Sakai U-Camp: Sakai U-Camp: AccessibilityAccessibility

Colin Clark, Inclusive Software Architect, Adaptive Technology Resource Center, University of Toronto

Mike Elledge, Assistant Director, Usability & Accessibility Center, Michigan State University

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?

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

Defining Accessibility

• Flexibility of education environment, curriculum, and delivery of content

• Availability of alternative and equivalent content and activities

Accommodation Strategies

• Multiple versions

• Single component approach

• Adaptable components

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• “Accessible” version not maintained and becomes outdated (eg.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

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

Types of Disabilities

• Hearing—Conductive, sensorineural

• Visual—Color blindness, low vision, blindness

• Cognitive Impairments—ADD, Dyslexia, TBI, environmental

• Physiological Impairments—Temporary, permanent

Incidence of Disabilities

48%

23%

12%

9% 5% 2% 1% 0%Hearing

Vision

TBI

Cognition

Epilepsy

CP

MS

Spinal

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

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

Sakai Accessibility Elements

• Navigation: Accesskeys, skip links, headings

• Content: Titles, summaries

• Functional: Label For/ID, Fieldset/Legend, Scope

• Presentation: CSS

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

Accessibility:WG

• Confluence: Resource, archive– Developers checklist, testing protocol, results– Current accessibility, history, charter– http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/confluence/displa

y/2ACC/Home

• Collab: Discussion– Accesskeys, AJAX/Dynamic HTML– http://collab.sakaiproject.org/portal

Designing Accessible Interfaces

• Accessibility principles are design principles

• Challenges of inclusive design

• Inclusive design techniques

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

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

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

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

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

Future Sakai Accessibility

• Frameless portal and integrated tools

• Dynamic content

• TransformAble

• Flexible UIs: the Fluid Design Project

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

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

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

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

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

Q & A