with disabilities as a result of the recent fourth annual Accessibility Internet Rally for Austin (AIR-Austin). Produced by Knowbility and Goodwill Industries of Central Texas, the event recruits local groups to create fully accessible Web sites. For their exceptional site design work, nine Austin organizations were honored during this month’s AIR-Austin awards ceremony. First-place design winners included Prodigy Communications, 10 Sharp Design and the Human Resources Department of the University of Texas at Austin (UT).
This year, AIR-Austin enjoyed its largest participation to date. The event attracted more than 125 Web developers from 50 local companies, university departments and non-profit organizations. Within an eight-hour period, teams of three to five people each built customized Web sites for 25 local non-profit organizations, including Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Volunteer Legal Services, Keep Austin Beautiful and Association for India’s Development.
“We were very pleased with the strong local support we received for this program,” said Sharron Rush, executive director, Knowbility. “We believe the collective efforts put forth by AIR-Austin participants will make a difference in the lives of the 50 million disabled people currently living in the United States. The Internet offers significant benefits to all people by vastly improving access to information. AIR-Austin is dedicated to making sure that those opportunities are equally available to children and adults with disabilities.”
To ensure that sites are usable for everyone, including people with disabilities, the event included a half-day of training for Web professionals on 1999 established federal guidelines mandating fully accessible government-affiliated Web sites. Currently, there are no federal guidelines for the private sector, and at this time there are no future plans for such guidelines to be implemented. Rather, federal mandates will be enforced by the purchasing power of the federal government, which will provide a purchasing preference to vendors whose Internet applications or other software meet federal accessibility standards.
Creating fully accessible Web sites involves coding Web pages to enable a variety of assistance software programs to access the contents of the site. Software programs, such as JAWS (the standard Windows audio reader) or IBM’s Home Page Reader vary on the process of how they bring the information to the user, depending on the user’s disability. “The coding process is simple and has proven to help various companies prepare their Web content for e-business wireless implementations,” states Rush.
The awards were given in three different categories, including simple HTML format, sophisticated applications and a special category for long-term projects completed by UT departments. Other winners included UT’s African-American Studies Department; UT’s University Extension, Oak Sanderson; Intelliquest; Athens Group/Austin Usability and Catapult Systems.
The White House, the U.S. Department of Labor and the Peter F. Drucker Foundation endorse AIR-Austin, which originated in Austin. Support is provided by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF), and locally by Momentum Software, Rackspace Managed Hosting, Saint Edward’s University, the University of Texas, Dell Computer, and more than 20 other companies. Other cities hosting Accessibility Internet Rallies include Denver, Colo., Dallas, Texas and San Francisco, Calif.