starcanada 2013 tutorial: (t16) integrating canadian accessibility requirements into your projects

© 2013 IBM Canada Ltd.

David Best & Dan ShireIBM Canada April 2013 V 0.4

Integrating Canadian Accessibility Standards into your Projects

2 © 2013 IBM Canada Ltd.

Our agenda

Introduction

Obligations & opportunities

Accessibility & the project life cycle

Resources


Introduction

Accessibility:• Making technology usable by the greatest number of

people, regardless of age or ability

• Breaking down technical and organizational barriers that hinder the full participation and contribution of:– Our customers – Our employees – Our family members – Ourselves

• Individuals have unique requirements and may use assistive technology to help them overcome specific barriers in order to access information and services:– Vision– Hearing – Mobility– Dexterity– Learning/cognitive


Canadians with disabilities increase with age

Source: Statistics Canada. Participation and Activity Limitation Survey 2006: Tables. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2007 (Cat. No. 89-628-XIE - No. 003).

0-14 years

15-24 years

25-44 years

45-64 years

65-74 years

75+years

All ages

3.7%

4.7%

8%

18.3%

33%

56.3%

14.3%

Population with a disability by age (2006)

4.9 million Canadians


Introducing AODA Standards

Ontario’s AODA – Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act

• World leadership

• Public and private sector

• Specific requirements – timelines and measurable

• A consultative process

• 5 components– Customer Service– Information and Communication– Transportation– Employment– Built Environment

• All public sector organizations in Ontario are under the AODA

• 360,000 private sector businesses (provincially regulated)

• 20,000 private sector businesses (>50 employees) have additional obligations under the regulations


Obligations – legal and regulatory requirementsProvince of Ontario

• The province requires public sector organizations (province, municipal, colleges, universities, hospitals, etc) to provide accessible customer service and accessible web sites.

• The requirement for accessible information - web, content, other communication - under the AODA.

Government of Canada• The federal government was sued and convicted because citizen-facing

web sites were not fully accessible. Business in Canada

• Larger companies in Ontario (> 50 employees) fall under more stringent Ontario regulations – external web sites and internal IT systems must meet WCAG 2.0 accessibility requirements.

• 360,000 businesses in Ontario are affected by the provincial regulations.– US and international standards are often a factor

Business in the United States• Federal contracts are obligated by S508.• Federal, state and local by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)• Businesses are obligated by the ADA• Risk mitigation influences many companies


Opportunity – the case for accessibilityBeing accessible makes good business sense — it helps your organization gain a

competitive advantage in growing markets, increase revenue and retain employees.

People with Disabilities

16% of world population

Aging

By 2025, 20% of industrialized world population will be

over age 65

Non-native languagespeakers

Globalization the driver

People withlow literacy &

novice ICT users

Rising tide of new users

Everyday situations

“Temporarily disabled”

Driving – eyes busy

Noisy environment

Canadian population: 35 MillionCanadians with disabilities: ~ 5 Million

Accessibility extends the capabilities of technology to accelerate social innovation and create shared value for all the citizens of our Smarter Planet.


Opportunity – the case for accessibility

Source: Ontario Accessibility Directorate, 2012

http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/documents/en/mcss/accessibility/Ont_InfoGraph-EN.pdf


Timelines for AODA

Obligated organization

New content on existing Customer facing sites

New Customer- facing sites

All Customer facing sites and content

(legacy sites & content)

Customer & Citizen facing sites, and

Employee sites

Employment – accommodation plans & accessible formats and communication supports

Private Sector with > 50 employees

(20,000 businesses in Ontario)

WCAG 2.0 A

Jan. 1, 2012

WCAG 2.0 A

Jan. 1, 2014

WCAG 2.0 AA

Jan. 1, 2021 **

2013 – 2017

Municipalities and other public sector (universities, hospitals, schools…)

WCAG 2.0 A

Jan. 1, 2014

WCAG 2.0 AA

Jan. 1, 2021 **

2013 - 2017

Government of Ontario

WCAG 2.0 AA

Jan. 1, 2012

WCAG 2.0 AA

Jan. 1, 2012 **

WCAG 2.0 AA

Jan. 1, 2016 **

WCAG 2.0 AA

Jan. 1, 2020

2013 - 2017

AODA Compliance Timeline Simplified Summary

** Except 1.2.4 Live captions and 1.2.5 Pre-recorded audio descriptions.

Not intended to be a legal opinion – consult the regulations and your organization’s legal counsel for specifics.

http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/source/regs/english/2011/elaws_src_regs_r11191_e.htm


The consequences of not being accessible

• Organizations are exposed to the threat and cost of litigation, public relations issues, and loss of government contracts.– Private companies, such as Priceline, Ramada, and Target have

been sued for not having accessible Web sites and the organizations were forced to pay hefty fines and agree to re-design their sites to make them more accessible.

– Designing for accessibility from the beginning is significantly less expensive than re-design after the fact, especially under court-mandated pressure.

– In Canada: VIA Rail, the Government of Canada and the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) have been charged and convicted

• Most government entities in the U.S., Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan are required to comply with some form of accessibility standards and regulations.

