Volunteers needed for accessibility heuristic evaluations

[Jon Gunderson]

Colin,
For these types of web applications the University of Illinois is developing automated tools for checking for the use of important accessibility markup basd on a best practices approach to implement Section 508 and W3C WCAG requirements.  The key tool is the Firefox Accessibility Extension can send the Document Object Model of the currently loaded web application (Sakai, Moodle, uPortal) and send it to FAE for an accessibility report.  This can provide a great first pass for developers in adding accessibility into their design process and freeing people with disabilities to do real usability testing on the technologies.

Developers have been very pleased with the reports because they provide specific information on changes they need to make in markup to improve accessibility.

Firefox Accessibility Extension:
http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu

Use the "Tools" -> "FAE Report" option to generate an accessibility report from Firefox Accessibility Extension.

Functional Accessibility Evaluator:
http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu

People may also be interested in a 2 day workshop on June 12th and 13th at the University of Illinois on the new W3C Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specifications.  These specifications are very important in making web applications more accessible:

http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/courses/aria/


Jon



  

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 19:39:59 -0400
>From: Colin Clark <colin.clark at utoronto.ca>  
>Subject: Volunteers needed for accessibility heuristic evaluations  
>To: fluid-work at fluidproject.org, accessibility at collab.sakaiproject.org, jasig-ue at lists.ja-sig.org
>
>Hi everyone,
>
>As you have probably heard, the Fluid project is working on a series of 
>heuristic evaluations of uPortal, Sakai, and Moodle. We're looking for 
>volunteers who are interested in helping out with the accessibility side 
>of these evaluations. This includes helping to define the accessibility 
>protocols, mentoring others on accessibility practices, and helping to 
>actually review the software applications.
>
>Heuristic evaluations are an easy and low-cost way to assess the user 
>interface of an application, identifying usability and accessibility 
>problems based on recognized principles or heuristics.
>
>You can find out more about heuristic evaluations in the Fluid wiki:
>
>http://tinyurl.com/2by6c2
>
>We've got a great group of accessibility experts--coordinated by Mike 
>Elledge at MSU--who can help with training and advice if you're 
>interested in getting involved but need a bit of guidance in the process.
>
>Please let me know if you're interested in helping out,
>
>Colin
>
>-- 
>Colin Clark
>Technical Lead, Fluid Project
>Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
>http://fluidproject.org
>
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Jon Gunderson, Ph.D.
Director of IT Accessibility Services (CITES)
and 
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology (DRES)

WWW: http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/
WWW: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/jongund/www/