AccessibleWeb@U - May 22, 2014
- Meet Hadi Rangin
- Studied computer science at University of Karlsruhe in Network Management
- Studied Computer Science and human computer interface at Oregon State University
- Spent last 25 years working on IT accessibility
- Worked for the past 10 years with University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
- Recently hired by UW-IT Accessible Technology
- Components of web accessibility
- three components
- application framework
- content
- assistive technology
- All components must work together to get the job done
- Accessibility is a chain with interconnected rings/path with many possible barriers
- three components
- Web Accessibility problems we are facing
- Websites/application developed by our on-campus developers
- Content created by various entities, departments, or people
- Third-party applications purchased from various vendors
- Applications we are using here at the UW do not give positive experiences
- Problems with publishing content
- Publishing on the web is very easy
- People publish content without knowing anything about HTML; they use the technology at their disposal
- Documents often published as images, inaccessible PDFs, Word, Flash, other proprietary formats
- Content creators do not have formal training in creating accessible content
- Accessible design is often not included in the curriculum of college courses
- Problems with locally developer websites/applications
- Website/application developers do not have any formal training in universal design
- Accessibility is not on their radar
- They do not know about accessibility of the technology they use.
- Not every developer follows Best Practices
- Not many developers know how to test for accessibility
- Do not know which tools to use to test, or how to use them
- Problems with third-party applications
- There is no formal accessibility requirement for purchasing a product
- Administrators/purchasing officers are not aware of accessibility or not comfortable with it
- VPATS (Volunteer Product Accessibility Template) are misleading and confusing
- No formal verification of accessibility claims
- No fully accessible product in the market
- Accessibility versus usability
- Most problems we are facing are usability issues
- Keyboard accessibility, focus management (so you can tell where focus is)
- Examples
- Focus location indication often turned off
- Submitting a form with no confirmation/verification
- ProctorU (http://www.proctoru.com) provides proctored online testing, but forms do not provide confirmation messages
- Accessibility is much more than a touch-up or after the fact fix
- No magic automated testing tool that can fix all problems
- Accessibility must be considered in design, implementation and quality assessment
- Accessibility is free if you consider it from the beginning
- The after-the-fact approach is wishy-washy, incomplete, and too expensive
- Collective approach
- Bottom-up approach; begin with you, the people who make the stuff
- Collaborating with the developers
- Collaborating with content creators
- Top-down approach; work with decision makers at the same time
- Collaborating with administrators and vendors
- Collaborating with developers
- UW-IT Accessible Technology is at your disposal
- Send email to hadir@uw.edu or danc@uw.edu
- We can meet in person and help with accessibility considerations of your project during its development phases
- We can help with accessibility of your templates for your content creators
- We offer a workshop on accessible design
- We offer workshop on how to test for accessibility including with screen readers
- Or just meet and explore with Hadi (coffee provided)
- Goal: To make you all accessibility experts
- At Illinois, Hadi conducted developer meetings every Tuesday. People could participate online. Do we want a similar series of meeting here at the UW?
- UW-IT Accessible Technology is at your disposal
- Collaborating with Instructors, Instructional Designers, and Content Creators
- Instructional designers have a key role in accessibility of course contents
- An online course on "Universal Design for Online Learning" will be offered
- Customized workshops for departments/colleges will be offered
- We can meet in person and help with accessibility of the course contents (coffee provided)
- Goal: To have at least one accessibility expert/liaison in each department
- Collaborating with Administrators/Vendors
- Accessibility can sometimes be too abstract
- Awareness is the key; we need to educate them
- Often think accessibility is something you do after the fact
- Accessibility is as important as security and personalization
- Making accessibility part of their agenda is not easy and takes time
- Demo of accessibility problems with the application are extremely helpful
- Support of people managing the product is very essential for vendor collaboration
- Vendors must be asked for accessibility features in the bidding process
- Vendors claims must be verified by local experts
- Identify show-stopper issues; must be fixed before deployment
- No lip service, please
- We need to collaborate with vendors on enhancing their applications
- At Illinois, Hadi had ten years of positive response from vendors
- Goal: Define and agree on minimum Accessibility Requirements especially for high impact applications
- Goal: Contractual time-lined agreement with vendor to resolve issues
- Conclusion
- Accessibility is an approach
- Depends on many dynamic factors
- Very impressed with the level of accessibility support at UW
- I am positive that we collectively can take UW to the next level
- Let's develop a roadmap we can all agree on?
