Accessibility WG Teleconference Minutes 05-09-2010

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Accessibility WG Teleconference Minutes - May 9, 2010

Attendees

* Joe Humbert - Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
* Apple Suwannawut - Indiana University Bloomington
* Mike Elledge - Michigan State University
* Brian Richwine - Indiana University Bloomington
* Mary Stores - Indiana University Bloomington
* Joe Newcomer - Johns-Hopkins University
* Denise O'Sullivan - Johns Hopkins University
* Margaret Londergan - Indiana University Bloomington
* Gonzalo Silverio - University of Michigan

Sakai 2.7 Accessibility Review

* The Sakai 2.7 release is in the final stages.
* 2.7 tool tests conducted: all high-priority tools have been tested.
* Forums and Wiki will be tested next week by Mary and Brian.

Outstanding Jira Ticket Items

* No updates.
*Mary and Brian searched for accessibility components and identified tickets that need to be closed.
* It's too late for 2.7, and we will be looking at what items can be fixed by the maintenance team.
** Functionality changes need to be bumped back to the next full release.
** If it doesn't involve functionality or UI, flag it for 2.7.x.
** Those need prioritizing. Mary, Brian and Gonzalo will help.
* Brian will send e-mail to Alan Berg and Peter Nupe in order to get permission to access to the bug list for Mary and Brian.
** The Person monitoring Jira as well as the person monitoring the ticket should have access to flag the tickets.
** Since Joe Humbert put in a lot of tickets, he'd be willing to help
* There will be a separate meeting to go over Jira tickets for 2.7, Jira tickets, and appended Jira tickets.• 
y3. Accessibility Statement for Sakai 2x
* Mary and Brian wrote a statement, and Brian e-mailed it to the WG list this morning.
* Feedback regarding the statement via e-mail would be appreciated.

Statement feedback From Teleconference Participants  

* Denise said the looks comprehensive.
* Gonzalo was wondering about Level 2 A and AA success criteria and if WAI Aria usage can be conditional.
** Example: things that involve changing states or drag and drops.
** Gonzalo could add landmark regions to all documents, pages, etc. but WAI ARIA is only being added to the areas that would only be accessible without it such as multi-state check boxes and list reorders where you can use the mouse or keyboard to click and drag; select and dragable WAI aria atributes managed by JavavScript and user agent.
** Some of those things would be complicated. WAI-ARIA would only be added to functionalities would be unusable without it, not universally.
* The Working Group will mediate offline on how to rewrite the statement so reflect where accessibility features should be added...
* Instead of having A and AA success criteria, it might be good to have a formal list of all the guidelines.
* Gonzalo says that since this is a statement of intent, we should just leave it as is; it would be a big task to compare everything.
* Nate Angell had concerns about the last paragraph and he wondered how the evaluations would actually happen. Would it be the accessibility WG providing that service, and would that be reasonable to expect?

June Conference, Presentation, and Other Tasks to Accomplish

* Mary has been approved to go to the June conference.
* The presentation given by Mary, Brian and Eli will be on Tuesday (rescheduled to Wednesday since the last teleconference) to talk about practical accessibility.
** The target audience for this presentation would be developers, designers, and anyone who might have concern over accessibility.
** For advertising purposes, Brian should let Margaret Wagner know so that it can get into the next Sakai newsletter.
** Brian will also advertise the accessibility presentation to e-mail lists, such s UX list and to DAV and accessibility lists.
* A goal would be communication and direction in involvement in Sakai 3.
* Gonzalo says it would be good to get the foundation more involved in accessibility. It would be nice to get official recognition via resource allocation. Gonzalo doesn't know how to go about it.
* Joe Newcomer has gone to accessibility sessions at the June conference, and they are attended well.
** At the Fluid session, they did a good job to make it appeal to the people attending for assistance.
* It would also be nice to know how the normal QA process works.
** One of the things Mary and Brian have  learned going through Jira is accessibility is a different realm that one developers go through; if it's a bug, then code can be changed, but if it's an accessibility issue, the developers might know how to make a change, but there is no way of reproducing the problem.
** The WG needs to look at the standard QA process that the web developers are used to, and figure out what the accessibility WG can do to work with them and help them understand the issues.
* The UX group does a lot of usability testing as well. The WG should try and develop a relationship with them because UX is really involved in Sakai3.
* Bird of a feather sessions are usually created ad hoc. In order to have a BOF session, talk to the conference people on the table and ask for room, space and time during the conference.
* Over 200 people are registered for the conference; this is good before the conference begins.
* Regular sessions generally have from 15-20 to 120 people, and sometimes there is standing room only.
* Things to consider for accessibility presentation:
** Most people attend this type of presentation in order to get assurances because they are having to deal with the issue locally.
** Other people have a list of issues they want to discuss.
** Keep it non-technical.
** If you want to go into code development, make that a companion piece.
* Suggestions for screen-reader presentation:
** It's difficult to have the presentations work well because of internet connectivity; rather than having the presentation live, record something.
** Sakai could be run on Mary's laptop, or it could be run on ubunto with sun virtual machine.
** In this presentation, include a phase where a list of issues that are seen and can be realistically fixed in Sakai 3; maybe pick the top 10 issues and have a BOF meeting for that