on this page: Web Accessibility: The Basics and the Latest - Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility - Information Exchange on Web Accessibility Efforts - Feedback on Morning Presentations
Note: This session was open registration without participation criteria. Attendees are not listed. Minutes are not attributed to a specific person, with the exception of Judy Brewer, the facilitator.
meeting page: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2003/0718-training.html
Presentation by Shawn Lawton Henry. (Shawn's presentation material available online)
Presentation by Wendy Chisholm. (Wendy's presentation material available online)
About Shawn's presentation: Video of Neal was very enlightenting, presentation flowed, basic enough that she could repeat to executives - would "dumb it down" and condense for audience.
Wendy's presentation: Lightbulb - showing the WAVE reports and how they work for different teams.
Judy Brewer: What will you do differently?
Better foundation of accessibility and how to use it for our redeisgn. I am the Web analyst in IT from a delivery perspective, knew nothing on accessibility, now I'm the business liasion. Government organization, it's important to maintain accessibility . "expert" for the organization.
Both presentations were not boring and very positive, videos were great, can I have it? That's something we need, with the subtitles in French, it would work very well for the training we do. Example of accessibility in life, (curb cuts) and on the Web are parallel. Accessibility is "impossible" to many of our audiences. Need to make the effort, need to learn and change habits. It's a challenge and it's possible. (Great for Americans - they love challenges)
Love the pictures of people - age related example. "I'm not part of the group anymore." That's probably exactly how it feels to people who are disabled. Would love to have some training for graphics people, and there is so much to do. At Michigan state, Justin and Sharmaine and I have gotten a lot going that's really cool.
Shawn did one last October at the Rhode Island Institute of Design- wide variety of audiences. Designers are a key group they need to hit.
(background: UI designer, done desktop applications in the past, transitioning to Web applications, self taught on accessibility) Begging instructors in Web design courses to cover accessibility but they don't; frustrated with understanding some of the guidelines. I was expecting something different than what I got.
I wanted "to dos" I liked what you did, but you didn't need to convince me. I appreciated seeing Neal, and some of the exercises, but I need specifics. What is wrong with "click here" anyway? I would have to underline an entire paragraph. That was good. Specific suggestions and reasons why - for exaempl, why is CSSgood? How does assistive technology override my suggestions? I've heard about table layout being good and being bad. What about Flash? I've heard it's an issue, but I don't know what to do about it. Should I avoid Flash?
A 10 minute refresher on the need for accessibility, item by item, structured what to do with suggestions would be good. what to do, why, how
Certain things are just really unclear on the W3C Web site. I come away wondering what really is the best way to deal with this. Fro example, the bar graph that Shawn showed, that was complicated, alt text would not cover that. I would like to see real suggestions of what to do with complex graphics that carry a lot of info.
I appreciated the emphasis on evaluate early and often. High cost of changing things, I'm a production person, changes early on are cheap - very helpful.
Treatment of different types of evaluation tools covered was too global and cursory. These are new to me. A bit of experience with LIFT, no experience with the others. Maybe take the baseball and stock scores and show it in the different tools to illustrate. I thought it was great to have "dummied up" a site with all these errors.
Shawn's training was excellent, I have conducted 7 or 8 training sessions for [my company] from across the globe. But I realize there is a lot I can do after listening to Shawn's training. Image without alt text- what is the impact to disabled users. the color issue, etc. If they could cover the top 10 items that would make a site accessible to different users would be fantastic with similar examples and key requirements. Go from 1.5 to 3 hours.
Tools expect correct HTML; didn't mention that WCAG 2.0 is generally applicable to other applications (like XML)
I came from Washington DC and I hate to fly but I'm glad I came. I work for a nonprofit. We had an intern who came up with WAI as a resource. I think we did one of our pages through Bobby. That's when we found out our own accessibility thing was not working. I wear many hats, it's a non-profit, so I'm a Webmaster, and graphic designer, etc. I'd like to see a class for nonprofits that may not be as technical. We have a conference every January and I'd like to set something up. Found out about it from the Web site.
I had a friend who works for a nonprofit organization conference, and they didn't think it was relvant.
Great lead-in. we got some of these talks in small bits, and it's great to get the full thing.
Shawn: This is not the full thing, the full thing is 3 days.
Yeah, but it was great to see something bigger than the bits we saw yesterday, with the flow. Difficult to meet the expectations of everyone who was attending. some wanted technical, some wanted non-techncial, some wanted the business case. Where you landed was good enough for everyone to get something out of it. One thing to think about: maybe a video of presentations once you get it where you like what's being said, you could be more targeted.
