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Re: automatic document testing

for

From: Shuttlesworth, Rachel
Date: Oct 25, 2011 8:27PM

Hi, all.

We have been asked to develop a plan to make all of our online materials accessible, including all of the readings, documents, etc. in the learning management system. I appreciate that we will need someone who knows the subject matter to adequately describe graphics and we will have that, but my question is even more basic:

If you were starting from a few thousand online classes filled with documents like powerpoints, PDFs, Word documents, html or other files that is mostly text with some images, how would you go about making them accessible? Where would we find a checklist or some other steps letting us know what all we need to do?

Any advice, resources, ideas are most welcome. BTW, We are sending several folks to the Accessing Higher Ground conference in November to try to get as prepared as we can for this endeavor. I hope some of you will be there!

Thanks,
Rachel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Rachel Shuttlesworth Thompson
Director, Emerging Technologies and Research, Center for Instructional Technology
University of Alabama
Box 870346 * Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0346
205.348.0216


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Bevi Chagnon
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 1:55 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] automatic document testing

Lucy,
First, my condolences. You're in a hard place!

Automated accessibility checkers and remediation software can have severe shortcomings. One example that can help make the point to your boss is Alt-text on graphics. I reviewed a government client's PDFs that had been automatically remediated with a tool (sorry, don't remember the company or
name) which created Alt-text for all graphics in the PDF. Every graphic -- including photos, logos, informational charts, and decorative stuff that should have been labeled artifacts -- had the same Alt-text, "Graphic."

Technically the graphics had Alt-text but just the word "graphic" isn't useful or accurate, and definitely shouldn't be tolerated for accessibility standards.

I doubt we'll have a tool anytime soon that can objectively and accurately determine the Alt-text for graphics. That still takes a trained, intelligent human being to write Alt-text and a few minutes of labor.

--Bevi Chagnon

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Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED>
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-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lucy Greco
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 2:04 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List ( <EMAIL REMOVED> )
Subject: [WebAIM] automatic document testing

Hello:
I have been given the task of helping users provide accessible documents.
The more I tell my director that the task of providing accessible documents is not an easy three step process the more he wants a simple way to check the accessibility of documents and quick fix. Does anyone have a tool that
will check PDF files and indicate if the document is accessible. And if it
is not accessible what to fix in it. I tried the web aim instructions on how to create accessible files but was told they were too complicated. Someone please help me find a way to give a simple answer to a hard problem thanks Lucy