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Thread: Testing current accessibility of an entire University
Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)
From: Diana Ratliff
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 5:56AM
Subject: Testing current accessibility of an entire University
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Hello! Short of spending months running every single page through BOBBY or
something, does anyone have any ideas on how to see how accessible a huge
website currently is? For benchmarking purposes? Would also like RECENT
data on general accessibility of universities as a backup document. Thank
you!
Diana Ratliff
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From: Steve Vosloo
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 7:27AM
Subject: RE: Testing current accessibility of an entire University
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I recently audited a 26 000 page site -- but only looked at 10 key
templates. We decided that it was best to pick a few templates that held
elements of the entire site, e.g. if Flash was used then one of the
templates audited would be a standard Flash page, and audit those pages
thoroughly (manual and automated testing). This then gives you an idea
of what the main issues are -- my audit report was broken down by WCAG
priority levels so it was easy for the client to make an informed
decision about which priority to adopt (given the budget and time
considerations). The task of retrofitting a large site can be divided
into template level and content level issues. Template level issues,
e.g. the ALT description of the ubiquitous Search button, are relatively
easy to fix (sometimes very easy), whereas content level issues, e.g.
ALT descriptions of academic diagrams, potentially require someone to
manually check every page ... A mammoth task.
Conducting an initial audit on a limited number of pages can also assist
you in creating a rollout plan, prioritising certain sections of the
site for retrofitting first.
Steve
From: Carol Foster
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 7:37AM
Subject: "Greater Than" symbols used for other things
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Just wondering about opinions on using the ">" symbol for things like crumb
separators and so forth. I notice the WebAIM site uses them, e.g. on
http://www.webaim.org/howto/captions/
We are working on a site where this symbol is used to point to the current
heading in the left nav. JAWS says "greater", which could be pretty
confusing. Should we go to the trouble of making a graphic version, as I
have heard suggested, with alt text something like "the current topic is:"?
Or any other suggestions?
Thanks!
Carol
--
Carol Foster, Web Developer
Internet Publishing Group, Information Technology Services
University of Massachusetts, President's Office
phone: (413) 587-2130
fax: (413) 587-2148
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.umass-its.net/ipg
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From: Carol Foster
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 7:45AM
Subject: opinions about e-commerce site
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Hi again,
I've been working with a consultant on an online donation form, and he came up
with some interesting ideas on how to identify errors in forms in a way that
may be more accessible to nonvisual users. But in some ways the manner we
ended up doing it may also be annoying to some folks. SO, I'd love to have
your opinions.
The test site is at http://www.appilistic.com/cgi-bin/giftform.cgi
You can try it out by going through the form and submitting a blank pr
filled-in-any-old-way form (or first page of the form) and "experiencing" the
errors. I don't want to post our "valid" test data to such a large audience,
but do contact me directly if you want to help out with more extensive testing
or comments/suggestions. (We were aiming for at least WAI Pri. 1, but the site
goes beyond that in several ways.)
Thanks!
Carol
--
Carol Foster, Web Developer
Internet Publishing Group, Information Technology Services
University of Massachusetts, President's Office
phone: (413) 587-2130
fax: (413) 587-2148
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.umass-its.net/ipg
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From: Jeff Rhodes
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 8:20AM
Subject: Re: opinions about e-commerce site
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I like what you have done, it works pretty good in jaws. A couple
things I noticed though:
1. when you present the errors on the field itself, jaws is reading the
  as just that (not a space). you may want to change that.
2. I think that the footnotes you have on the page are not required. I
would make those alt tags blank. If you think about it, a legend
would only apply to the sighted. You have noted that a field is
required on the field itself and the legend is not needed for jaws.
I really like how you handled this though.
On 26 Sep 2002 at 10:43, Carol Foster wrote:
> Hi again,
>
> I've been working with a consultant on an online donation form, and he came up
> with some interesting ideas on how to identify errors in forms in a way that
> may be more accessible to nonvisual users. But in some ways the manner we
> ended up doing it may also be annoying to some folks. SO, I'd love to have
> your opinions.
>
> The test site is at http://www.appilistic.com/cgi-bin/giftform.cgi
>
> You can try it out by going through the form and submitting a blank pr
> filled-in-any-old-way form (or first page of the form) and "experiencing" the
> errors. I don't want to post our "valid" test data to such a large audience,
> but do contact me directly if you want to help out with more extensive testing
> or comments/suggestions. (We were aiming for at least WAI Pri. 1, but the site
> goes beyond that in several ways.)