In terms of making a video, I wouldn't mind getting a little more ambitious with that - getting into graphcis. Cognitive disabilities need more visibility and exploration in what we can do there. I really liked the illustration of how graphics are contextual.
I don't have any exact expectations, I was interested as a disabled user, I have a lot of experience with what doesn't work, I have learned a lot from Doyle how to talk about what doesn't work and how to fix it, and I'm interested in doing some work in training, and making Web sites more accessible, either assessing or creating. I was impressed with how clear you were about articulating the issues, and what to do about them. It was not dry and I could understand it, and you don't have to have a lot of technical knowledge to understand things that can obviously get very complex. The overview was very good.
I really liked that Wendy talked about the different tools in a more general way, because I didn't have any real specifics about what the tools can do, a lot of them aren't accessible anyway. I hope you have more trainings and I get to come.
Wendy had mentioned three different types evaluate, repair and both. Giving a little bit more in-depth overview of an example of each one, if that's even possible.
Commenting on what Harvey said about WCAG and how it applies to different technologies (like XML) but also other technologies altogether.
Wendy's presentation was so short and there was so much covered that I didn't take much away from that.
I would echo that. I have seen some of the tools. I would like to see a comparison table, and the features and functionality.
Judy Brewer: This is a tricky thing because Shawn and Wendy work for a vendor-neutral organziation and they can't say this tool does this or that one falls on its face. We're hoping to help that by creating an EARL wrapper that will create some consistency. But getting into the Wish List section, and I promise that I can do that. SOmetimes we can get external organziations that have the ability to do that. There are hands flinging up, I don't want to constrain the situation too much
I was most impressed with Wendy's grid that compared accessibility tools with spell checkers. She was very smooth with all that, and she didn't scare me. I would have liked a few more visual pictures to jazz it up a little bit.
Next week my workgroup is looking at a vendor's product, and I'd like to understand what we can do about evaluating a product. I'm not talking about the particular tool, but the criteria for selecting them.
Maybe not specific features of the tools, but overall categories of the tools.
Judy Brewer: Over the last few days- we know there's room for improvement. Selecting and using Authoring Tools for Web Accessbility. we could do one for Evaluation Tools. What's in this document is a checklist for selection, with questions about tools you're using in your organization. Mentions a few details. (except from that paper. ) It sounds like something for that would be helpful
Shawn: I'd like feedback on the very end - where the different pieces fit together with the car, and before the car with the tools and the people - that whole segment.
It was great, move it to the front, and be more specific.
Include the W3C piece. You are an important piece.
Car wasn't a good metaphor. Maybe a more robust metaphor. not sure what.
Developer isn't a great category, so lumping all developers together may not be a great idea. One thing I take away from this are talking points to convince my organization. Everybody puts their two cents in. We're trying to get our production teams together, implement things the same way, partner with each other on stuff, it's a real effort of orchestration.
Maybe customized set of talking points for different roles in the organization.
Elevator pitches
On the car thing- I don't know if this was accidental. You did not use the keys or the gas. I thought that was a good way to do that one.
I had a vision- The W3C has an enormous amount of information that's incredibly useful. need a format for getting this out to a large number of people. Library of QuickTime training films:
model for structure - www.lynda.com - paid subscription, maybe. they have training at their facility near Santa Barbara, and after 9/11 they had to switch to a Web-based downloadable model.
I was picking up on the discussion [Pierre] had on what they're doing [at BrailleNet], one thing that came up was that they had a blind user come in at the beginning of the training to demonstrate. It seems that that would be helpful. It's hard to talk to a video, you can ask questions of a person. I'd like to see a hands-on with the same structure. Have everyone rate a site. Everyone would evaluate a site in a certain way. That would make it clear in everyone's minds.
I am looking for e-learning training about Web accessibility. 1) Like what we do with the trainer, the trainer is somewhere else, but it's syncrhonized training. 2) with a virtual teacher, so that they can take their time and do exercises when they want. I would look for Web training about Web accessbility.
Judy Brewer: There is a training in the example layer that's like 200 slides on WCAG 1.0, being upgraded to 2.0 The pedagogical method right now is terrible. that's a planned deliverable. We need to add creative methodology about how we do the revision of that.
The meta information is very important. THe Dublin Core group has put out a lot of information. I think we need to add that to our templates.
Certification for Accessibility Training. very hot topic. IT would be great to have something we can put on a resume.
