Angie Radkte, well known as the author of the BEEZ template send me the article below that I really want to share. Angie is very active in the area of accessibilty and helping out disabled people. When I talk to Angie it's great to see where we can progress to also enable everyone to work with Joomla!

Just read her story and get excited about this topic like me.

I've just been through a whole week of Joomla training in the sheltered workshop of Pfennigparade foundation in Munich. I've found the work very rewarding. All 6 participants were full of commitment and initiative.

Those training courses always remind me that Joomla can create a job opportunity for disabled people too. So I've drilled a little deeper.

Doris Kadmoschka, staff member of PSG GmbH, a special workshop for the disabled, told me: "I've been using a wheelchair for 30 years and my job opportunities are very limited, so working on a computer is one of the few ways for me to get a job at all. When I get an appropriate assignment after this training course, I'll be able to carry out the project using Joomla."

Achim Becker is pleased with Joomla's flexibility. He says Joomly is both very easy to customize and flexible enough to provide even the most sophisticated customizations. With the Beez Template that is integrated in Joomla, it is straightforward to create accessible webpages.

Ute Fröhlich is deaf and works at SIGMETA GmbH. This firm, an integration company of Pfennigparade foundation, tries to find jobs for people with disabilities in an accessible work environment. Joomla might provide a way to reach this goal, she says.

She's not the only one who thinks that Joomla is an exciting subject. Klaus Fischer, her project manager, shares her view. Birgitt Bautze, graphics queen and group manager in the workshop, has started working on the layout even before the training had finished. Our interface supervisor Slava wishes for excellent relationships with Ivo Apostolov, his Russian compatriot and designer of JoomFish. Tom Zighal, who is disabled at all his four extremities, has somehow managed to use the not-yet-accessible (!!) backend. Nobody knows how he did it. To him the training was much fun and he can hardly wait for the http://www.pfennigparade.de website to be redesigned with Joomla's accessibility features.

You are working to enable accessibility in a cross company project of Pfennigparade foundation. What can Joomla do for you?

Accessibility should be implemented in both the frontend and the backend. The Joomla Backend is visually well structured, with a clear and ergonomic layout. Unfortunately, it's hard to handle for people who have to rely on a keyboard because a physical challenge bars them from using a mouse.

Information accessibility is a key condition for accessible websites. Our experience with accessibility testing of websites has shown that it is indispensable to complement automated tests, e.g. with validators, with additional practice tests. These are carried out by people living with various physical or perceptional disabilities. This is the only way to discover pitfalls in the user interface. Three EU requirements say that not only eUsability but also eAccessibility and hence true eInclusion should be established in order to enable equal participation in society for people with disabilities and for other disadvantaged people. As we have disabilities ourselves, we want to share our Joomla experience with the developer community. This might even be a chance to work together for an accessible world.

By the way, Tom Zigahl takes care of the http://www.ddd-derdirekteDraht.de website.

Joomla developers are welcome to post their questions to the team at .