UM: Web Accessibility Working Group
Ms. Patty Bradley-Diehl, Web Administrator at the School of Public Health, was able to coordinate a large group of people for the first Web Accessibility Working Group meeting at the University of Michigan. Here’s are the rough notes from my little yellow pad. Sorry everyone — I didn’t catch names for most of these comments.
Round of introductions. People here from Kellogg Eye Center, ITCS, Health System (which is converting to a CMS in “two years”; vendor unknown), Sam Goodin from Services for Students with Disabilities, rosefirerising, someone on the phone from CTools, UM Museums are represented, a great fellow who worked with accessibility at Johns Hopkins whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, me (”from the Residential College”), many others.
First topic: we want ARTIFACTS that we can put on peoples’ desks and point at. Someone mentions Hans Masing’s 1999 UM network-wide accessibility survey for SI (I couldn’t find a copy after some searching). Respondent suggests that this effort not be repeated.
ITCS sez, we shouldn’t be overwhelming people with resources. Patricia Anderson uses an accessibility checklist from UWisconsin in her class (sadly, dental students are not always engaged in the subject).
UWisconsin is a good resource, apparently, and will send you paper artifacts on request.
So, is this group going to publish guidelines? (final answer: MAYBE) If so, they should have teeth. Suggestion from group: stay away from 508, concentrate on 504 (short reading about 504 and 508). Someone is “worried about a federal investigator” (anyone know one to call?)
Specific example: the UM Transport Research Institute has a lot of state / federal data, but isn’t accessible. Some talk here about using a LIFT transcoder to scrape and regurgitate text [me: isn’t that the 1999 strategy?]
observed on-screen: a librarian goes through library portal to reach Google.
Museums representative asks, what level of description is adequate? They don’t even have scholarly long descriptions for much of their work. Answer: disability specialist at UM will get them connected with another US institution that is cutting-edge in this field. Paring special organizations like museums and concert halls with counterparts is a new goal.
CTools representative on the phone wants a much more “federated approach”. No guidelines, only “share your war stories”. Also, CTools has hired someone with a disability to do direct testing of the app.
Considering press and awards for good performers.
Definite new program: starting an ad-hoc squad of volunteer staff to do quarterly “bring-your-woes” workshops. And perhaps an IPL-like sweatshop where students accept and answer submitted web accessibility questions
General complaints about site: no time for testing, have to learn it at home; people like moving stuff (”but of course, that’s an ADHD issue”).
Question to the group from CTools: “Who is actually doing testing?” [silence] (some people are looking for SI students to work for a term for free, not funded)
I suggested: work with the Division of Student Affairs to set up a work-study / funded position that other departments can work with on a per-contract basis to test websites. [general approval]
Collaboration in the future: set up a wiki. Where? General vote is CTools, so it’ll be Politician-style (which is my new term for a wiki that deals with public issues but is locked behind closed gates)
Follow up: 1 hour later, a couple of School of Public Health people walked by and were interested/happy that we were using their new conference room. “There was stuff on the screen!” says one.
Matt Hampel wrote:
Everything is now on CTools. Page should be open to everyone with a unique: “UM Web Accessibility”
Posted on 08-Aug-07 at 1:27 pm | Permalink
Matt Hampel wrote:
Here are the official minutes from behind the login wall:
Discussion
We began by discussing our experiences and frustrations with trying to make our websites accessible. Many cited lack of support, time and resources as well as apathy from managers and stakeholders. Carole Dubritsky, ADA Coordinator for HR, stated that accessibility is not an option for the University, it is mandatory. The ADA trumps the SPG (and SPG is not always followed). Section 504 of the ADA applies to us, not section 508. The office of Civil Rights (part of the Dept of Justice) enforces section 504. She is keen to support our efforts.
Use of the LIFT Text Transcoder tool was briefly discussed (it creates text-only versions of web pages). It was noted that there is no “one size fits all” solution for accessibility because of the varied needs of the different disabilities.
We also briefly discussed the AT Commons model (”The purpose of the Academic Technology (AT) Commons is two-fold: to develop areas of AT collaboration and shared capabilities and to improve how AT plans and decisions are made on campus.”) and how that might apply to our group.
Sean Demonner of CTools mentioned that they are testing CTools for accessibility now and anyone is welcome to observe.
We pondered how the University can keep purchasing third-party software that creates inaccessible websites. How can RFPs that do not contain stipulations for accessibility be approved? We have no answer.
Strategies
Most of our discussion revolved around strategies to reach our goals. I categorize them as follows:
The Grass-Roots Strategy
Each of us should weave accessibility into our current activities as best we can without asking for additional resources. Find approaches and techniques that work and share them with each other online and at our meetings.
The University-wide Guidelines and Best Practices Strategy
Develop, publish and promote University-wide Web Accessibility Guidelines and Best Practices. This might include scaled levels of compliance (must do, should do, etc.).
The Educate-and-Award Strategy
Develop a presentation on the importance of accessibility and offer to present it to every unit on campus. The presentation could include
* Videos of, or in-person demonstrations of, how persons with disabilities access educational materials online
* Laws and regulations
* Tools to test for accessibility
* more
Develop an award competition for the most accessible websites on campus. There could be gold, silver, bronze, etc. Such an honor might make managers who otherwise might not care about accessibility want to make their site compliant. The awards ceremony could dovetail nicely into the Council on Disabilities’ annual award ceremony.
The Accessibility Support Group Strategy
Gather a group of volunteers to help UM website developers/maintainers make their sites more compliant. Offer
* Feedback on the accessibility of sites
* One-on-one consultations
* Group consultations
* Training sessions
* “troubleshooting central” - send us your page and we will fix it
* Accessibility testing tools (adaptive tech center in basement of UGLI)
* Accessibility testers that are disabled (funding would be needed to pay them; not necessarily UM students)
Next Steps
1. Create a CTools project site for our group. I have created one called “UM Web Accessibility.” It is joinable by anyone with a uniqname or friend account. It contains resources that anyone can add to, a Best Practices Wiki and a discussion forum.
2. Develop task forces for each of our strategies. This will be done via the CTools site and a follow-up e-mail.
3. Decide how often we want to meet. Should task forces meet individually, with the whole group meeting every few months for progress reports?
Posted on 15-Aug-07 at 12:29 pm | Permalink