Judy Brewer: Certification of Web sites, Certification of developers, Certification of tools. SOme of the membership has been asking. Fraught with various perils. Can of worms. Many local organizations in Europe want their own labels and logos, W3C has signed on to a temporary exploratory project to see if it's possible, we're getting all kinds of complaints about misunderstandings. in meetings are expressing opposition in EUrope between companies and the commission. Very genuine concern about the extent to which W3C would be involved in it. Tie in here is training for developers that would be
Kathleen in Connecticut has a course that all developers have to take. an attendance certificate
Brainbench tests.
Usability profession went through a huge debate on certification, it was eventually abandoned.
Not sure what people could get out of it.
Training Webmasters on guidelines, or on how to do their jobs. there is no certification in France.
There are a lot of issues. with liability even, we certify someone, they do a site that doesn't turn out to be accessible - is the licensing authority liable for that. cycling back to the topic of wish lists.
(background: usability engineer) Glad you had the session, and that it was free. Dream training- more specific, and more defined by job role. for usability engineers, accessibilty developers, champions. IT would also be nice to divide by industry. We work in software applications, which is different than Web applications. WE could also divide by issues- like site flow, rather than page flow. I'd also like to see the W3C as a posting board so that if a company comes up with a solution for something, they can post it.
Judy Brewer: That's true, except that there is an approval process. It has to be submitted to the workgroup, and then it ends up in a techniques document, which is an informative companion to the normative document.
But you could put this on a page with a disclaimer or something.
Organization WOW www.joinwow.org for primary areas like that. THey are accessibility aware.
Judy Brewer: A few years ago, we started an initiative to get training into a lot of the universities in different countries, in suspended animation right now.
One of the checkpoints is use clear & simple language as appropriate. I'd like to see some examples of that. I've purchased books on how to write for the Web from Amazon. More training that's example based. For other trainings, also, if you could have video conferences.
In the W3C WAI R & D interest group, we have acompletely different format, we have "Webinars." No video,but we have online slides, IRC, etc. running. The first one we did was on remote collaboration.
You say we want training on graphics, and training for supervisors, but even in training seminars, we hear that it's about alt text. That's the end of their comments on graphics. We need to infuse the idea that it's not just about alt tags, its about presentation and a lot of other things. You can look good, and be accessible, too. Shawn said that in her presentation.
So we need training that's more balanced, in showing the other side besides coding.
I wanted to be last, because I wanted to hear everyone's ideas, because part of what our project is, is to do what everyone is asking for. Our biggest challenge is to get all of the material in, getting permission to use it, and then how do we put it out. He brought up videotapes of training. Most of our material starts out as a Powerpoint, and then we get audio, but this takes quite a lot of time, my project is pretty small compared to the WAI project, and not all experts agree. That's part of the review proejct. We currently have trainings available for different projects. IF you're interested in being on a mailing list, just e-mail me and I'll put you on a list. Barriers & Awareness Kit, that should help people become aware of barriers and it's cross-disability oriented. When he mentioned earlier it's importtant to have a person with a disability present a training, we do that for a cost-recovery basis. We're ready, willing and able to do exactly that. mimi.kessler@ittatc.org
Are we going to be put on a mailing list?
Judy Brewer: No, notautomatically. There are many lists that you can subscribe to.
Does w3c rate Web sites?
Judy Brewer: No. but I would love for there to be a network of review teams across a whole bunch of countries, but would exchange reviews for pay or not. THe ones WAI would ask to be reviewed would be in some kind of showcase. Nominated sites would be screened and reviewed, etc.
Judy Brewer: Disclaimer: Brainstorming is so important, it helps us set priorities. WE have a working group that has 20-25 members in good standing, but we have a huge list of deliverables that are done, but have to updated, and some that are stacked up on wish lists. Some of them we won't be able to do because we're not the right type of organization, but other organizations could do wonderful things with it.
Judy Brewer: In the next few months we'll be updating. .Curriculum for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 . THe example layer is very useful. It has examples for all of the checkpoints. 120 different examples. It shows the code that goes with it, it shows graphics, cute little animations, and so forth. We'll try to make that more visible with our site redesign, and also the teaching approach.
Judy Brewer: We have a teaching approach, if you're recruiting a trainer for a specific thing, you can use this section. .Training host. setting up objectives, different lengths of trainings, etc. links to modules This might be a framework for the training group for expanding curriculum ideas. multimedia formats. Or off of a self-study resource suite.
Judy Brewer: Thank you for coming, and thank you again to our hosts.