RE: Accessible content management system

I think CMSs should be thought of like authoring tools -- it's possible to
create inaccessible content and structure even if the design of the CMS took
accessibility into account in a thoroughly professional way.

In my experience with Drupal, there are 2 sources of this 'after-market
inaccessibility': 

1. Themes, which do all the work of styling plus a bit of the support for
functionality, and thus can have bad color pairs, fonts, etc.
2. Modules, which add functionality that the site needs, such as media
players and automated menu creation, and can thus interfere with native
accessibility in many ways. Module development happens in a more 'Wild West'
environment than does the overall platform development.

***
Jim Tobias
Inclusive Technologies
+1.908.907.2387 v/sms
skype jimtobias

> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Phil Evans
> Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 2:52 AM
> To: flybynight
> Cc: 'Terry Dean'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Accessible content management system
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Just a very small contribution, as I don't use CMS at all:
> 
> > As does Plone which also looks very good.
> 
> Is this true? I have not used Plone from the developer point of view,
> but a website which I visit regularly uses Plone. If I feed pages frmo
> that website to the W3C HTML validator they fail -- only a couple of
> relatively minor errors, but nonetheless I (naively?) would hope that a
> CMS which aspires to serve accessible content will at least provide
> valid content.
> 
> As a side issue, which you're probably all aware of, no CMS could ever
> guarantee accessibilty on its own. For example, a (plone-based) site I
> have used chose red on green as its colour scheme; ignoring that fact
> that red/green colour-blindness (very common) would render the page
> unusable!
> 
> 
> Phil
> 
> 
> >
> > Typo3 would seem to be quite usable apparently although I haven't spent
> any
> > time looking into this at this stage.
> >
> > However, you may well want to take a look at contao:
> http://www.contao.org
> >
> > Which looks very good from my initial view.
> >
> > I haven't validated it yet but it seemed very usable with only the
keyboard
> > and has a nice clean and simple interface, while still having all the
> > features you'd expect to see in a leading CMS. It even has a load of
> > shortcut keys that are described in the main admin screen. You can try
the
> > online demo from their home page.
> >
> > I'd be interested to hear what you and others think?
> >
> > Incidentally, have you looked at DNN recently? I'm guessing it hasn't
got
> > any better but I do know they were keen on conformance with W3C
> guidelines,
> > although which ones I'm not exactly sure.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Ian
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]
> On Behalf
> > Of Terry Dean
> > Sent: 03 August 2011 21:14
> > To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: Accessible content management system
> >
> > Hi Ian,
> >
> > If you do find one that conforms to the W3C Web Accessibility guidelines
> > please let me know. Its one thing to claim that a CMS is compliant and
> > another to actually be accessible.
> >
> > You only need to run a few accessibility tools over these CMSs to find
that
> > they are generally full of problems.
> >
> > I dont claim to have the answers and I do not build these systems but I
can
> > understand how difficult they must be to make compliant. I remember
> trying
> > to modify DotNetNuke in 2000 in order to validate it to XHTML Strict 1.0
and
> > gave up in the end.
> >
> > regards,
> >
> > Terry
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Ian Sharpe"<isforums@manx.net>
> > To: "'Terry Dean'"<Terry.Dean@chariot.net.au>;<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:32 PM
> > Subject: RE: Accessible content management system
> >
> >
> >> Hi Terry
> >>
> >> While I understand where you're coming from and based on the feedback
> I've
> >> received so far, would accept your belief that at this time, such a
> >> solution
> >> does not exist, I would challenge your statement that this is not a
> >> serious
> >> question.
> >>
> >> Much of the web these days is generated through CMSs and this is only
> >> going
> >> to increase over time. One of the founding principals of the web for me
at
> >> least is giving everyone the opportunity to have their say and hear
what
> >> everyone else is saying. It follows that if members of the disabled or
> >> less
> >> technically competant communities are unable to voice their opinions
and
> >> thoughts as easily as those without any barriers to access and author
> >> content (particularly when it's in relation to accessing and authoring
> >> content), this voice will become quieter when it should be getting
louder.
> >>
> >> Ensuring that there is at least one accessible and feature rich CMS
would
> >> therefore seem vital in terms of the web's accessibility to me.
> >>
> >> It is therefore a very serious question and while there doesn't appear
to
> >> currently be a single solution, I hope that you are at least
encouraged,
> >> even if only a little, by the comments others have made.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >> ian
> >
> >
> >
> 
> --
> -------------------------
> 
> Phil Evans,
> Swift Development Scientist
> X-ray and Observational Astronomy Group,
> University of Leicester
> 
> Tel: +44 (0)116 252 5059
> Mobile: +44 (0)7780 980240
> pae9@star.le.ac.uk
> http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~pae9
> http://www.swift.ac.uk
> 
> Follow me as a Swift scientist on Twitter: @swift_phil
> http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~pae9/twitter

Received on Thursday, 4 August 2011 08:52:32 UTC