[Chapter-delegates] Website Accessibility Plan

[Dan Graham]

Hi all,

Here's an update on the plan to ensure our site meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) level 2.0.

Progress so far: Two accessibility audits were conducted last year. One focused on identifying specific issues that were preventing specific sections of the site from being WCAG 2.0 compliant. The second was conducted by a visually impaired person and provided valuable constructive criticism and great recommendations. 

Two actions followed the above mentioned audits:

A series of quick fixes to the site
The development of plan that will ensure our site is WCAG compliant  - and stays that way moving forward

1. Quick Fixes

The ability to control the image carousel with next, previous and pause buttons.
Underlined links as they help make our links more visible
The ability to navigate the site without a mouse (i.e. keyboard only)
Currently adding alternative text to all images on the site 

2. Accessibility Plan

As mentioned, the goal is to ensure that our site is WCAG 2.0. compliant (http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/glance/). Ideally, I'd like our website to be a flagship for accessibility. I've asked our main web developer (Balance Interactive) to develop plan to help us reach this goal. 

It's important to note that this commitment to accessibility will require changes in our processes. Some of these changes will translate into longer development times and greater costs. In other words, the challenge of compliance will be, as stated in the WCAG summary: "To create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive technologies, without losing meaning".

The following items are expected to take 10 to 12 weeks to complete.

Here's an overview of the key components of the plan:

2.1 Changes to our Content Management System (CMS)
A key step to ensuring that our content is accessible is the addition of accessibility checks within our CMS workflow. We'll be adding a new component to our CMS (Drupal) that will provide our content creators/editors with the ability to check the accessibility of their content prior to it being published to the website - and allow them to make the necessary changes to ensure WCAG 2.0 compliance. 

2.2 Content Strategy
Key sections of our site will be reviewed to identify content that may cause difficulties or barriers to people with disabilities. This review will be larger in scope than the audits that were done last year. This will result in further fixes to the site and will also inform documentation of guidelines and training for staff (see below)

2.3 Staff Training
This will be key to ensure the site continues to be WCAG 2.0. compliant. Accessibility workshops for staff (those who post content to the website) will be given by a team of accessibility experts from Balance Interactive. The sessions will focus on creating usable web pages that are WCAG 2.0 compliant. Both Lia and I will be trained on how to train staff in this area, ensuring that we can conduct this type of training on a regular basis moving forward.

2.4 Testing by People with Disabilities
To be a flagship for accessibility, it is critical to involve people with disabilities in the testing. We'll be using a vendor who specializes in this type of testing - Knowbility (http://www.knowbility.org/). This testing ensures a representative variety of disabilities and assistive technology used. 

2.5 Responsive Design
Accessibility is not just for people with disabilities. In a broader sense, accessible design also helps serve content to a variety of devices, across several connection speeds. The goal is to ensure that our site has different layouts for different devices. For accessibility purposes, we will be able to display alternative text, links to transcripts, and lower resolution for slower connections.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Dan

Dan Graham
Director, Online Marketing
Internet Society

Office: +41 22 809 0368
Mobile: +41 78 757 9943

www.internetsociety.org
www.twitter.com/internetsociety
www.youtube.com/internetsocietyvideo



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20130304/a8d99adc/attachment.htm>