Accessibility mtg. minutes 2018.11.6

Owned by njoniec (Deactivated)
Last updated: Nov 09, 2018 by Eddie Rubeiz
2 min read

Present: Ron Brashear, Nicole Joniec, Hillary Kativa, Jonathan Rochkind, Eddie Rubeiz, Daniel Sanford

Background

A few weeks into the development of the new digital collections application, NJ called this meeting to discuss our accessibility policy for the site. (By accessibility we mean, for instance, accommodations we might make for visually impaired users or users with very slow Internet access.)

General discussion

  • DS-We should consider thinking of use cases and creating user personas to give thought to who are the users we’re building for and how they might interact with our system.
  • ER-It is important to document our decisions for future reference.
  • RB-Is there an institutional policy regarding accessibility? Where can we leverage work of our peers (web team, oral histories, etc.). These points also tied in with some general discussion of how our work potentially can set standard for institution to follow.
  • JR-Cautioned that accessibility guidelines can be vague, overwhelming, and subjective and that ultimately we’re essentially policing ourselves.
  • HK-Based on preliminary research and planning, we should develop some kind of framework (tiered levels, sliding scale, etc.) to guide our decision-making re accessibility, what we’re striving towards, define our baseline requirements, inform product owner’s decisions about how we prioritize work and where and when we stop other work to meet these goals.        
  • Tools were discussed such as the HTML code sniffer: https://squizlabs.github.io/HTML_CodeSniffer/
  • NJ encouraged team to contribute to accessibility google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x-UoMWfhk7hluwC0db54jvHMdYvA36PU8cJM7zYRKJ0/edit?usp=sharing

Next steps

  • Reach out to Institute staff to start.
    • Clare Hirai, Jessica Martucci, Ashley Bowen
  • Then do research for how to conduct an audit of the Digital Collections site, potentially using Quick Start Guide to WCAG2 as framework.
    • Nicole will work with Hillary to determine how to move forward with the audit.
    • Intent to focus first of public-facing pages; define what conditions we’re testing for; determine what’s possible for us to test for in-house.
  • Regroup to determine priorities moving forward.
    • Front end vs. back end accessibility considerations.
    • Determine benchmarks to reach.
    • Create a timeline/triage updates.