[Accessibleweb] AccessibleWeb@U - Minutes, January 24 meeting

[Rick Ells]

                       AccessibleWeb at U - January 24, 2008

      * UW Accessibility Web Site - Terry Thompson
           + New site will soon be located at
             http://www.washington.edu/accessibility/
           + Much more work to do, you can help
           + Related to C&C's name change coming out next week to UW
             Technology, redefining role at the univesity
             (http://www.washington.edu/uwtech/)
      * Feedback from you
           + What would you expect for a centralized resource on IT
             accessibility?
                o Tool recommendations, what they are good at, what they
                  do not do so well
                o Vetted information
                o Comments, what is not good, why is it not good. We are
                  sometimes reluctant to give negative feedback on
                  products.
                o UW specific information
                o Discussions of practices relevant to our situation
                o Controversies, open questions
                     # "We want drop down menus" - how to respond, what
                       methods to use if you have to do drop-down menus
                     # Can dynamic menus,interactivity be done with CSS,
                       will it work on all browsers?
                     # How do you deal with clients who know next to
                       nothing about accessible design?
                     # What do we need to know about commercial packages
                       such as code libraries, relevant to what we are
                       obligated to do
                     # Do you have to avoid Javascript? If we use it, what
                       are the best ways to ensure accessibilitys
           + Are we on target?
           + What other features would you like to see?
           + Collaboration is at the center of what UW Technology sees
             itself to be
      * Discussion
           + Is there a recommended way to do a dynamic menu system?
           + We should present accessible sites, or sites where people
             have consciously considered accessibility in their design
             process
           + Strategies and tactics for creating and managing accessible
             sites.
                o Design templates so that content providers only have to
                  know simple html - keep presentation entirely out of
                  their domain.
           + Questions to ask outside consultants
                o When hiring an outside consultant, what should you be
                  looking for in terms of knowledge about accessibility?
                o Could include boilerplate language in "Procuring
                  Accessible IT" that should be brought up in negotiations
                  or included in contracts? Current RFPs include
                  accessibility language, but with variable language.
                o External developers often have a process they are
                  committed to or stuck in, and may not have any idea how
                  to address accessibility aspects of the design they
                  produce. We need interview methods that bring out their
                  limitations and flexibility.
                o For acquisitions that will affect large parts of the
                  community, such as SharePoint, products should be
                  carefully evaluated for accessibility.
      * Step by step walk through
           + Home page
                o What is the relationship to the /computing/accessible/
                  site? Should the latter evolve to be the home for the
                  SIG on accessibility
           + Policies and Standards
                o In addition to current overview, do we need more
                  specific UW related statements of goals and commitments
           + Web Accessibility
                o Currently a lot of stuff from the ./computing/accessible
                  site, is it out of date, what else is needed?
           + Procuring Accessible IT
                o Hope for involvement by Purchasing
           + Disability Resources
                o Much to add
                o Should be a selected list of the best, how big should we
                  let the list get?
           + Featured Web Site
                o How would we manage this? Does some guru committee
                  select a series of sites? Do we have a competition? What
                  criteria should we use?
           + Products and Practices
                o Web authoring tools, document creation, content
                  management, Catalyst tools
                o Need subject matter experts to identify and evaluate
                  products
                o Wiki might be better tool, should it be limited only to
                  UW people?
                     # We need to learn how to participate in the Web2.0,
                       social networking wiki/blog environment
                o We need to connect to other venues where relevant
                  discussions are taking place
                     # Guild of Accessible Web Designers has active Web
                       site http://www.gawds.org/)
                     # ATHEN - Access Technologists Higher Education
                       Network (http://athenpro.org/) has active
                       discussions and resource lists
           + Tools and Resources
                o Got input from discussion last month
                o Only a few links to groups outside the UW so far
                o Could link to lots of stuff, but which of the sites are
                  most relevant and useful to us. Some sites are developed
                  in different management/authority environment. European
                  resources often assume rule-based approach. Texas has a
                  strong rule-based approach. Within the UW, not always
                  the best approach.
                o We are moving more toward systems of required templates
                  with presentation controlled separately with CSS, which
                  allows accessibility aspects to be addressed independent
                  of the content creation process.
                o Need to think on a local level. We have local issues and
                  local questions.
                o How can we determine what are the best resources for our
                  local needs. How do we have that discussion. Could have
                  a wiki to develop questions, issues.
                o Featured Web Site could be tool for building knowledge
           + UW Accessibility Blog
                o Opportunity to talk about issues, stuff that does not
                  fit in elsewhere
                o Could be a primary source of new information and ideas
      * Omissions, What more is needed
           + Interactive interfaces using AJAX, AxsJAX, DojoKit, or others
             to create more usable interfaces but which create
             accessibility problems in the process. Much info out there,
             but we need to explore and sort out where things are going
             and what to recommend.
           + Visual widgets, such as Google Earth, - when functionality is
             primarily visual, what is reasonable to expect to address
             accessibility
           + What is the nature of the application and is it truly visual.
             A campus map is often considered visual, but braille and
             tactile alternatives have been developed. Can an alternative,
             like an audible interface, be provided.
           + How can we help people with disabilities find the widgets
             available to meet their needs. How can we help them connect
             to the developer communities making tools to address their
             needs.
           + We need to learn about using interactive environments such as
             wikis, blogs, social software. We are used to the logic of us
             collecting all the answers and putting them on a static page
             we contain. Some general answers should be provided. Can we
             connect it to an active interaction on accessibility themes
             out there in the social networks and blogosphere.
           + Flash - Adobe provides accessibility hooks in Flash, but they
             are very limited. Aimed at making Flash productions work for
             screen reader users, which is a problem of figuring of what
             should be verbalized and what should not. Takes a lot of work
             to make it work for the small population of people equipped
             and skilled int accessing it. Has Flash peaked?
                o Flash is very good for embedded video. Can be connected
                  with MagPIE. IE7 and FireFox have become much more
                  robust. AJAX makes possible most of what we were trying
                  to do with Flash.
                o Don't use Flash for required content
                o Why use Flash if you can achieve the same thing with CSS
                  and AJAX?
           + How important is it to make PDF accessible?
           + Changing guidelines. Both 508 and WCAG are being updated.
             Europe is developing its own version of 508 standards
                o WCAG2 - http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20071211/
                o 508 Update - http://teitac.org/wiki/EWG:Draft_Nov_27
                o European 508 -
                  http://portal.etsi.org/STFs/STF_HomePages/STF333/STF333.
                  asp and
                  http://www.verva.se/english/it-procurement/accessibility
                  -conformance/
           + Explore the Usability/Accessibility relationship
                o You can make a site that passes accessibility criteria,
                  but is difficult to use.
           + Testing and evaluating
                o How do you interpret validation results? Much of what
                  you get is boilerplate that may not be relevant. How do
                  you separate the wheat from the chaff.
                o 508 guidelines are only a place to start now. We are
                  interested in IT accessibility, which has a much wider
                  scope than the old static page, html only criteria.

   -----------------------------------
     Rick Ells
     Senior Webmaster
     UW Technology
     206.543.2875
     rells at u.washington.edu
     http://staff.washington.edu/rells