Microsoft WPC, Houston…

Two weeks ago it was the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, Texas (not Houston in Renfrewshire, Scotland).

Keywords: Hot, logistical excellence, hotter, GRBCC (big convention centre), humid (breathtakingly), busybusy, great keynotes (inlc Muhammad Yunus), Johnston Space Centre and Galveston (thank you Microsoft Scotland), Balmer, Elop, Turner plus many others.

It’s a great shot in the arm for the partner community and a privilege to be there for the first time.

Really, there is too much to say to do it justice – Google it and look on YouTube. There is lots to find.

Rich Internet Applications – Accessibility…

Rich apps over web technologies are nothing new. Flash, Silverlight and no doubt other funky application skins can transform the user experience and enable different ways to present and navigate information.

But, there’s a but. We have to remember that the RIA tag also applies, for accessibility, to more common techniques like Javascript and AJAX. The need for accessibility means that ways must be found to enable access to an app to as full an audience as possible.

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative has WAI-ARIA to help guide the adoption and implementation in this area. From the WAI site:

“WAI-ARIA addresses these accessibility challenges by defining how information about this functionality can be provided to assistive technology. With WAI-ARIA, an advanced Web application can be made accessible and usable to people with disabilities.”

Check it out…

Silverlight Accessibility…

Prompted by an issue which arose during my recent visit to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston last week (of which more later), I found this useful introductory item on Accessibility in Silverlight2.

One of the pointers is to UISpy which can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms727247.aspx which can “…verify that the UI they are creating is programmatically accessible to assistive technology devices such as screen readers“

This is a crucial issue if, as the Microsoft development community, we are to be able to push the groovy, rich interface technologies – especially in the UK.

Out from Under…

…quite an intense project so maybe able, once again, to share one or two of my few thoughts on various topics of my (and maybe your) interest.