Presentation on Student Accessibility issues with Information and Computer Technology (ICT)

1. CX Leadership Meeting
Information and Computer
Technology (ICT) Accessibility
Nick Laudato and Tom Danford, March 14, 2018

2. Agenda
 Background Information
 Definition of Information and Communications
Technology (ICT)
 Accessibility Standards
 ICT Accessibility Review Methodology
 Components of an ICT Program
 Components of an ICT Accessibility Statement
 Examples of Automated Web Page Analyses

3. How We Got to Where We Are?
 The Accessibility Landscape … A compliance
perspective.

4. Information Communications Technology (ICT)
… any information technology, equipment, or
interconnected system or subsystem of
equipment for which the principal function is
the creation, conversion, duplication, automatic
acquisition, storage, analysis, evaluation,
manipulation, management, movement, control,
display, switching, interchange, transmission,
reception, or broadcast of data or information.

5. Disabilities: Visual, Hearing, Motor, Cognitive

6. Accessibility-Related Standards
 Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
 Section 255 of the Communications Act
 Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level
A and Level AA
 Non-Web ICT Guidelines (WCAG2ICT)
 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Standards
(ANSI/HFES 200.2)
 Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0
 Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)

7. People, Processes, and Organization
Students, faculty, and staff who use and support technology, business processes, governance, etc.
Software Applications
Enterprise systems (SIS, HR, LMS, etc.), computer/mobile applications, Web applications, screen readers, etc.
Data and Documents
Database, knowledgebase, and reporting systems, document and image management systems, etc.
Hardware and Operating Systems
Servers, file storage, personal and mobile computers, printing and scanning, accessibility hardware, etc.
Networks and Communications
Communications and collaboration systems, video conferencing systems, Web conferencing systems, etc.
CampusWorks Accessibility
Infrastructure Framework

8. LocalDistant
Synchronous Asynchronous
Face-to-Face
and Hybrid
Education
Distance and
Online
Education
 Computer
Classroom
Management
 Supervised
Testing Systems
 Presentation
 Collaboration
 Interaction
 Support
 Presentation
 Engagement
 Collaborative
Work
 Lecture Capture
 Video
Conferencing
Systems
 Web Conferencing
Systems
 Other
Collaboration
Systems
CampusWorks Accessibility
Infrastructure Framework

9. Methodology (1/2)
 Interview stakeholders
o DSPS staff, Webmasters, instructional designers, online
support staff, faculty, help desk staff, etc.
 Select and analyze representative samples of:
o Web pages
o LMS (Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, eLearning, etc.)
o ERP (PeopleSoft, Colleague, Banner, Jenzabar, etc.)
o Documents
o Applications

10. Methodology (2/2)
 Automated testing of entire site
 Manual testing of selected objects
o Keyboard only
o Contrast
o Screen reader
 Analyze, synthesize, and report the data
 Assist/Lead in creation of:
o ICT Accessibility Program
o ICT remediation and communication plans

11. ICT Program Outline
 Accessibility Statement
o Statement of commitment, vision, and goals to achieve
ICT accessibility.
 Accessibility Policies
o Guiding principles and formal rules to achieve
accessibility goals.
 Accessibility-Related Regulations
o Work processes, procedures, articulated tasks, and
responsibilities that the institution will assume to
prevent and remove barriers to accessibility.

12. ICT Accessibility Statement
 Purpose
o Clear declaration of commitment to a level of
accessibility.
o Summarize standards and guidelines.
o Note any interim exceptions.
o Offer mechanism to provide feedback and report
problems.
 Deployment
o Easily and obviously available from every Web page,
LMS course, and document repository.

13. Some Barriers to Accessibility
 Broken Links/Errors.
 Accessibility Problems.
 Browser Compatibility Issues.
 Privacy Issues.
 Search Issues.
 W3C Standards Issues.
 Usability Issues
 Pages/Images Checked

14. Broken Links/Errors Examples
 Image has the wrong file extension or mime type.
 Image is corrupt.
 Link is broken - goes from an “http://” web page to a
“file://” address.
 Link is broken - target could not be loaded due to an HTTP
error.
 Page contains placeholder text such as Lorem Ipsum,
CHANGEME, FIXME or TODO.
 SSL certificate on the target server has expired or is invalid.

15. Accessibility Problem Examples
 “A” elements must contain text or an IMG with an ALT attribute.
 ALT text should not be an image file name.
 ALT text should not contain placeholders like “picture” or “spacer”.
 Document title must not be blank.
 Headings must be nested correctly. E.g., H2 must appear after H1, H3
after H2 etc.
 Information conveyed with color must also be made available without
color
 ONCLICK handlers should have an equivalent ONKEYPRESS handler.

16.  Flash is disabled in Safari 10, and not supported on mobile devices
including iPhone/iPad and Android 4.1 or later.
 Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox display a security warning when a
secure https:// web page includes http:// content.
 SVG images are not supported in Internet Explorer 8 and older Android
devices.
 Page contains a link using the tel: protocol.
 Page has no doctype which triggers quirks mode in IE, Firefox and most
other browsers.
Browser Compatibility Issue Examples

17. Privacy Issue Examples
 Page has no privacy policy but a tracking graphic
(web beacon) has been detected.
 Page uses cookies and has no obvious privacy
policy.
 Page has no privacy policy.

18. Search Issue Examples
 ALT text is stuffed with keywords that users are unlikely to view.
 Google recommends separating keywords in URLs by dashes instead of
underscores.
 Google, Bing and Yahoo recommend all pages have a TITLE element.
 Page has more than one H1 element, which violates Bing webmaster
guidelines.
 Page has no H1 element, which violates Bing webmaster guidelines.
 Page title is not unique.
 Search engines may penalize text too small to be seen.

19. W3C Standards Issue Examples
 An attribute specification must start with a name or name token.
 Bad value for attribute “height.”
 Document type does not allow element "caption" here.
 Duplicate ID - the same ID is used on more than one element.
 Element "FONT" undefined.
 No space between attributes.
 Stray end tag 'strong'.
 The 'align' attribute on the 'table' element is obsolete.

20. Usability Issue Examples
 Has a link labeled 'Home' on every page on the site, except for the home
page.
 An active 'Home' link on the home page makes some users think that it's
not the home page.
 Page has no title.
 Has underlined text - people will click on it and think it's a broken link.
 IMG WIDTH or HEIGHT attributes are missing leading to page text
jumping about as images load.
 Users are not able to quickly look at each link and tell where it goes.
 Does not use at least a 12-point font on all Web pages.

21. Questions, Comments, Discussion