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Thread: Mailman accessibility
Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)
From: Laura Carlson
Date: Tue, Aug 09 2005 11:09AM
Subject: Mailman accessibility
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Our campus recently converted our mailing lists from the ListProc
server to a new Mailman server. There are some advantages, including
automatic archiving of posts.
One thing that does concern me however, is that the Mailman general
list information page [1] and the user specific options page do not
validate and are not accessible. For instance when the end user views
the pages they get form labels that are not explicitly associated with
their controls. Most of culprit HTML in question is actually pulled
from the python code which I do not have access to as a list
administrator.
Our web master/systems administrator says that "It would be best if the
Mailman developers edit the code, otherwise we will be in a state of
code drift, making it difficult or impossible to upgrade later." He
also says that "We didn't create the pages, we only provide them via a
product, hence we are not in violation of any [accessibility] policies."
That was an eye opener. The fact that we didn't create the mailman
software but just host the resulting inaccessible pages get us "off the
hook". I really hate to link the inaccessible pages with the theme of
the list that I run advocating accessibility, usability, and web
standards.
Anyway I have tried to clean up some of the markup (i.e. the markup not
in python) that I have access to as a list administrator. But I don't
have access to a lot of the markup like form inputs to add id
attributes. I have also incorporated directions into the general
information page for subscribing/unsubscribing by email. And I have
contacted the Mailman developers list and asked that Web Accessibility
be added to the Mailman wish list. [3]
I have noticed that WebAim uses Mailman for this list. Any words of
wisdom or advice from the WebAim list administrators or anyone else
regarding Mailman accessibility?
Thank you very much,
Laura
[1] http://lists.d.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/webdev
[2] http://lists.d.umn.edu/mailman/options/webdev
[3]
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-developers/2005-August/018178.
html
___________________________________________
Laura L. Carlson
Information Technology Systems and Services
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, MN, U.S.A. 55812-3009
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/
From: WebAIM
Date: Tue, Aug 09 2005 11:09AM
Subject: Re: Mailman accessibility
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> Any words of
> wisdom or advice from the WebAim list administrators or anyone else
> regarding Mailman accessibility?
We spent a fair amount of time customizing the user administration pages
to implement accessibility and usability. Most of the changes (as you
note) are beyond the simple HTML templates that are provided. I had to do
a lot of work in the Python code to get form labels, change styles, etc.
While finding the correct files can be daunting, the actual modifications
themselves were not too difficult.
You'll notice that our user page -
http://list.webaim.org/mailman/listinfo/webaim-forum - is much simpler
than the default and has form labels and our own styles applied. As there
are a lot of pages and options, it's likely that I missed some. We also
built forms on our own pages - http://webaim.org/discussion/ - that allow
you to do much of the administration without interfacing too much with the
Mailman templates.
We also use a custom built archiving tool, rather than the archive
provided within Mailman.
With that said, getting the Mailman developers to implement accessibility
will surely be the best remedy. I've posted several recommendations to
their developers list. If enough people ask for it, I believe they will
make the relatively minor changes needed to improve accessibility.
Jared Smith
WebAIM.org
From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Tue, Aug 09 2005 11:08AM
Subject: Re: Mailman accessibility
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Laura Carlson wrote:
> Our web master/systems administrator says that "It would be best if the
> Mailman developers edit the code, otherwise we will be in a state of
> code drift, making it difficult or impossible to upgrade later." He also
> says that "We didn't create the pages, we only provide them via a
> product, hence we are not in violation of any [accessibility] policies."
>
> That was an eye opener. The fact that we didn't create the mailman
> software but just host the resulting inaccessible pages get us "off the
> hook".
Without sounding critical, does this sysadmin speak with any kind of
authority? It sounds rather strange to me that such a clause exists.
Shouldn't there be some sort of procurement policy clearly stating that
only accessible systems should be put in place?
Call me naive, but this sounds like too large a loophole.
--
Patrick H. Lauke
___________
re
From: Laura Carlson
Date: Tue, Aug 09 2005 1:54PM
Subject: Mailman accessibility
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--On Tuesday, August 9, 2005 Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> It sounds rather strange to me that such a clause exists.
> Shouldn't there be some sort of procurement policy clearly stating
> that only accessible systems should be put in place?
You are right Patrick. I did some checking around and found:
http://cap.umn.edu/ait/software/index.html
It states:
"Software to be developed, purchased or acquired by the University of
Minnesota shall be accessible for use by persons with disabilities.
'Software' is not limited to assistive applications used by people with
disabilities, but rather it applies to the development, procurement,
maintenance, or use of all commercially available and newly developed
software applications."
--On Tuesday, August 9, 2005 Jared Smith wrote:
Thank you for the insight and tips Jared.
> With that said, getting the Mailman developers to implement
> accessibility will surely be the best remedy. I've posted several
> recommendations to their developers list. If enough people ask for
> it, I believe they will make the relatively minor changes needed to
> improve accessibility.
I agree Jared, if a number of people ask for it, accessibility in
Mailman might get some attention. If anyone else wants post
recommendations, the mailman-developers mailing list is at:
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers
The "Wish List Request for Mailman Web Accessibility" thread is at:
http://tinyurl.com/ey8tu
>From what I have experienced, accessibility is often the last thing on
some web developers's minds. most people want to do the right thing
once they know how. Designing for accessibility presents a challenge
even for experienced developers. Many people who have been doing this
for years have no clue how to make their pages accessible. One of the
primary reasons for this is lack of knowledge.
By lack of knowledge, I mean several things. The first of these is that
most developers aren't even aware there is a problem. For instance they
don't know what their pages are like if you can't see the graphics or
access forms. Without realizing there is any sort of a problem, they
may be unaware that their sites are not accessible to a relatively
large number of people.
Of course, once they become aware that a problem exists, they may be
ignorant in a second way -- how to fix the problem. This is why support
from the accessible community is so important. In order to produce
sites with good accessibility considerations, developers need to know
what those considerations are.
Best regards,
Laura
___________________________________________
Laura L. Carlson
Information Technology Systems and Services
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, MN, U.S.A. 55812-3009
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/
From: Joseph O'Connor
Date: Fri, Aug 12 2005 11:12AM
Subject: Mailman accessibility
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Laura,
That is an incorrect interpretation of the law. All software, whether
purchased or not, must be accessible. Pushing the developer to make a
product accessible should start before the purchase. Unfortunately,
there are many circumstances like yours, where someone in the
organization makes a purchase and the software is implemented before
the access issues are identified. At the college I work at I formed
an Abilities Taskforce, and the first people we invited to the
meeting were reps from the purchasing department. They immediately
added language to the system that makes it impossible for a vendor to
avoid the issue of accessibility.
Joseph O'Connor
Laura Carlson wrote:
> Our web master/systems administrator says that "It would be best if
> the Mailman developers edit the code, otherwise we will be in a
> state of code drift, making it difficult or impossible to upgrade
> later." He also says that "We didn't create the pages, we only
> provide them via a product, hence we are not in violation of any
> [accessibility] policies."