• Procurement challenges - for private sector clients that supply services & products to the government, overlooking accessibility requirements can result in lost contracts and lost revenue, or penalties.


I/T project life cycle (a simplified view!)

Here’s a “generic project model”.

You can unwind this to get a traditional waterfall project or compress the timeframe to get an agile project iteration cycle.

User experience, including accessibility and support for universal design, should be at the heart of your project – this can be integrated into every phase of the project.

Next, we’ll look at the benefits, implications, roles and skills for each of these project stages.

Users

Initiation & Requirements

Initiation & Requirements

DesignDesign

TestTestBuildBuild

Deploy/supportDeploy/support


Project Initiation and Requirements Definition

Foundations for your project:

• Standards & regulations • We’ll cover these on the next slide

• Organizational Governance

• Project methodology

• Training and Experience

• Specific to team roles

• Technology

• Development and testing

• Tools

• Procurement policy• Your success is dependant on your

vendors, suppliers and partners – test them!

Who’s involved:

• Project sponsor

• Solution architect

• Business analysts

• Project manager

Who’s involved:

• Project sponsor

• Solution architect

• Business analysts

• Project manager

Work products:

• Business case

• Solution architecture

• High level functional and non-functional requirements

• Use cases

• Personas


Standards – WCAG 2.0 Level A & AA for the webWCAG 2.0 Level A – 25 guidelines to meet basic accessibilityWCAG 2.0 Level AA – 13 additional guidelines provide more robust support

Perceivable• Provide text alternatives for non-text content. • Provide captions and alternatives for audio and video content. • Make content adaptable; and make it available to assistive technologies – images

with labels.• Use sufficient contrast to make things easy to see and hear – contrast and colour.

Operable• Make all functionality keyboard accessible – tabbing order.• Give users enough time to read and use content. • Do not use content that causes seizures (flashing).• Help users navigate and find content.

Understandable• Make text readable and understandable – clear language• Make content appear and operate in predictable ways – headings, structure.• Help users avoid and correct mistakes.

Robust• Maximize compatibility with current and future technologies.


DesignWho’s involved: • User experience specialist• Accessibility specialist• Information architect• Graphic designer• User focus groups• Developers with code design experience

Work products:• Creative design

• The look and feel of the application, including branding.• Wire frames

• Include components that describe the required user interface (mouse, keyboard, touch screen, speech, etc.) and interaction with user agents.

• This may involve user group studies to gain an understanding of adaptive technologies and user behaviour.

• Responsive design – gracefully support multiple devices from traditional PC to smart phones

• Web page functional components must meet user expectations. • The page landscape must be perceivable, the content understandable, the objects

operable, and the overall usability must be robust.


Build

Who’s involved: • Developers

• With accessibility training and tools• Accessibility Compliance Expert

• Responsible for planning, coordinating and monitoring the accessibility testing throughout the development process

• Requires an understanding of the compliance certification procedures, available automated testing tools, and usability testing requirements. An integrated testing strategy for accessibility is critical during development.

Work products:• Functional code

• Robust code which has been built and unit tested with tools that enforce (or at a minimum enable support for) the WCAG 2.0 guidelines

• Accessibility test plan/strategy• There are 3 typical elements to accessibility testing: automated testing to

identify basic issues, manual testing using specialized tools (e.g. browser plug-ins), and selective testing using assistive technology such as ZoomText and JAWS.


Test – Functional testingWho’s involved: • Development team• Accessibility Compliance Expert

• Due to the dynamic construction of complex web sites it is necessary to repeat accessibility compliance testing at all levels of development (Alpha, Beta, Production).

• Dynamic page rendering and operable functionality must be thoroughly tested before usability testing begins. Where native HTML5 cannot meet accessibility requirements, then WAI-ARIA coding can be implemented. Java scripts and widgets (JQuery, Dojo) must be robust.

• Test the application, and the documentation

Work products:• Functional, accessible application code

• Tested: automated, manual and assistive technology techniques• Test report

• Accessibility issues documented & tracked• Remediation steps identified


Test – Usability testing

Who’s involved: • Selected end users

• The more accessible the product, the fewer the remediation cycles are likely to be needed in the future.

• User experience testing is performed by end-user adaptive technology users. • This may include users from the various disability groups (vision, hearing,

cognitive, mobility). • If the functional compliance testing and required remediation implementation

is not performed properly, the end user experience testing will be frustrating and costly.

• To be effective the usability test phase must be conducted with well defined user experience test scripts – don’t “wing it”.

• User experience specialist & Accessibility Compliance Expert

Work products:• Usability test report

• User experience and accessibility issues identified, documented & tracked• Remediation steps identified


Accessibility testing – rating the issuesAccessibility Severity Guidelines

Sev. 1 – Critical - Must fix to allow even the most basic use of the application. User with a disability cannot complete a task, and no alternate means is

provided to complete that task. The issue is a violation of the Web Accessibility Checklist.

Sev. 2 – High - Must fix in order to meet accessibility standards and allow full use of the system.

User with a disability will likely not be able to easily complete a task, and no alternate means is provided to complete the task. The issue is a violation of the Web Accessibility Checklist.

