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Thread: position description
Number of posts in this thread: 8 (In chronological order)
From: Rachael M Kircher
Date: Thu, Jul 28 2005 7:41AM
Subject: position description
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I need to create a document that describes the knowledge, skills, and
abilities a person must have to be an accessible web designer. Does anyone
have descriptions they can share or ideas that should be on the list?
I know it must start with an understanding of Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act and any state mandates. I am just not sure where to
take it from there.
Thanks,
Rachael
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Rachael Kircher
AgrAbility Project Coordinator
Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service
Oklahoma State University
211 Ag Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
405.744.2398
fax: 405-744-6059
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.agrability.okstate.edu
From: Christian Heilmann
Date: Thu, Jul 28 2005 7:45AM
Subject: Re: position description
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On 7/28/05, Rachael M Kircher < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> I need to create a document that describes the knowledge, skills, and
> abilities a person must have to be an accessible web designer. Does anyone
> have descriptions they can share or ideas that should be on the list?
>
> I know it must start with an understanding of Section 508 of the
> Rehabilitation Act and any state mandates. I am just not sure where to take
> it from there.
Careful there, I interviewed people who could recite the DDA, 508 and
the WCAG to me, and new _nothing_ about implementing them properly. A
good "accessible" web developer needs to know the theory and how to
implement it in the real dirty user agent world.
I started showing them pages we had done and asked them to tell me how
they would test for accessibility, what are problems on the pages and
how they would tackle them.
--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Thu, Jul 28 2005 8:28AM
Subject: RE: position description
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> I know it must start with an understanding of Section 508 of
> the Rehabilitation Act and any state mandates.
I'd say that it should end there. Those are pretty minor things...typically
just reading through some documentation. Much more important, IMHO, is
understanding the overall philosphy of the web and how the medium lends
itself to accessible content distribution.
I'd rather have an employee that embraces that and is willing to experiement
as needed to get those results rather than someone that can recite some
generic documentation.
Maybe to start with, just ask them if they are on the WebAIM mailing list.
;o)
-Darrel
From: Mark Magennis
Date: Thu, Jul 28 2005 8:29AM
Subject: RE: position description
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I would add user insight to your list Rachel. Some people are better
than others at seeing things from the perspective of other web users -
users who may have very different abilities, experiences and attitudes
from their own. To make sites that work for a wide range of users
(unless they are very simple sites you are making), you have to develop
an ability to consider a design option and be able to judge whether it
will work in practice. This takes a lot more than just technical
knowledge.
One of the things that can help people build user insight is experience.
Experience of having met, observed and talked to many different users,
including users with disabilities and users of assistive technologies.
So I would add that kind of experience to your list.
It reminds me of a system administrator I had at a company I used to
work for. He was brilliant at figuring out what was wrong with my PC and
the problem always seemed to lie in a completely different place from
the one my 'logical problem solving' approach had led me to suspect. One
day I asked him how he figured it out. He touched his nose and said "I
smell it". His view was that PCs are far too complex to be logical, you
just need to have insight and 'smell', based on experience and empathy.
Mark
From: Glenda Watson Hyatt
Date: Thu, Jul 28 2005 2:22PM
Subject: RE: position description
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Hi Rachel,
Several months ago, with input from WebAIM members, I came up with a list of
criteria for when selecting external web desiigners /developers claiming to
have accessibility know-how. Here it is:
Below is a checklist to assist you through the RFP and selection process.
Here, candidate means individual or company.
q In your RFP, specify your organizations Web Accessibility Policy
and make it clear that the successful candidate will be required to comply
with it.
q Have candidates demonstrate their knowledge of Web accessibility
issues and knowledge and/or experience in developing sites that meet
generally agreed upon guidelines, i.e. the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 1.0.
q Ask candidates how they test accessibility of sites.
Possible responses include:
From: Graham Cook
Date: Sat, Jul 30 2005 9:20PM
Subject: RE: position description
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The term "understanding of section 508" is the crux of the problem. I
suggest that you should change this to something like "demonstrate the
practical application of section 508..". When I was training accessibility
in a major corporation recently I created a visually good looking web page
that had 34 accessibility problems. The students were required to identify
a minimum of 10 problems. Most people identified 15-25 issues, and only one
person identified all issues. (The task typically took 15-20 minutes). You
could also do this for a sample css.
By giving your prospective people a task like this you can get a good idea
of what they know and where their strengths and weaknesses are. It also
overcomes the problem of theory only applicants.
Regards
Graham Cook
Uaoz.com
_____
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Rachael M Kircher
Sent: Thursday, 28 July 2005 11:42 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Subject: [WebAIM] position description
I need to create a document that describes the knowledge, skills, and
abilities a person must have to be an accessible web designer. Does anyone
have descriptions they can share or ideas that should be on the list?
I know it must start with an understanding of Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act and any state mandates. I am just not sure where to take
it from there.
Thanks,
Rachael
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Rachael Kircher
AgrAbility Project Coordinator
Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service
Oklahoma State University
211 Ag Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
405.744.2398
fax: 405-744-6059
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.agrability.okstate.edu
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Mon, Aug 01 2005 9:21AM
Subject: RE: position description
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> When I was training accessibility in a major
> corporation recently I created a visually good looking web
> page that had 34 accessibility problems. The students were
> required to identify a minimum of 10 problems
That's be a fun test to look at. ;o)
-Darrel
From: Graham Cook
Date: Tue, Aug 02 2005 6:00AM
Subject: RE: position description
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Here's the page that links to the "problem" page:
http://www.uaoz.com/training.cfm
I welcome all comment on the assessment page or on my site, however I would
just like to pre-empt site comments, my site is still under development and
is NOT yet quite ready for general site evaluation, but any constructive
comments will be taken on board.
Graham Cook
Uaoz.com