• Josua Muheim
• Web developer ~15 years
  
• Technology​ should unlock human potential
• Goal: Inclusion of all individuals
• Accessibility expert ~8 years
  • Former employee of «Access for all» 🔗
• Initiator of «A11y Dev Guide» 🔗

• Comprehensive resource
  • Tangible and technical
  • Easy to understand
  • Code examples
• By developers, for developers
• Open Source
• accessibility-developer-guide.com 🔗
• github.com/Access4all/adg 🔗

Nothing AG

• Peer to peer (P2P)
• Web agency / venture lab
• Berne, Switzerland
• www.nothing.ch

• What's your name?
• What's your profession / role?
• Do you have any form of disability?
  • We'll form little groups (breakout rooms)
     
• What brought you here?
• Experiences with accessibility?
• Expectations for today's workshop?
   
• Please pass on to another participant!

1808: First typewriter

• Invented by Pellegrino Turri (incl. ink paper)
• For blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano
• Could write, but not read
  • Proofreading impossible

1824: Braille

• Tactile writing system
• Invented by Louis Braille (at age of 15)
• Could read, but not write
  • Until invention of braille typewriters
  • Not readable by most  other people

2000: 3 job opportunities (for blind people)

• Basket weaver
• Piano tuner
• Massager

Until 2010: Early digital accessibility

• Stable working screen readers and OS (desktop)
  • ​Scan papers (OCR)
  • Navigate the web
  • Read and write emails
• Not so many services available
  • But simple ("traditional")
    and accessible
     
• Sophisticated and expensive
  hardware/software

Today: Opportunities...

• How important is to YOU...
  • The Internet?
  • Your smartphone?
    ​
• Mobile screen readers
  • Free & easy
• Control virtual and physical world
  • "Internet of things"
    ​
• Endless possibilities (?)

...vs. obstacles!

• Modern apps and websites are "fancy"
  • Visually oriented
  • Complex
• A lot of basic requirements are prone to be "forgotten"
  • Valid (semantic) HTML
  • Keyboard-only navigation
  • Standard controls vs. custom JavaScript
  • Image text alternatives

Most harmful situation (Super GAU)

• Disabled people are often excluded from digital world
  • The ones that are by far the most...
    • Dependent
    • Profiting
• Services are transferred from physical
  to virtual world
  • Categorically excluding more people

Two-class-society in digital world?

• Default users vs. people of disability
• Fanciness often goes against usability & accessibility
• Technically everything would be ready​

Public pressure increasing

• National and international laws adapting
• Europe
  • Convention of the United Nations on the rights of persons with disabilities (UNO Behindertenrechtskonvention)
    • Ratified by Switzerland
    • Even private sector held responsible
• ​USA
  • Waves of lawsuits
     
• ​More awareness through Corona situation

Litmus tests

• Screen reader tests are considered "litmus tests" in the development of accessible user interfaces
  • Regarding technical aspects (code)
• "If you say that something is a litmus test of something,
  you mean that it is an effective and definite way of
  proving it or measuring it."
  • Quote: CollinsDictionary.com
• To develop accessible websites, you need to be able
  to validate them with screen readers. Full stop.
   
• ADG: Knowledge: Screen Readers: What and Why

Forms of disability

• Visual, up to blindness
• Hearing, up to deafness
• Motor (ie. no arms)
• Cognitive and neurological (ie. attention deficit)
   
• Age related (we will all be disabled some day)
• Developing with screen readers provides
  foundation (rock solid semantic code)
• Other requirements must be added on top, ie.:
  • Visual design with good contrasts
  • Closed captioning (subtitles) for video
• Good examples: w3.org/WAI/perspective-videos/

Problems with vision

Problems with hearing

• In videos:
  • No subtitles available
    • for spoken language
    • for pure audio information
      • For example, a siren alarm approaching
  • No audio description for purely visual information
    • Ie. some text information on screen
• In audios (ie. podcasts):
  • No text transcript available
• Note: to deaf-born people, sign language is their
  mother language!

Problems with movement

• Elements not focusable
• Keyboard focus not visible
• Device-specific event handlers
  • For example mouseUp, keyDown
• Drag & drop
• Interactive elements very small
  • Parkinson's, tremor
• Not enough time
  • Checkout process

How to use a mouth mouse

• Control a cursor with your
  mouse
• For paraplegics
• Right and left click:
  sip or puff!
• Takes a lot of time
  • Enter address using
    on-screen virtual
    ​keyboard
• Incredibly important for
  self-efficacy of affected
  people

So much can be possible!

• Daniele Corciulo (accessibility expert, 1.5% eyesight)
  • Former employee of
    foundation «Access for all»
  • Now working at Fachstelle
    Studium und Behinderung
    at University of Zürich
     
• Let's Play "Last of us 2" (blind)
  • https://youtu.be/aTseuHfn4qg
• Song "Take my hand"
  • https://youtu.be/1vJtAGu1Wqc

Daniele is enabled to...

• Use public transport
  • Electronic time table, Braille
    handles, guidelines for white stick
• Read paper mail
  • Scan, then OCR and text-to-speech
• Identify objects
  • Scan bar codes
• Operate coffee machine
  • Smartphone app (through
    Bluetooth) and screen reader

Unlocking human potential

• Creating accessible products means...
  • Equality, regardless of physical differences
• It's not about creating "social welfare state"
• It's about including & unlocking human potential
  • Stephen Hawking
  • Disabled people think outside the box!
     
• Remember the typewriter?
  • Would we have smartphones today?