Fixing Accessibility Problems

at the Source

Mike Gifford - OpenConcept.ca

Photo: Kris Krung

Introduction

 
 

Mike Gifford, President

OpenConcept Consulting Inc.


Drupal Core Accessibility Maintainer


@mgifford
http://openconcept.ca

#a11yopen

Scaling

Matters!

Photo: Yamashita Yohei

Traditional Approaches

 
 
Assistive Technology
Standards & Legislation 
Individual Sites
Educational Efforts

Increasingly:
Automated Tests, Themes & Plugins

The Modern Web Is Built with Central Libraries!

Photo: mathrong

Software Like:

 
 

Content Management Systems

WordPress
(48%) -
Drupal
(13%)

Design Frameworks

HTML5 Boilerplate
(57%) -
Bootstrap
(31%)

Javascript

jQuery
(20%) -
Modernizr
(5%)

Multimedia

JW Player
(16%) -
MediaElement.js
(4%)

Photo: Jeff Kubina

Four Freedoms

 
 

Use for any purpose

Modify it as you wish

Share with others

Contribute back

Free   As   In   Kittens !

Photo: Harry Whittier Frees

Collaboration

 
 
  • bug reports
  • feature requests
  • documentation
  • design
  • UX
  • editing
  • testing
  • finances 
  • and much more.

 

Drupal

Photo: Palantir

What's Different

 
 
  • Perceivable & Operable on front & back-end
  • Goal of WCAG 2.0 AA
  • Proudly Built Elsewhere
  • Accessibility integrated into culture
  • Open governance process (meritocracy)

How


IS


IT 


Accessible?

Photo: Ray Dumas

What We've Done

 
 

  • Involved programmers with disabilities
     
  • Reached out to browsers & AT vendors
     
  • Used automated testing tools
     
  • Contacted subject experts about problems
     
  • Have an open/transparent issue queue
     
  • Make accessibility part of the whole development cycle

 

Accessible

Defaults

Photo: MarkA

The right attitude

 
 
  • Establish a precedent
  • Foster personal agency, I can fix this!
  • Supportive, inclusive community
  • Be vigilant, nothing will 100% accessible
  • Don't settle for the status quo

Why Open Source 

Matters for 

Accessibility

Photo: NASA: 2Explore

Open Source & Accessibility

 
 

Rate of change on the Internet

Need for regular testing

Problems too big to solve alone

Engage disabled people in solution




Viable Solution

Photo: Martin Sharman

Mike Gifford

 
 

http://openconcept.ca

@mgifford

Fixing Accessibility Problems At The Source

By Mike Gifford

Fixing Accessibility Problems At The Source

A review of why Drupal's accessibility enhancements matter and how we got there.

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