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Thread: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Jennison Mark Asuncion
Date: Mon, Nov 10 2014 9:28AM
Subject: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?
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Hi,
Olivier Nourry published a blog post today based on a Twitter
conversation sparked by a tweet from Victor Tsaran and responded to by
Steve Faulkner. What followed was good conversation that I figure
would be of interest to folks here.
http://accessiblog.fr/2014/11/accessibility-complain-or-fix
Jennison
--
Jennison Mark Asuncion
LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jennison
Follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com/jennison
Organizer, Bay Area Accessibility and Inclusive Design www.meetup.com/a11ybay
Organizer, Accessibility Camp Bay Area www.accessibilitycampbay.org
Co-Founder, Global Accessibility Awareness Day
www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org
From: Jordan Wilson
Date: Mon, Nov 10 2014 10:44AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?
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Thanks for sharing Jennison, its always good to be self-reflective.
For some reason this topic gets me going.
I would suggest that this community is at a point in its evolution where
education is paramount. Often the complaints¹ we see are frustration
because of a lack of knowledge/understanding. But it goes both ways -
educating others about our interests, but also being educated ourselves in
how the interactive industry works and having reasonable expectations
about how we can effect change and support the community.
When I got into accessibility it took me 6 months to get to a point where
I felt like I had a basic handle on things - the legal jargon, the various
standards, the technical solutions etc. Still, I am by no means an expert.
Its not humanly possible for everyone to spend as much time as we do - or
for every project to devote unlimited time/effort. The onus is on us to
make hard decisions and find the best ways to simplify that information
and educate others.
Where are the resources to help producers/developers get up to speed
quickly? What¹s the entry level of information people need to be
effective? What tools can we provide to make it easier? Where is the
outreach and support for interactive agencies? Accessibility for dummies
if you will.
I would encourage everyone in this community to be cognizant of the
resource and requirement demands on mainstream
designers/developers/producers and use that knowledge to effect how we
support/communicate with those who are not a11y experts.
/rant off
jordan
On 11/10/14, 11:28 AM, "Jennison Mark Asuncion"
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Olivier Nourry published a blog post today based on a Twitter
>conversation sparked by a tweet from Victor Tsaran and responded to by
>Steve Faulkner. What followed was good conversation that I figure
>would be of interest to folks here.
>http://accessiblog.fr/2014/11/accessibility-complain-or-fix
>
>Jennison
>
>--
>Jennison Mark Asuncion
>LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jennison
>Follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com/jennison
>Organizer, Bay Area Accessibility and Inclusive Design
>www.meetup.com/a11ybay
>Organizer, Accessibility Camp Bay Area www.accessibilitycampbay.org
>Co-Founder, Global Accessibility Awareness Day
>www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org
>>>
From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Mon, Nov 10 2014 11:12AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?
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I additionally feel very strongly that we need to make people
know that "fixing it" (whether that means submitting patches,
filing well-written bugs, testing, or something else) is welcome
and easy.
E.g.
1. Here is the bug tracker for JAWS / NaturallySpeaking /
VoiceOver. Here are instructions on how to write a good bug.
2. Here is the bug tracker for NVDA / Firefox / Gnome. Here are
instructions on how to write a good bug. Here are that
community's policies on whether or not they welcome patches from
outsiders. If you would like to submit a patch, here are the
documents you should read/IRC channels you should frequent/people
to whom you should reach out.
3. Here are the WAI webpages with the standards under
construction. Here's how you understand them, and here's how to
contribute. Here are the people to whom you should reach out if
you would like to be part of a standards conversation.
It's difficult enough to figure out how to "fix it" (and what
that even entails) for one product. The process for trying to
decipher what's going on for a multitude of products is very,
very intimidating for a lot of people. Additionally, many open
source communities are scary to newbies -- no, flat-out
terrifying. Using IRC if you are not used to it; reaching out in
an open source community were the first few responses you
might receive may very well be hostile or belittling; figuring
out how to file a bug against NaturallySpeaking without paying
money to Nuance: these are all difficult tasks, and we forget how
difficult they are because the people in this group happen to
know how to do most of them.
I think it would be really valuable for a group of people to
create a portal for "So, you found a bug in accessibility! How do
you help make sure it is fixed?" that helps people out with this
process. Ironically, given the spirit of this conversation, I am
not actually volunteering to do that.
Deborah Kaplan
From: Steve Faulkner
Date: Mon, Nov 10 2014 11:16AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?
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filing bugs (on browsers)
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/06/filing-bugs/
--
Regards
SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>;
On 10 November 2014 18:12, < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I additionally feel very strongly that we need to make people
> know that "fixing it" (whether that means submitting patches,
> filing well-written bugs, testing, or something else) is welcome
> and easy.
>
> E.g.
>
> 1. Here is the bug tracker for JAWS / NaturallySpeaking /
> VoiceOver. Here are instructions on how to write a good bug.
>
> 2. Here is the bug tracker for NVDA / Firefox / Gnome. Here are
> instructions on how to write a good bug. Here are that
> community's policies on whether or not they welcome patches from
> outsiders. If you would like to submit a patch, here are the
> documents you should read/IRC channels you should frequent/people
> to whom you should reach out.
