Sakai U-Camp: Accessibility

1. Sakai U-Camp: Accessibility Colin Clark, Inclusive Software Architect, Adaptive Technology Resource Center, University of Toronto Mike Elledge, Assistant Director, Usability & Accessibility Center, Michigan State University

2. Topics • What is disability? • What is accessibility? • What are Sakai accessibility objectives? • What is the state of Sakai accessibility? • What resources are available? • How do I design accessible interfaces? • What does the future hold for accessibility and Sakai?

3. Defining Disability • In context of a learning environment: • Disability is artifact of a mismatched relationship between a learner and the education offered • Not a personal trait • Thus accessibility is the ability of learning environment to adjust to user needs

4. Defining Accessibility • Flexibility of education environment, curriculum, and delivery of content • Availability of alternative and equivalent content and activities

5. Accommodation Strategies • Multiple versions • Single component approach • Adaptable components

6. Problem with Multiple Versions • “Accessible” version not maintained and becomes outdated (eg. text-only version) • Unequal access to resource • People with disabilities are not a homogenous group

7. Limitations of Single Component Approach • Accessible for everyone but optimal for no one • Design decisions often do not make the experience better for all users (breaks the “curbcut rule”) • Time and expertise required of all resource creators • Reluctance to use new or innovative technologies • Valuable resources that are not compliant are often rejected

8. Types of Disabilities • Hearing—Conductive, sensorineural • Visual—Color blindness, low vision, blindness • Cognitive Impairments—ADD, Dyslexia, TBI, environmental • Physiological Impairments—Temporary, permanent

9. Incidence of Disabilities

10. Video Clip of Blind User • Web content is read by screen readers (like JAWS) and blind persons navigate with the keyboard • Benefit from keyboard shortcuts, organized content, contextual clues www.webaim.org/media/video/kyle/kyle.asx

11. Sakai Accessibility Objectives • To comply with Section 508 and WCAG 1.0 Priority One, Two and (partial) Three • To go beyond compliance and be usable to persons with disabilities

12. Sakai Accessibility Elements • Navigation: Accesskeys, skip links, headings • Content: Titles, summaries • Functional: Label For/ID, Fieldset/Legend, Scope • Presentation: CSS

13. Sakai Accessibility Issues • Magnification > 200% • Content iFrame • JSF “Accessibility” • Content collapse (CSS) • “Bugs” • Text Editor • Code burps • Onkeypress clean-up • http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/jira/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?mode=hide&requestId=10254 • Testing new versions and tools

14. Accessibility:WG • Confluence: Resource, archive • Developers checklist, testing protocol, results • Current accessibility, history, charter • http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/2ACC/Home • Collab: Discussion • Accesskeys, AJAX/Dynamic HTML • http://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal

15. Designing Accessible Interfaces • Accessibility principles are design principles • Challenges of inclusive design • Inclusive design techniques

16. Components of the Web • Content: • the user interface • underlying information • application behaviour • User Agents: a nerdy name for the browser • Assistive Technologies • Authoring Tools • Evaluation Tools

17. Accessibility Principles • From WCAG 2.0: • 1. Content must be perceivable • 2. Interface components should be operable • 3. Content must be understandable • 4. Content should be robust & forward-looking

18. Does this Sound Familiar? • These are design principles! • Design for consistency • Design useful navigation schemes • Design and test forms • Make things readable and understandable to the user

19. Challenges for Designers • The Web is a medium that should be plastic and highly adaptive • Need to design multiple user experiences • Design for less-than-ideal circumstances

20. Inclusive Design Techniques • Understand users with disabilities • Label everything clearly • Design for separability and change • Enable different control strategies • Provide alternatives or augmentations for everything

21. Future Sakai Accessibility • Frameless portal and integrated tools • Dynamic content • TransformAble • Flexible UIs: the Fluid Design Project

22. TransformAble • Web services to help with Web application accessibility • PreferAble: allows users to specify personal display and control preferences • StyleAble: restyles user interface • SenseAble: rearranges and augments content • Currently being integrated into Sakai • We’re behind schedule but moving along

23. Fluid Design • Responding to the need to improve usability and accessibility in community source projects • Create both technologies and processes • Enable design contributions • Share user interface components • UI components as design patterns

24. Why Create a Flexible UI? • To address unique institutional needs • To address needs of different disciplines • To address cultural differences • To simplify internationalization & localization • To ensure accessibility • To accommodate diverse individual needs • To support device independence

25. Fluid Project Goals • Make it easier for designers to get involved in community source software • Enable pooling of UI resources • Encourage loosely coupled UIs • Facilitate wide-scale testing • Enable transformable user interfaces • Improve consistency of user experience

26. Provide Technical Supports • Provides a consistent model for UI components across applications • Establishes a single API for configuring components • Provides a consistent way of specifying site-wide customizations such as skins • Decouples UI from application logic • Enables easy switching of components to meet diverse user needs

27. Q & A