Using WAVE for Group-Wide Accessibility

Aaron Andersen - Lead Engineer, WAVE

Diogenes Hernandez - Software Engineer, WAVE

March 27, 2010. 25th Annual CSUN Conference.

PDF Version of Slides

Tiny Introduction to Web Accessibility

Web accessibility: web content usable by people with disabilities.

Tiny Introduction to WAVE

• Accessibility is often determined by the invisible aspects of a page
• WAVE makes those invisible aspects visible

Congratulations!

• You now know enough to start using WAVE.
• Next step: evaluate, test, fix, and verify every web page or resource in your organization.

Good Luck!

Just Kidding

• A single person cannot achieve web accessibility in an entire organization!
  • Too much work
  • New content being created
  • Content "owned" by other people

Accessibility First Steps

Start making accessible content now.

Web accessibility won't happen unless content is created accessible to begin with.

• Priority for existing content
  • Templates
  • Landing pages
  • Primary sequences

Creating Accessible Content

Web accessibility won't happen unless content is created accessible to begin with.

WAVE is most effective when used by the content author during content creation.

The primary obstacle to accessible web content that content creators don't care.

Common Mistakes

A few things that don't work (at least not by themselves)...

Mistake #1

Mistake #1: force everyone to learn about web accessibility.

Result: everyone has a detailed knowledge of all the things they're not doing.

Mistake #2

Mistake #2: make accessibility mandatory for all newly created content

If people see accessibility testing as pointless paperwork, they won't do it. They'll also hate you.

Mistake #3

Mistake #3: don't publish anything until it's been tested in WAVE

• There are lots of accessibility errors that WAVE can't detect.
• It's a lot easier to make WAVE errors go away than to actually fix them.

Mistake #4

Mistake #4: the dedicated accessibility person or task force

They're here to help.

But if nobody wants their help....

Your Accessibility Wizard...
...Becomes an Accessibility Enforcer

So how do you make it happen?

Help the content creators care!

People who want their content to be accessible will overcome obstacles to make it happen

Help the content creators care!

• Become familiar with the web content created or maintained by your organization
  • Learn about the underlying systems and technologies
  • HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, JSP, Blackboard, etc...
• Identify the content creators
  • Learn who the people are that create content for your website.
    • Programmers, Writers, Teachers, Marketers, Editors, Secretaries, Assistants, Managers, etc...
  • Find out what their actual jobs are and who they report to.
• Be friendly. Do everything possible to make people (especially the content creators) like you. :)
• Look for allies in high places
• Help the content creators understand that you (and their direct bosses) care about web accessibility
  • If either of the above aren't yet true, deal with that first
• Make it about the people
• We don't do this to avoid a lawsuit
• We don't do it to get government contracts
• We don't do it because it looks good on brochures
• We do it because it make a real difference to real people in the real world
• Introduce them to people with disabilities
• Web accessibility is an abstract theoretical concept until you know someone who actually relies on it.
• There are programmers, writers, marketers, and teachers with disabilities in your area.
• Make sure you find a nice person :)

Once Everyone is Convinced...

• Give everyone the chance to learn about web accessibility
• Make web accessibility a requirement
• Allow everything to be tested in WAVE
• Have a designated accessibility helper/team