>
> 3. Here are the WAI webpages with the standards under
> construction. Here's how you understand them, and here's how to
> contribute. Here are the people to whom you should reach out if
> you would like to be part of a standards conversation.
>
> It's difficult enough to figure out how to "fix it" (and what
> that even entails) for one product. The process for trying to
> decipher what's going on for a multitude of products is very,
> very intimidating for a lot of people. Additionally, many open
> source communities are scary to newbies -- no, flat-out
> terrifying. Using IRC if you are not used to it; reaching out in
> an open source community were the first few responses you
> might receive may very well be hostile or belittling; figuring
> out how to file a bug against NaturallySpeaking without paying
> money to Nuance: these are all difficult tasks, and we forget how
> difficult they are because the people in this group happen to
> know how to do most of them.
>
> I think it would be really valuable for a group of people to
> create a portal for "So, you found a bug in accessibility! How do
> you help make sure it is fixed?" that helps people out with this
> process. Ironically, given the spirit of this conversation, I am
> not actually volunteering to do that.
>
> Deborah Kaplan
>
> > > >
From: deborah.kaplan
Date: Mon, Nov 10 2014 11:23AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?
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Woo!
On Mon, 10 Nov 2014, Steve Faulkner wrote:
> filing bugs (on browsers)
> http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/06/filing-bugs/
>
>
>
> --
>
> Regards
>
> SteveF
> HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>;
>
> On 10 November 2014 18:12, < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> I additionally feel very strongly that we need to make people
>> know that "fixing it" (whether that means submitting patches,
>> filing well-written bugs, testing, or something else) is welcome
>> and easy.
>>
>> E.g.
>>
>> 1. Here is the bug tracker for JAWS / NaturallySpeaking /
>> VoiceOver. Here are instructions on how to write a good bug.
>>
>> 2. Here is the bug tracker for NVDA / Firefox / Gnome. Here are
>> instructions on how to write a good bug. Here are that
>> community's policies on whether or not they welcome patches from
>> outsiders. If you would like to submit a patch, here are the
>> documents you should read/IRC channels you should frequent/people
>> to whom you should reach out.
>>
>> 3. Here are the WAI webpages with the standards under
>> construction. Here's how you understand them, and here's how to
>> contribute. Here are the people to whom you should reach out if
>> you would like to be part of a standards conversation.
>>
>> It's difficult enough to figure out how to "fix it" (and what
>> that even entails) for one product. The process for trying to
>> decipher what's going on for a multitude of products is very,
>> very intimidating for a lot of people. Additionally, many open
>> source communities are scary to newbies -- no, flat-out
>> terrifying. Using IRC if you are not used to it; reaching out in
>> an open source community were the first few responses you
>> might receive may very well be hostile or belittling; figuring
>> out how to file a bug against NaturallySpeaking without paying
>> money to Nuance: these are all difficult tasks, and we forget how
>> difficult they are because the people in this group happen to
>> know how to do most of them.
>>
>> I think it would be really valuable for a group of people to
>> create a portal for "So, you found a bug in accessibility! How do
>> you help make sure it is fixed?" that helps people out with this
>> process. Ironically, given the spirit of this conversation, I am
>> not actually volunteering to do that.
>>
>> Deborah Kaplan
>>
>> >> >> >>
> > > >
>
--
From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Mon, Nov 10 2014 11:55AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility: Should we complain about it, or fix it?
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There are so many stakeholders in the accessibility world that it's
difficult to get them all to agree to anything!
1. The accessibility community who use assistive technologies. Depending
upon their disability, experience, particular A.T., and training, each has
his or her own idea of what makes a document accessible.
2. Content creators who use all sorts of software to create their websites,
publications, and digital media. They have varying levels of skill in using
that software, and more specifically, usually have even less knowledge about
how to use it to make accessible content.
3. Their bosses or employers who make the decision to provide the content
creators with the right software tools to make accessible content and the
related training. Software needs to be up-to-date (an expense to the
employer) and their staff needs training (another expense).
4. The manufacturers of content-creating software, such as Microsoft and
Adobe. They have to build the tools for making accessible content into their
programs and all of them are lacking some key features, making it impossible
to make some content fully accessible without spending a gazillion hours
hand formatting it.
5. The manufacturers of assistive technologies, browsers, and "reading"
devices. They have to be dedicated to continually improve their tools,
adding more features for their customers, and also revising how their AT
will respond to new standards and technologies/media.
6. The standards-makers, namely W3C and WAI. They have to continually revise
their work for new media and technologies. They also need to reach out to
all of the above stakeholders because these standards are voluntary-you
recruit volunteers rather than waiting for them to come to you. There also
are too many accessibility standards/guidelines that overlap and confuse
those trying to make accessible content-WCAG, DAISY, ARIA, PDF/UA are all
valid standards, but it's unrealistic to have all of the stakeholders above
know these standards and their nuances, and build compliance into their
content. It's too much for a normal workerbee to get a handle on!
For many of these stakeholders, accessibility it a costly burden in one way
or another.
What can we do to make accessibility easier to do, faster to implement, and
less costly to the stakeholders?
-Bevi Chagnon
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