Guelph University Accessibility Conference 2014

Speaker Presentation

Slide 1 - Welcome

  • University Of Guelph Accessibility Conference
    • Subject: Integrating Accessibility into the Project Life Cycle & IT Governance Principles
    • Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2014
    • Time: 2:00 pm to 2:45 pm
    • Room: Rozanski 101
    • Presenters: David Best and Rob Harvie (Inclusive Media and Design)
    • Overview: Building your collaboration team from Innovation to User Experience. Identifying the web project foundation components, and stakeholders. There are many interactive components and user groups that want to influence your product design. Creating an organizational governance model with clearly defined processes, procedures, and policies is critical to achieving a good user experience and brand perception. An interactive dialogue will empower you to be a leader within your organization.
    • Objectives: This session will be an interactive dialogue to investigate and discuss web project life cycle best practices, that integrate Accessibility, Usability, and Productivity gains. Participants will gain a better understanding of website creation from Design to Deployment, the Tools and Resources involved, and the Roles and Responsibilities of stakeholders.

Slide 2 - Introduction

Inclusive Media and Design
Web media accessibility for all
2255b Queen St. E, Suite 1108, Toronto Ontario, M4E 1G3

Slide 3 - Session Content

Slide 4 - Glossary Of Terms

  • Accessibility (Wikipedia)

    Accessibility is the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity. The concept often focuses on people with disabilities or special needs (such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) and their right of access, enabling the use of assistive technology.

  • Accommodations (Ontario Human Rights Legal Support Centre)

    In human rights terms, accommodation is the word used to describe the duties of an employer, service provider or landlord to give equal access to people who are protected by Ontario's Human Rights Code. This includes, for example, people with disabilities, seniors and youth, people from racialized communities, families, single parents, recent immigrants, and all individuals identified with a ground of discrimination recognized under Ontario's Human Rights Code.

  • Assistive Technology (Wikipedia)

    Assistive Technology is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and also includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them. AT promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.

  • Barriers (AODA Accessibility Standards for Customer Service Key Concepts)

    A barrier is anything that keeps someone with a disability from participating fully in society because of his or her disability. A barrier can be visible or invisible. Attitude is the most challenging barrier to overcome because it is hard to change. Architectural or structural barriers may result from design elements of a building such as stairs, doorways, the width of hallways and even room layout. Information and communication barriers can make it difficult for people to receive or convey information. Technology, or lack of it, can prevent people from accessing information. Systemic barriers can result from an organization's policies, practices and procedures if they restrict people with disabilities, often unintentionally.

  • Convergent Thinking (Wikipedia)

    Convergent thinking is a term coined by Joy Paul Guilford as the opposite of divergent thinking. It generally means the ability to give the "correct" answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity, for instance in most tasks in school and on standardized multiple-choice tests for intelligence.

  • Creative Thinking (Wikipedia)

    Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created (such as an idea, a joke, an artistic or literary work, a painting or musical composition, a solution, an invention etc.). The ideas and concepts so conceived can then manifest themselves in any number of ways, but most often, they become something we can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. The range of scholarly interest in creativity includes a multitude of definitions and approaches involving several disciplines (psychology, cognitive science, education, philosophy, technology, etc.), taking in the relationship between creativity and general intelligence, mental and neurological processes associated with creativity, the potential for fostering creativity through education and training, especially as augmented by technology, and the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of learning and teaching processes.

  • Critical Thinking (Wikipedia)

    critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

  • Disability (Human Rights Code)

    1. Any degree of physical disability, infirmity, malformation or disfigurement that is caused by bodily injury, birth defect or illness and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, includes diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, a brain injury, any degree of paralysis, amputation, lack of physical coordination, blindness or visual impediment, deafness or hearing impediment, muteness or speech impediment, or physical reliance on a guide dog or other animal or on a wheelchair or other remedial appliance or device;
    2. A condition of mental impairment or a developmental disability;
    3. A learning disability, or a dysfunction in one or more of the processes involved in understanding or using symbols or spoken language;
    4. A mental disorder; or
    5. An injury or disability for which benefits were claimed or received under the insurance plan established under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997.

  • Discrimination (Ontario HUMAN RIGHTS)

    Discrimination means unequal or different treatment or harassment that causes harm. The Ontario Human Rights Code is a provincial anti-discrimination law that applies to workplaces, housing, services, facilities, and to contracts or agreements.

  • Screen Readers (Wikipedia)

    A screen reader is a software application that attempts to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen, whether a video monitor is present or not. This interpretation is then re-presented to the user with text-to-speech. Screen readers are a form of assistive technology (AT) potentially useful to people who are blind, visually impaired, illiterate or learning disabled.

  • Universal Design (Wikipedia)

    Universal design (often inclusive design) refers to broad-spectrum ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to older people, people without disabilities and people with disabilities.

  • Usability (Wikipedia)

    Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with.

