Track:

A4

Session Title:

Accessibility of Web browsers: Practical case studies from India and the U.S.

When

U.S.:

September 15th, 4:30am – 6:00am (PDT)

Paris:

September 15th, 1:30pm – 3:00pm (CEST)

Thailand:

September 15th, 6:30pm – 8:00pm

Tokyo:

September 15th, 8:30pm – 10:00pm (JST)

Video from this program will be available online.

Overview

Community contributors to Mozilla accessibility efforts from Mumbai, India, and Boston and San Diego, U.S.A. will showcase Firefox extensions and features that are specifically helpful for users with visual impairments. Seth Bindernagel, who is in charge of the Community Empowerment program at Mozilla Corporation, will coordinate this session.

Reference URL

http://www.accessfirefox.com/

Speakers (in alphabetical order)

• Aaron Leventhal, module owner of Accessibility for Mozilla/Firefox.

  Aaron Leventhal is a Web accessibility architect for IBM Software Group; he is the Mozilla project lead for accessibility, and is technical advisor for the Mozilla Foundation's accessibility grant program. Aaron architected and developed accessibility in Firefox running on Microsoft Windows, including support for static HTML pages, Javascript/AJAX-based Web 2.0 applications and XUL-based desktop applications. Aaron is currently leading the work to make Firefox accessible on Linux and Windows. He is a member of the W3C Protocols and Formats committee on the emerging standards for dynamic content accessibility, and has contributed the specification for handling live regions in a web page. In addition, he is a key contributor to the new IAccessible2 API for Windows, and is leading the way to harmonization of accessibility APIs. Prior to joining IBM, Aaron was the accessibility architect for Mozilla development at Netscape. He also previously worked on a Braille publishing system used by teachers, publishers and individual Braille readers.
  Aaron will focus his presentation in two parts. One will describe the state of accessibility on the Web today. The presentation will talk about many of the shortcomings that Mozilla is trying hard to correct. The second half of Aaron's presentation will focus the new, technical aspects of accessibility in Firefox 3. Aaron will conclude with his "wishlist" of features that would be ideal to see going forward in the accessibility world.

• Dr. Nagarjuna G. and Krishnakant Mane, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India

  Dr. Nagarjuna G is the president of the Free Software Foundation in India and has been a longtime proponent of FOSS in India and worldwide. Krishnakant Mane is a blind developer who has helped contribute to accessibility efforts for Mozilla and Firefox. Both Nagarjuna and Krishnakant reside in Mumbai, India and are working on their research at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education there. During this session, Nagarjuna will start the presentation with a brief overview of his research and free software projects at the Homi Bhabha Centere, specifically looking at www.gnowledge.org which is an information gathering tool "knowledge organization and distribution portal under development." Krishnakant will then give a presentation about the accessibility features in the latest nightly build of Firefox 3, with hzis screen reader helping to demonstrate the great new developments.

• Ken Saunders

  Ken is a legally-blind Mozilla contributor in Boston who has helped on various projects since 2004. He is an administrator of Spread Firefox and has also launched Access Firefox. In his presentation, Ken will be demonstrating all of the extensions that one can use in a browser to make Firefox more accessible for the end user.

• Tim KeenanTim

  Tim KeenanTim is one of the lead QA contributors for Firefox. He is a blind contributor who regularly tests Firefox to make sure that is it working properly for users with accessibility needs. He will be demonstrating exactly how he "QAs" Firefox for any problems and then files bugs for the accessibility developers to review. Tim will show us many of the aspects of his work in hope to get more people contributing to the Mozilla accessibility efforts.

• Seth Bindernagel

  Seth is one of the community organizers and evangelists working on Mozilla's Evangelism Team. He has also helped create Mozilla's Community Giving and Empowerment program. He will help moderate the accessibility program in Mozilla 24. You can read his blog at http://blog.mozilla.com/seth