About: SIMPLYRAYDEEN.COM
Who Is SimplyRaydeen?
My real name is Raydeen Gallogly, I've been involved in website accessibility for over 15 years. Why do I continue to do this for so long? ... Besides being the right thing to do, website accessibility has and continues to be my real passion (that is, besides gardening, my family, my grandchildren, my love for life...!). Do I make money off of my website -- yes, only from the advertisements and so far, that hasn't been a lot. Enough to pay for my web hosting for the year! I get real pleasure out of bringing awareness to the public about website accessibility and every chance I get to talk to people in the web field, you can bet I don't hesitate to get involved in the conversation!
I thank everyone for visiting and hope to continue this effort for a long time to come.
To contribute essays to SimplyRaydeen:
- Register for an author's account, select: -- Authors Login >> Register.
- Log in and create an article online.
- See who are Current Authors are...
Once you are registered/approved, you can write a short article, then 'save' and your article would be 'reviewed' before being posted on the website. This is a safeguard to ensure that an article on the homepage is not overwritten prematurely and appropriate articles are featured.
Any article that you write would be on the homepage for a period of time, then would always be accessible through the 'authors' link. This may be a good place for you to write a short article and have a separate bio about yourself if you do not have a website or you can have a link to your existing website within your article.
Cost
FREE -- there is no cost, this is a forum for those interested in website accessibility and/or technologies and tools related to website accessibility as a means to post information, especially if you do not have a website. However, if you do have a website, this is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Just write an article here!
Future Endeavors
I expect to start offering some of the complimentory 'report cards' that I've completed on website auding and structural sufficiency. To be able to review, you must be logged in as an 'author'. These report cards are part of an ongoing effort to offer constructive criticism on existing websites with the emphasis on making them accessible to everyone.
Past Experiences:
In 2002, I had the pleasure to meet and work for a very brief time with Darby Patterson, Government Technology, and Jeff Bennett, New York State Office for Technology, in presenting at a Government Technology conference about web site accessibility. Not much has changed over these last seven years, the concept is still the same but web site developers still struggle with making the most simple things seem to be very hard.
"Accessible Tags -- A basic adaptation that makes Web sites accessible is the addition of alt tags. These pop-out windows are attached to text and graphics, providing material for screen readers for the blind. Alt tags are critical to accessibility. Using a program such as JAWS, from Freedom Scientific, a screen reader can breeze through text on a screen at the speed desired by the user. Even PDF pages can be made accessible with Adobe's newest tools and plug-ins.
Sometimes, the failure to create accessibility is ironic. Jeff Bennett, who analyzes Web accessibility for New York's Office for Technology, demonstrated a Web site that had offered shopping services for disabled individuals. As a blind user, he could shop for groceries and household items from the comfort of his home. Although the Web site was beautifully constructed with excellent descriptions given of the products available, it eventually sported one glaring error. In the center of the screen on the home page was a letter announcing that the company was going out of business. The letter was in Portable Document Format and unavailable to the screen reader that Bennett depends upon. He could still order groceries and, when they failed to arrive as usual, he would never know why.
In a presentation late last year, Bennett espoused his Web philosophy, "KISS" (keep it simple, stupid). He says this easily remembered acronym is the backbone of accessible design. "The best thing to do is to keep it simple," Bennett said. "Label all graphics, label all links, make sure all links can be accessed by a keyboard and do not require use of a mouse, and avoid using mouse-over links."
New Opportunities
New York began its accessibility efforts several years ago and in 1999 adopted Policy 99-3, specifying that all state agencies provide "universally accessible Web sites to enable persons with disabilities to access the sites." According to Raydeen Gallogly, Web manager for the state's Department of Health Wadsworth Center, the initial effort sprung from the grassroots. "I think a lot of people were doing it before they even realized that W3C guidelines were out," she said. "Everybody was on board from the beginning. The problem was they didn't quite know what to do. I know it might sound trite, but it was done because it was the right thing to do."
She recalled that an organized effort grew out of a desire to make PDF files accessible to people with sight impairments. Educational groups were formed, the practice spread, and accessibility became a state priority. "I think there has not been any great expense [to the program]. We took what we had and moved forward," she said. "We do a lot of education." Accessibility has become a mainstream topic through the state's information technology training academy. The W3C Priority One guidelines were adopted and applied to the state's 75 agencies."
Read the entire article Across the Digital Divide
A little more about SimplyRaydeen...
Working with clients: My approach is always client-focused, understanding before developing an action plan. I work to develop a content outline and help establish a long-term strategy and implementation plan to ensure all levels of success as well as concept development, design, implementation, management of services, and evaluating results.
My most recent project is for the Assistive Technology Act Programs, a national, member-based organization comprised of state Assistive Technology Act Programs funded under the Assistive Technology Act (AT Act).
Internet: http://www.ataporg.org/
During my tenure at the NYS Department of Health which spanned from 1994 to 2007, at which point I retired, I was the Web Master/Manager of the NYS Department of Health's website and subsequently the Wadsworth Center Laboratories, located at:
Internet: http://www.health.state.ny.us
Internet: http://www.wadsworth.org
Web site Accessibility Committees/Affiliations:
IT Accessibility - The NYS Forum, Rockefeller Institute of Government; 2005 -– Co-Chair The IT Accessibility committee addresses accessibility issues related to disabilities as well as digital divide issues. - visit the NYS Forum at http://www.nysforum.org/committees/itaccessibility/
NYS Information Technology Steering Committee (ITASC); 1998-2005 -- Co-Chair Accessibility Standards Workgroup
Co-sponsored by the NYS Office for Technology and the NYS Advocate's Office for Persons with Disabilities, consisted of agency technical and policy staff as well as consumers. The Steering Committee provided oversight and vision for accessible Web design, accessible systems design and assistive technology. Current New York State policy and standards were created as a result of the recommendations of the Web Site Accessibility Standards Workgroup to more closely follow Federal Section 508 and WWW Web Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 standards.
Government Technology Conference (GTC); 2001 -- Presentation/Training Web Accessibility for Web Designers Compliance with ADA requirements and accessibility issues are key in government Web design. Provided training on established guidelines and Web site validation techniques to conference participants. Side-by-side comparison of Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Section 508 web standards. November 2001 - Albany, New York; December 2001 - Atlanta, Georgia
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