by Brenda Huettner

The United States Census Bureau estimates that 27% percent of the population has a disability of one kind or another. For people over age 65, this number leaps to 83%. Recent legislation, such as Section 508 and the Americans with Disability Act, has helped to bring these numbers to the attention of both government agencies and commercial providers. It has become increasingly clear that information products must be accessible to everyone, and that investing in accessibility is not just a government requirement, it makes good financial sense. As a result, responsibility for making product information accessible is becoming a critical part of every technical communicator’s job.

Scheduled for publication in early 2010, Brenda Huettner’s Communicating with Everyone shows communicators how to ensure that their message can be received and understood by people with varying abilities. While web accessibility has been a frequent topic of articles and books, technical communicators must work in multiple media. Therefore, Huettner addresses accessibility in print, help systems, video, and presentations, as well as on the web. She also describes what technical communicators need to do to comply with government regulations, including the U.S. Section 508 rules and Americans with Disabilities Act, Great Britain’s Disability Discrimination Act and Disability Rights Commission Act, Canada’s Human Rights Act, and the European Union Council Resolution on Accessibility of Web sites.

About the Author

Brenda Huettner is a writer, speaker, and consultant with over 25 years of experience in the technical publications field, 10 of those years in documentation department management. She has written manuals, help systems, procedures, and proposals for a wide variety of corporate clients, and has published articles in magazines as diverse as Career Woman and American Window Cleaner Magazine. Her most recent book is Adobe Captivate 4: The Definitive Guide (due out Fall 2009 from Jones & Bartlett). She also co-authored Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools (Wordware Applications Library) with Kit Brown and Char James-Tanny (WordWare Press). She is the author of Career Tactics for Technical Communicators and co-author, with John Hedtke, of Robohelp for the Web for WordWare Press.

Brenda is a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication, where she participates in both the Usability and Accessibility SIGs. She’s a Senior Member of the IEEE, where she’s active in the Professional Communication Society and sits on the administrative committee of the Technology Management Council. She is also a member of the Usability Professionals Association. A regular presenter at conferences across the country, Brenda speaks on documentation, management, and career issues.

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