Education and Outreach Working Group Teleconference

Accessibility Statements

Shadi: EricVelleman introduction

EricVelleman: Works at the Accessibility Foundation in the Netherlands and working on PhD

Shadi: We have a new project, in the work items with EricV leading the editorial work, about providing guidance for Accessibility Statements
... The primary question is: What is an Accessibility Statement?

<shadi> "Your organizational policy may be an internal document and not suitable for the public. To communicate your effort, consider providing a public accessibility statement that reflects your policy, goals, and achievements."

<shawn> from Developing Organizational Policies on Web Accessibility <https://w3c.github.io/wai-website/plan/org-policies/>

In the planning and managing resource, we also reference "accessibility statement" for people to use.

Shadi: It makes sense in terms of an overall orientation, to provide the purpose of an Accessibility Statement
... An outline of some of this:

1. Giving users information about the overall accessibility of the site

1a. How is that different than a general help page?

1b. Getting too technical isn't useful for many users

Do we want to focus on the user's needs vs technical details?

<Norah> and who to contact if you (user) encounter problems

Due to legal issues, accessibility statements can become too nebulous/hand-wavy

In the Netherlands, you must communicate accessibility more specifically (which could be a good model)

All public entities must publish an accessibility statement - oriented to the user - and how to get alternatives for inaccessible content

This is all background info to think about in terms of how a website owner can create an accessibility statement that helps the end users

with a goal of being open and transparent about accessibility

Two important data points:

1. WCAG Conformance Claims (page-based)

also called Evaluation Statement/Report in WCAG

This can back up your accessibility statement with a detailed report

We have funding to create an Accessibility Statement generator tool (like the EM Report tool)

but we will focus on the guidance aspect first

then determine how best to address the presentation of a tool

EricV: The idea is to produce something in the next two weeks for people to review.

Questions time:

Norah: Also need to consider including contact information if someone is encountering problems on the site which need to be corrected for accessibility
... Glad you're working on this. It's something we're talking about here at our organization.
... We often give advice to other universities to place contact information which shows a commitment to accessibility

Shadi: Also here there is a little tension between executives wanting their statements to stay high level which doesn't help the end user. The trick is to find the right balance

Norah: I like that you're thinking about both levels in this effort.

Shadi: If there are other comments or ideas, please feel free to send them to the list. Examples to be shared are good to know about

Brent: I'm also glad we're doing this, as we are thinking about accessibility statements in our organization. Working with leadership, legal teams, and others.
... There is tension with determining how much transparency due to legal risks.

Do you see any use/possible way to have guidance based on the country or region the business is in?

<yatil> [ Tenon has a good one, I think. General info: https://tenon.io/documentation/accessibility.php VPAT: https://tenon.io/documentation/vpat.php and WCAG Conformance Declaration: https://tenon.io/documentation/wcag-pat.php]

Shadi: In Europe, public websites are in a unique, tough position due to being required to publish the detailed accessibility statements

Because they're forced to do so.

In the U.S. there is also the VPAT which gets closer to what the requirements in Europe are.

<lkee> https://www.loc.gov/accessibility/

We will aim for "good practices" to promote through this resource for organizations to make their own decisions around, but getting country-specific may be too much detail

EricV: A solution could be to ask people to fill this out themselves. The statement could contain components that address specific countries based on what the user fills out

Brent: This is probably something that can be best addressed by the organization themselves.

<shawn> +1 for date on statements!

Brent: Additionally, we need to ensure there is attention paid to last updated date on the statement to avoid having outdated statements
... The VPAT is now indicating that you must have an ACR (accessibility conformance report) and struggling with the word "conformance"

LKee: Shared the link for the Library of Congress (US) accessibility statement, which accessibility has now become a hot topic for us.

The accessibility statement was written by the communications department, and can be an example of a high-level approach (without much detail)

Shadi: Often, without the details, people consider accessibility statements not useful to people with disabilities

LKee: People are advocating for more movement and detail in the accessibility statement for LOC

<yatil> +1 Usefulness for endusers might be one of the important selling point for accessibility statements.

Shadi: Often, accessibility champions within an organization are held back by the lawyers

But this resource may be helpful to them to say here's what is recommended

Shadi: Expect some initial draft work in the next two weeks via a wiki page where we'll request comments and feedback

May F2F

<shawn> https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/EOWG_F2F_May_2018

It will be Thursday and Friday in Austin after AccessU.

Topics suggestions are available on the page linked by Shawn

Please add participation information to that page, too, as soon as possible for planning purposes.

If you cannot attend in person, but you can be available by phone, we can support that for parts of the meetings.

Within the Agenda, there is a link to the planning section: Please do add items there for anything you want to add for discussion/group working sessions at the F2F

We are almost positive we will not be meeting at St. Edward's University. Sharron is working on what location (Knowbility offices or at the Omni) and we'll let you know soon.

EOWG issue related to redesign

<shawn> https://github.com/w3c/wai-website/issues/27

Shawn: Question about redesign: Some of the pages had a clear summary section at the beginning of the pages. Got positive feedback on that in usability testing. Recorded that as a suggestion - to put summaries on most pages.

We had not talked about that much in EO, but I (Shawn) wanted to bring this to the group for input

Norah: I like the summary. Including the summary and doing that in a consistent manner helps people with cognitive disabilities. That's a good reason to use a summary (and do it consistently)

<shawn> +1 to helps some people with cognitive disabilities (and also good usability for others)

<krisannekinney> +1 to nora's point

<shawn> proposal -- include summaries on most EOWG resources

+1

<j-pulido> +1

<Howard> +1

<Norah> +1

<krisannekinney> +1

<Brent> +1

<shawn> +1

<shadi> +1

<lkee> +1

<evelleman> +1

<yatil> +💯

RESOLUTION: Include summaries at the top of most EOWG resources

<Chris> +1

Brent: I do have one question - Are there any resources where having a summary would be disruptive to the content/purpose of a specific page?

<shawn> +1 for not required on every single resource -- might be some there is a strong reason not to

Shawn: I think it's covered by "most" in the resolution wording

<evelleman> There is a lot of research on Quikscan (providing summaries to improve reading). Maybe interesting to see if there are requirements in there for the summaries?

Work for this Week

<Chris> thanks! take care!

<vivienne> +bye

<krisannekinney> bye!