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Re: Chronicle of Higher Education article "Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online" and titling a web page

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From: Gunderson, Jon R
Date: Dec 13, 2010 3:24PM


The tools really tests best practices for web accessibility that we have developed working with web developers on campus, other universities and state government.

The tool was designed to help web developers understand and validate to design for accessibility.

All of the rules can be mapped back into WCAG 2.0.

I should remind people that both WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 techniques documents are not normative in the W3C sense, they are just suggestions by the working group on how to implement the success criteria of WCAG 2.0.

If you don't consider accessibility at design time, then developers will be looking at anyway to satisfy a requirement without having to change their web pages very much, even if it does not significantly improve accessibility.

The report shows that most pages do not even have the markup for accessibility, forms controls has the most notable deficiencies.

http://webaccessibility.cita.illinois.edu/data/

All guidelines require labeling form controls, including WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0 and even Section 508.

We need accessible design if we really want accessibility to make a difference for most people with disabilities.

Jon

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Richard R. Hill
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 4:06 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Chronicle of Higher Education article "Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online" and titling a web page

Nevertheless, the FAE tool actually tests against the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act Implementation Guidelines for Web-Based Information and Applications 1.0. This means there are some unique requirements that this tool tests for that tools testing against international or national standards won't evaluate. Not saying you're state best practices are wrong, just that folks designing to other standards or practices may not rate as highly in some areas using just your tool.

---------------------------------------
Rick Hill

From: "Gunderson, Jon R" < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Reply-To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:54:59 -0800
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Chronicle of Higher Education article "Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online" and titling a web page

Many developers consider reserving the H1 header as a best practice for titling a web page, not just people in Illinois.

While it may not be explicit technique in WCAG or Section 508 I think many web developers and most people with disabilities would consider it a best practice for titling, since it provides a consistent means for speech users to find the title of the page.


The rules in FAE are based on what provides the best experience for people with disabilities, but also makes sense for developers to implement.

We also mostly work with developers at the design stages where the titling rules are easy to implement and get into the templates for the website, if rules like this one at not done at design time, most developers would find it hard (i.e. resist fixing the problem) since it would require touching a lot of pages.

If you approach accessibility as a repair process you will not like tools like FAE, since the rules in FAE can only be efficiently implemented in the design stages.

New ARIA landmark technologies will provide alternatives to using H1 for titling, but the best practices for using ARIA landmarks and headings are still evolving. The ARIA landmarks will provide people doing accessible repair more options for fixing their pages, but they will still need to touch most pages.

Data for the web sites tested can be found here:
http://webaccessibility.cita.illinois.edu/data/

Over 23,000 pages were tested at 183 universities.

The rules that were tested on each page can be found here:
https://fae.cita.illinois.edu/about/rules/

I am interested in what other people consider their best practices for titling a web page?

Jon



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> > [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Richard R. Hill
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 3:24 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Chronicle of Higher Education article "Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online"

Note that the FAE tool test for certain rules that are specific to that tool (not generally required or labelled as a best practice by other Web standards). For instance, the FAE tool marks folks down for have more than one H1 on a page. This is a Illinois rule, not a W3C or 508 rule. SO, those who adhere to more of these will have slightly higher rankings.

Still unclear as to the scope and depth of the pages/sites tested.
---------------------------------------
Rick Hill, Web CMS Administrator
University Communications, UC Davis


From: "Gunderson, Jon R" < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Reply-To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:44:19 -0800
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Chronicle of Higher Education article "Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online"

I used the Illinois Functional Accessibility Evaluator to evaluate the websites:

http://fae.cita.illinois.edu

It is free tool.

If your register will allow you test multiple pages:

http://fae.cita.illinois.edu/accounts/register/

Each rule in the report will provide details about what it is actually testing:

http://fae.cita.illinois.edu/about/rules/

Jon


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> > [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Cliff Tyllick
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 12:27 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Chronicle of Higher Education article "Colleges Lock Out Blind Students Online"

Jon, can you tell us more about the methods used to determine the rankings in the chart?
The footnotes clue us in to what was measured, but was this done with an automated tool? With scores of volunteers?
And what are common examples of failure on each measure? For example, would a site pass or fail on "site name readable on all pages" if the one identifier common to all pages is the school logo (with alt text) at upper left? Or were you looking for the site name to be included in each page's title tag?
Thanks!
Cliff
Cliff Tyllick
Usability assessment coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >


On 12/13/2010 at 11:32 AM, in message
< <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >>,
"Gunderson, Jon R" < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ><mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >> wrote:
Chronicle of Higher Education article "Colleges Lock Out Blind Students
Online":

http://chronicle.com/article/Blind-Students-Demand-Access/125695/



And a sidebar about Cal State*s success:

http://chronicle.com/article/Cal-States-Strong-Push-for/125683/



Chart ranking the best and worst college web sites:

http://chronicle.com/article/BestWorst-College-Web/125642/




Jon Gunderson