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Best Practices for Accessibility

Best Practices for Accessibility. Mike Elledge Assistant Director Usability & Accessibility Center (UAC) elledge@msu.edu. Accessibility is about knowledge…. Your audiences’ challenges and needs Standards and how to apply them Prepare accessible course materials and websites

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Best Practices for Accessibility

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  1. Best Practices for Accessibility Mike Elledge Assistant Director Usability & Accessibility Center (UAC) elledge@msu.edu

  2. Accessibility is about knowledge… • Your audiences’ challenges and needs • Standards and how to apply them • Prepare accessible course materials and websites • Repair existing materials and sites 2

  3. Your Audiences’ Challenges • Cognitive • Distracted/tired students • Persons for whom English is a second language • Persons with atypical learning styles • Persons with cognitive deficits: ADD, dyslexia • Visual • Persons with aging eyes • People who are color blind • Persons with very low vision, eye diseases • Blind persons • Hearing • From minor to major • Physical • Muscle fatigue, temporary restrictions • Carpal tunnel syndrome • Quadriplegia 3

  4. Your Audiences’ Needs • Cognitive • Plain language • Hierarchical content • Visual representations of concepts • Consistency: layouts, navigation, formats • Visual • Image descriptions • Resizable fonts and layouts • Meaning independent of color • HTML code describing structure, content, and functionality • Hearing • Video captioning • Non-audio prompts • Physical • Shortcuts • Efficient navigation • Clickable areas 4

  5. Standards • Section 508 Requirements • Federal websites and products used by U.S. Government • 16 criteria: (a) thru (p) • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) • Universal recommendations • Three levels: Priority One (Must), Priority Two (Should), Priority Three (May) • Both being rewritten to fit today’s reality • Interactive applications (AJAX) • Dynamic content (DHTML) • Improved software (JAWS and JavaScript) 5

  6. Applying Standards • Depends on organization’s policy • Can’t go wrong designing to Section 508 and WCAG Priority One and Two • More you do, the better the result 6

  7. Prepare Accessible Course Materials and Sites • Add 10-15% to development time • Establish your criteria at the beginning • Level of compliance • MSU website template • MSU styleguide • Develop expertise or ask for help • DreamWeaver accessibility prompts, Adobe PDF tags, MS-Word style formats • W3C and WebAIM tutorials • LCTTP courses • Usability & Accessibility Center (UAC) workshops and consultation • Anticipate issues and address them • Best: Involve audience in website and course design 7

  8. Repair Course Materials and Websites • Best to be compliant from the start or start anew • But if you need to retrofit… • Identify issues: Evaluate • Identify best practice solutions: W3C, WebAIM, A List Apart, Juicy Studio • Implement throughout 8

  9. Evaluate Course Materials and Websites • Evaluate against standards • Learn the UAC Accessibility Protocol • Use the “Big Three” • Manual checks (AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar, Mozilla Accessibility Extension for Firefox) • Adaptive technology (JAWS, ZoomText) • Accessibility checkers (ATRC Web Accessibility Checker, WAVE, Cynthia Says) • Note: Bobby/WatchFire and LIFT no longer available 9

  10. Status of Web Accessibility Standards at MSU Statement of Encouragement since 2002 MSU core values, commitment to diversity and inclusion MSU is moving toward a policy setting minimum standards for core sites 10

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