IGNIS 2015 - Making Accessibility Accessible (Terrill Thompson)

Making Accessibility Accessible

Terrill ThompsonTechnology Accessibility Specialist

University of Washingtontft@uw.edu

@terrillthompsonhttp://uw.edu/accessibility

#a11y

Photo source: FEMA/Bill Koplitz

The Typical Computer User

People are diverseand the technologies they use are diverse

Ability on a continuum

See

Hear

Walk

Read print

Write with pen or pencil

Communicate verbally

Tune out distraction

etc.

#gaad

GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay.org

#nomouse

nomouse.org

Canvas Accessibility

• The People:– Accessibility Project Manager, Dana Danger– Dedicated software engineer, Aaron Cannon– Software developers with accessibility training – QA engineers with accessibility experience– Executives who support accessibility initiatives

ATHEN

• Access Technology Higher Education Network

• http://athenpro.org• Founded at CSUN in 2002 • A long history of supporting collaborations

with vendors• http://collaborate.athenpro.org

Accessibility Collaboration• Started with:

– a conversation with our Canvas reps – a post to the ATHEN list seeking others – a report of accessibility issues that we

shared with Instructure• First teleconference was February 2014• Now has 83 participants• 396 accessibility bugs fixed in 2014

Accessibility within Canvas

• It is possible within Canvas to have an accessible course.

• It is possible within Canvas to have an inaccessible course.

Course Accessibility in Five Simple Steps

1. Use headings

2. Add alternate text to images

3. Caption videos

4. Upload accessible course materials

5. Ask questions about accessibility before selecting other features or tools

Introduction to Physics Course Syllabus Textbook Our sole text for this course will be Introduction to

Physics, Second Edition, authored by the instructor. Course Objectives to offer students exposure to

basic principles of Physics to provide students with rich, thought-provoking discussions during

lecture sessions to provide students with experiential learning opportunities during laboratory

sessions. Class Schedule Week Topic Reading Assignment 1 Course Introduction Chapter 1 2 Inertia,

equilibrium, kinematics Chapters 2-3 3 Newton’s laws, vectors, momentum, energy Chapters 4-7 4

Matter, elasticity, scaling Chapters 8-10 5 Wave kinematics, sound, electricity, magnetism, induction

Chapter 11-15 6 Light, reflection and refraction, emission Chapters 15-18 7 Review, final exam

Grades Grades will be assigned on a ten point scale (90 to 100 is an A, 80 to 89 is a B, etc.).

Homework, exams, and projects will be weighted as follows: Homework Exams Projects 1 2 Final 1 2

Final 15% 15% 15% 20% 10% 10% 15% Ce programme es également disponible en français sur

demande.

Example: Text with no structure

Example: Syllabus with structure

Step 1. Use Headings

Headings apply to all document types

Shown: Microsoft Word

Step 2. Add alternate text to images.

Alt text = equivalent communication

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

Use the shortcuts to answer

Reminder:

Ctrl 1 = a

Ctrl 2 = b

Ctrl 3 = c

Ctrl 4 = d

Ctrl 5 = e

What is the best alt-text for this image?

a. Mount Rainier

b. Photo of Mount Rainier

c. Aerial photo of Mount Rainier from the Northwest on a clear blue summer day

d. Photo of Mount Rainier from the Northwest, showing the receding Russell Glacier

e. Ptarmigan Ridge, a Grade III climb on mixed terrain with a 5.8 pitch on rock

Step 3. Add captions to videos

http://ableplayer.github.io/ableplayer

And adding them to videos is easy

Caption files are plain text files

And there are free tools to help you create them

Shown: Amara.org

Step 4. Upload Accessible Course Content

• Accessible Microsoft Word documents• Accessible PowerPoint files • Accessible PDFs

Adobe PDF

• First released in 1993• PDF 1.4 (2001) introduced "tagged PDF"• Supported in Adobe Acrobat 5.0• Three general types of PDF:

– Image– Image with embedded fonts– Tagged (optimized for accessibility)

Is My PDF Tagged? Ctrl (or Command) + D

To Create an Accessible PDF

• Use an authoring tool that supports: – Creating documents with headings &

subheadings– Adding alt text to images– Exporting to tagged PDF

• Use these accessibility features anytime you create a document

Authoring tools that are known to support Tagged PDF

With Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can make an accessible

PDF from an inaccessible one

Adobe Acrobat Full Screen

Step 5. Ask questions about accessibility before selecting other features or tools.

Discussions

Conferencing

Collaboration

Accessible Technology Resources

• UW Accessible Technologyhttp://uw.edu/accessibility

• AccessComputinghttp://uw.edu/accesscomputing

• The DO-IT Centerhttp://uw.edu/doit