Sev. 3 – Medium - Should fix to allow productive, accessible use of the application. User with a disability will likely be able to complete a task, but the issue

prevents the user from completing the task efficiently. The issue may or may not be a violation of the Web Accessibility Checklist.

Sev. 4 – Low - Should be addressed in next release. User with a disability will be able to complete a task, but the issue may cause confusion

to the user, and should be resolved. The issue is not a violation of the Web Accessibility Checklist. An issue was found, but should not be classified as an accessibility problem. These may be functionality bugs that should be corrected.


Deploy, support & documentationWho’s involved: • Technical writer/editor• Help desk (support team)• Accessibility consultant• User experience specialist & Accessibility Compliance Expert

Work products:• Training and guidance for the help desk – supporting customers or employees who

use assistive technology • When the application or product is released into production, there should be a

feedback mechanism to continue evaluating the user experience. The many different browsers, user agents, and version levels, will render a wide variety of user experience results. This feedback will help improve the robustness of your product in later releases.

• Support costs can be significant, there may be customer satisfaction or legal risks associated with inappropriate application support

• Under the AODA, there are obligations and penalties for customer support.• Accessible documentation

• Compliant with the WCAG 2.0 standards – MS Office, PDF, captioned video, etc.


Training, training and more training

WCAG 2.0• 38 A & AA requirements (‘success criteria’) – each with techniques• www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref • www.ibm.com/able • www.ontario.ca/AccessON

Everyone on the team needs some training• Project stakeholders• Project manager • Business analysts• User eXperience specialist (UX) & Information architects• Web Designers • Software developers• Quality assurance experts• Accessibility Compliance Expert• Technical writers (application documentation)

The first couple projects will cost more – there’s a training, tools and organizational learning curve. You cannot avoid this investment.

The cost of remediation is much higher than the investment to design it and build it right up front.


Technology challenges

Explosive growth of mobile delivery of I/T solutions• WCAG 2.0 does not deliver a complete picture for tablets and smart

phones

• Most mobile devices will not have a traditional keyboard but that doesn’t mean they cannot be accessible

• Most mobile applications are hybrid applications and not simply Web

• Mobile platforms are incomplete in their accessibility services support

Social media• Despite rapid adoption rates, social media channels are still largely

inaccessible…

• Social businesses will perpetuate and widen this gap unless inclusive solutions are provided

Growth of big data and analytics• I/T solutions increasingly requires the effective use of business analytics

• This is an area where the accessibility technology community has done a poor job – representation of complex data and inter-relationships of the data in a way that is clear and understandable, and which is accessible with assistive technologies


Important success factors

• Development environment • Consider a dedicated Portal for sharing

and distribution of information, resources and downloadable testing tools

• Integrate your accessibility testing tools with development and standard testing tools and processes

• Testing environment• Controlled and structured – all the

testing disciplines and techniques you understand can be applied to improve your odds of success

• Be innovative and thought provoking• Create repeatable and scalable solutions• Embrace collaboration – between industry

and vendors and colleagues

Start your journey on the right foot: • Adopt proven standards

• WCAG 2.0, with ARIA extensions• On-going training for developers and

testers• On-going awareness sessions for the

project sponsor and other stakeholders to maintain support

• Align with good user experience principles

• Organizational Support: Executive Champion• Governance - Legal, procurement

accessibility clause in contracts and RFP’s• Work with groups such as HR with a

heightened and focused awareness of disability issues

• Pick your first project carefully • Work with groups involved in highly

visible customer facing applications• But, don’t overreach – don’t try to boil

the ocean on the first project• Identify and get commitment on the

accessibility requirements at the earliest possible stage - in the conceptual and business case process


Questions?

Please contact Dan or David:

Dan ShireIBM [email protected]

David BestIBM [email protected]


More information – check out these references Government of Ontario www.ontario.ca/AccessON IBM accessibility checklists www.ibm.com/able

WCAG 2.0 guidelines www.w3.org/WAI W3C – good & bad website examples www.w3.org/WAI/demos/bad/ Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) page on user testing

webbism.com/2012/07/06/the-benefits-of-user-testing-with-disabled-users/www.w3.org/wiki/Accessibility_testing#When_should_testing_be_done.3F

WCAG sufficient techniques www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/intro.html#introduction-

layers-techs-head Involving Users in Evaluating Web Accessibility

www.w3.org/WAI/eval/users Involving Users in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility

www.w3.org/WAI/users/involving.html

WebAIM Utah State University www.webaim.org OCAD University – Inclusive Design www.idrc.ocad.ca Government of Canada Web Experience Toolkit

www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/ws-nw/wa-aw/wet-boew/index-eng.asp


Cool tools …

1. Plug-ins for Firefox:

Fangs – screen reader simulator

WAVE – testing toolbar (from WebAIM)

2. NVDA – free open source screen reader

www.nvda-project.org

3. JAWS – screen reader – evaluation copy

www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp

4. IBM aDesigner – free open source accessibility simulator and test tool www.eclipse.org/actf/downloads/tools/aDesigner