The return of Accessibility 2.0: A Million Flowers Bloom

AbilityNet ran their first Accessibility 2.0 event in 2008. This year sees the return of the well received event, which will be held at Microsoft (Victoria, London) on the 22nd September.

Accessibility 2.0, A Million Flowers Bloom is a conference exploring Web 2.0, social media and accessibility. Bringing together industry experts, accessibility specialists and advocates, the event will create a cutting edge day of practical insights, inspiration and networking.

This year’s keynote is from Christian Heilmann, Developer Evangelist at Yahoo! and the co-creator of Easy YouTube, an accessible YouTube player.

“Last year’s Accessibility 2.0 conference was refreshingly tangible and practical, with a strong focus on users and their experiences. This is essential for anyone wanting to make the things they create easier and more accessible for everyone. I’m sure this year’s conference will again provide us with an opportunity for healthy debate, to learn things we didn’t know and enable us to put those things into practice.”

Antonia Hyde, Freelance Web Designer and Consultant

AbilityNet have invited Lisa Herrod to share her knowledge of usability and accessibility for Deaf web users. Lisa is one of the world’s leading experts in this field so she’s being flown over all the way from Sydney, Australia. Lisa will also be running a workshop on Deaf awareness for web teams on the 21st September.

Mark Boulton, one of the most esteemed web designers in the industry will be discussing the huge impact graphic design can have on sighted disabled users. Steve Faulkner, one of the world’s leading experts on WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Applications) and HTML 5, will also be talking about the cutting edge of technical web accessibility. There will also be two panels, one on Mobile Accessibility and one about the recent transition to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 which Bim Egan from the RNIB Web Access Team will be contributing to.

Accessibility 2.0 promises to be an un-missable opportunity to find out what’s happening at the cutting edge of web accessibility and gain practical insight on how to implement the latest techniques.

“We saw a real change come out of Accessibility 2.0 with the creation of Easy YouTube which in turn prompted Scripting Enabled proving that Accessibility 2.0 wasn’t ‘just another accessibility conference’. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out of this years conference with its focus on design, mobile web, Deafness and emerging technologies such as WAI-ARIA and HTML 5″.

Henny Swan, Web Evangelist Opera

The event will take place in a fully accessible venue and BSL interpreters will be available on request. You can book tickets on the AbilityNet website.

We hope to see many of you there!