Feedback on CTAUR

Formal Feedback

The COGA taskforce is writing formal feedback on the Collaboration Tools Accessibility User Requirements. It will be available in Fall 2022.

Key points are below

Uncommon terminology causes difficulty (examples: IRC instead of chat; "push" and "fork" in Github)
Remembering commands and processes. These should be as intuitive as possible and well documented in a location that can be easily found.
Learning any kind of code to use a tool presents a barrier. Github's reliance on HTML and Wiki's mark up presents barriers. Wiki and document style tools sometimes make it easier with editing tools
Unexpected behaviors such as overriding the right click menu in some of these tools makes it hard for people to access expected behaviors such as spell check
In complex collaboration tools (example: Github), infrequent use combined with an intimidating platform makes adoption very difficult and creates a steep learning curve
In Github, there does not seem to be a simple revision process
Reviewing pull requests that require both horizontal and vertical scrolling causes difficulty, the text does not wrap by default
Remembering passwords and getting through CAPTCHA causes issues
System-generated email is overwhelming and difficult to get through. Difficult to sort actionable items and items that need attention from everything else
In general, conversations need to occur in a single location. Tracking them across multiple locations is difficult.
Important to create a culture where people are comfortable asking for help but even more important to select tools that allow people to work independently.

Key points relating to tools are below:

Need a persistent place to follow along (lacking one source of truth) and a way to follow threads from multiple sources
Challenge: Keeping track of many kinds of interactions (IRC, wikis, Github content, Google Docs, Email, etc)
- Need an agenda and documents ahead of time and a hub with all links and instructions
Challenge: Github
- Finding Github comments is challenging for many people
- Involves a lot of jargon and steps
- Threads are hard to follow
- Too many Github alerts
Challenge: Remembering acronyms and processes
- Provide an easily findable explanation for acronyms (example: explanatory links, footers, glossary, in context, hover, etc)
Challenge: Following long threads of conversation
- Use clear subject lines and changing them when the content changes
- Use clear headings and a short summary for longer content
- Schedule meetings in calls and send a calendar invitation