  • Web Accessibility (Wikipedia)

    Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality. For example, when a site is coded with semantically meaningful HTML, with textual equivalents provided for images and with links named meaningfully, this helps blind users using text-to-speech software and/or text-to-Braille hardware. When text and images are large and/or enlargeable, it is easier for users with poor sight to read and understand the content. When links are underlined (or otherwise differentiated) as well as colored, this ensures that color blind users will be able to notice them. When clickable links and areas are large, this helps users who cannot control a mouse with precision. When pages are coded so that users can navigate by means of the keyboard alone, or a single switch access device alone, this helps users who cannot use a mouse or even a standard keyboard. When videos are closed captioned or a sign language version is available, deaf and hard-of-hearing users can understand the video. When flashing effects are avoided or made optional, users prone to seizures caused by these effects are not put at risk. And when content is written in plain language and illustrated with instructional diagrams and animations, users with dyslexia and learning difficulties are better able to understand the content. When sites are correctly built and maintained, all of these users can be accommodated without decreasing the usability of the site for non-disabled users.

  • WCAG2 Glossary Definitions (W3C/WAI Appendix A)

    Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more usable to users in general.

Slide 5 - Usable Accessibility

Learning together to discover best practices require:

  1. knowing your target users,
  2. understanding the web component interfaces, and
  3. agreeing on project scope and needed skills.

Usable accessibility requires:

  1. collaboration from innovation to user experience,
  2. an inclusive stakeholder governance model, and
  3. fully integrated processes, tools, and reusable components.

Slide 6 - Design

Illustration showing the Implementation Cycle
For the most part, we face a world, in this information age that is designed by legacy thinking.

    Who is involved:

  1. Executive sponsor
  2. Accessibility specialist (standards rules/structures and critical thinking)
  3. User experience specialist (tasks flows/scenarios and creative thinking)
  4. User interface specialist(visual layout/typography and convergent thinking)
  5. Architect (graphics, branding)
  6. Developer
  7. Stakeholder representatives

    What are the work products:

  1. Regulation requirements (AODA)
  2. Standard guidelines (WCAG)
  3. Conformance level (A, AA, AAA)
  4. Persona use cases (test scripts and user profiles)
  5. User group feedback
  6. Design document (moc-ups and wireframes)
  7. Development project plan (scope, tools, cycles)
  8. Testing methodology
  9. Project control log
  10. Technologies used (Authoring, Evaluation, User agents)
  11. Website scope and complexity (static, dynamic, responsive, mobile)
  12. Audits and reports (Criteria violation, Issue severity, User comments, remediation techniques)
  13. Procurement policy (process and procedures)

Slide 7 - Development

Illustration showing the different guidelines for the different components
All components must work together for the Web to be accessible. There are significant interdependencies between the web development and user components.

    Who is involved:

  1. Developers
  2. Accessibility specialist

    What are the work products:

  1. Source code (CSS, HTML, Java, ARIA)
  2. Authoring tools (Development, Deployment, Support)
  3. Web evaluation tools (Standards, Processes, Automated/Manual testing)
  4. User agents (Browsers, Media players, Assistive technologies)

Slide 8 - Functional Testing

This phase provides accessibility verification and is critical for an effective user testing phase.

Who is involved:

  1. Developers
  2. Accessibility specialist
  3. Advanced skilled users

    What are the work products:

  1. Remediation tracking
  2. Automated evaluation tools (page structure with proper HTML markup)
  3. Design components (CSS, HTML, Javascript, Druple, Wordpress)
  4. Plug-ins and widgets (keyboard, mouse, touch screen, speech)

Slide 9 - Usability Testing

Who is involved:

  1. Accessibility specialist
  2. User experience specialist
  3. Users focus group (vision, hearing, mobility, cognitive, speech, medical)
  4. Developers (observation only)
  5. Documentation writers and support (observation only)

What are the work products:

  1. User feedback
  2. Assistive technology used
  3. Adaptive techniques used
  4. Developer remediation strategy
  5. User guide and help tips
  6. Identify and document issues:
    • A) The developer did not markup/code the web page properly, or
    • B) The browser or media player isn't handling the markup properly, or
    • C) The user's Assistive Technology isn't handling the markup properly, or
    • D) The user doesn't know how to use the browser, media player, or AT's keyboard access features, or
    • E) The page is poorly designed and a usability problem for all users, including those without disabilities.

Slide 10 - Project Evaluation

Who is involved:

  1. Executive sponsor
  2. Accessibility specialist
  3. User experience specialist
  4. User interface specialist
  5. Architect
  6. Developer
  7. Stakeholder representatives

What are the work products:

  1. Review project scope and work accomplished
  2. Review accessibility issues (types and severity)
  3. Review remediation (techniques and challenges)
  4. Review documentation and support procedures
  5. Review user comments
  6. Review future accessibility considerations

Slide 11 - Deployment and Support

Who is involved:

The launch of a successful website will enhance your brand.

  1. Accessibility specialist
  2. Developer
  3. User support

What are the work products:

  1. Ensure support staff has been trained and aware
  2. Ensure website has an accessibility statement page and user feedback form
  3. Ensure online help is available
  4. Send deployment notice to all stakeholders