Accessibility WG Teleconference Minutes 12-13-2012

Attendees

The draft of accessibility help document has been sent to the group by Jane and Gonzalo.
The group agrees that the document looks well organized, and that an attempt has been made to not be assistive technology specific.
The group also agrees that they would like more time to explore the document.

Target for RC01 is next week.
There are 2 major bugs:
- a performance issue in Gradebook with groups. There is a workaround property to turn off the feature.
- The other is getting help documentation.
  - There are problems with how help the whole process works.
  - There aren’t a lot of translations for help documents.
There are also 70 other issues, 50 have been merged.
People are being asked to help retest the tickets to look for regressions around testing.
The Accessibility WG should retest fixes related to accessibility Jiras.
- Every issue has been tagged as 2.9.1 triage.
- A Google doc would be set up by Neal to indicate items that have been tested.
- Another label could be added as 2.9.1 retested or re-verified.
- The challenge with labels is not everyone updates them.
- When an issue has been tested by someone, that person can email Neal.

There are about 10 Jiras that will marked for inclusion into 2.9.1
There are other issues that did not get targeted at all, so perhaps they can be resolved in 2.9.2 release
Testing should continue as much as possible.
- Joe will work with Brian to make sure the test server gets updated with new test builds.
- Scott Williams and a Michigan student are working on testing as well.
Because of finals, collaborative testing will be pushed off to after Christmas break
Before Christmas break, the Accessibility WG will focus on tool review and once the RCs get release, reverify and do regression testing.

A good first step would be to have a general Sakai webinar explaining the differences between 2.9 and 2.8.
Neil is planning on doing webinars.
- This might give the group or Sakai community an opportunity to connect with other universities.
Also Neal sent out a call for security contact updates from schools to gain a fuller comprehension of who is currently using Sakai.
- If these schools have active disability departments, it might be an opportunity to start a discussion there.
Brian says if a list of institution names can be obtained, the Accessibility WG have a broad knowledge of who’s who in the accessibility world.

Jane received an inquiry about the general accessibility of the site added (not the Neoportal) Chat tool.
The review of the 2.8 chat room tool got passed on.
- Jane said it was generally helpful, though she has not heard anything from the person it got passed along to regarding if they thought it was helpful.
Because the majority of the content is text based, it is easy to find the updated content.
- There were some minor problems with content not being updated.
A version was built with ARIA live set to announce only the new pieces.
- At the time IE had a bug where it would announce everything but the new message.
- Firefox and VoiceOver would announce the new message.
- The WG felt that since IE and JAWs does the opposite of what it’s supposed to, it should not be included.
- But if there is ever an accessibility preference option, it would be useful.
- If it wasn’t working for a user, they could turn it off again.
Neal will bring up having three check boxes for Chat
- One that would add ARIA announcements to update the general participants list in Chat
- One that would announce general updates to the incoming messages
- A check box that would allow anyone to turn on or off a noise that would sound when a new message comes in (an audio tone)

Next Meeting January 10