>
> Thanks!
> Carol
>
> --
> Carol Foster, Web Developer
> Internet Publishing Group, Information Technology Services
> University of Massachusetts, President's Office
> phone: (413) 587-2130
> fax: (413) 587-2148
> mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> http://www.umass-its.net/ipg
> --
>
>
> ----
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
>
Jeff Rhodes, Developer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Internet Association Corporation
www.iaccorp.com
voice: (330) 376-6006 x255
fax: (330) 376-3355
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thought for the day:
-no guts, no glory, no brain, same story.
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From: philip steven lanier
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 8:22AM
Subject: Re: Testing current accessibility of an entire University
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I have also done an accessibility analysis of a very large site. I would
recommend the following:
1) Familiarize yourself with accessibility guidelines, if you do not
already know them well. You should be able to look at a page and know
where the problem areas are going to be.
2) Do a content audit. Basically, take time to go through the site and
take inventory of what is there. You don't necessarily have to visit
every page, but you should make sure that you cover all the different
dimensions of what is represented on the site. For example, you should
make sure that you take stock of pages in different departments, course
home pages, library pages, student pages, etc, etc. Similarly, you should
make sure to well represent all the types of content (informational
pages, calendars, online forms, movies, documents, etc.). Make sure you
run the gamut of things that are problem areas for accessibility (i.e.
data tables, images, javascript menus, applets, online forms, etc.)
3) Evaluate the accessibility of a representative sample of the pages on
the site. Having done the content audit to direct what pages you
evaluate, you will also be able to report, for example, that "course
homepages are especially inaccessible, whereas library pages appear to be
much better. One problem that is prevalent across all areas of the site
is the use of..." (You get the idea.)
4) If there are any elements that are global across all pages or a large
portion of the site (such as a top navigation bar), evaluate this element
especially critically. Also, eveluate top-level pages in the site
critically.
Hope this helps!
Philip Lanier
University of Washington
On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Diana Ratliff wrote:
> Hello! Short of spending months running every single page through BOBBY or
> something, does anyone have any ideas on how to see how accessible a huge
> website currently is? For benchmarking purposes? Would also like RECENT
> data on general accessibility of universities as a backup document. Thank
> you!
>
> Diana Ratliff
>
>
>
> ----
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
>
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From: Glenda Watson Hyatt
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 11:33AM
Subject: RE: Testing current accessibility of an entire University
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This is a very timely thread. I'm waiting to hear on a contract that would
involve making a provincial government's website accessible within four
months.
I'm thinking the process should be something like:
- do a sample audit, hopefully there are templates involves, but also look
at the content, to discover where the problems are
- revise the internal Internet policies to reflect current web accessibility
standards
- develop a plan to implement new policy, perhaps prioritize the changes and
start with the top ten percent more commonly visited pages and then work
down from there
- and do informal accessibility training along the way to bring everyone
onboard
Anything I missed? Any other suggestions?
Didn't WAI have something on how to write an Implementation plan? Couldn't
find it last night.
Thanks,
Glenda
*********
Glenda Watson Hyatt
Soaring Eagle Communications
"Creating freedom and power through accessible communications"
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Website: http://www.eaglecom.bc.ca
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>
From: Carol Foster
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 12:53PM
Subject: Re: Testing current accessibility of an entire University
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I recall that Jakob Nielsen has a nice approach to prioritizing accessibility
upgrades in the chapter on accessibility in his book Designing Web Usability:
The Practice of Simplicity
I haven't looked at it in a while and don't have a copy to hand, but my best
guess is it is in "Conclusion: Pragmatic Accessibility" at the end of Chapter 6,
the accessibility chapter. The Table of Contents and some more stuff about the
book are at
http://www.useit.com/jakob/webusability/
Carol
--
Carol Foster, Web Developer
Internet Publishing Group, Information Technology Services
University of Massachusetts, President's Office
phone: (413) 587-2130
fax: (413) 587-2148
mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
http://www.umass-its.net/ipg
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From: Frank Gaine
Date: Thu, Sep 26 2002 1:19PM
Subject: RE: Testing current accessibility of an entire University
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Philip's observations are spot on. Let's not forget, doing an accessibility
audit of a large site is quite a time-consuming job. You really have to be
sure that you have covered off every representative functionality. You just
might miss the most important aspect that may be the difference in
recommending retro fitting for accessibility and total redesign :0
Regards
Frank Gaine
Web Accessibility Consultant, United Kingdom