Re: Lack of awareness example

I have this argument regularly with the devs I work with. For them, the
issue boils down to this - they don't innately "know" accessible coding and
they're under immense pressure to reduce the time to market release on
products. Because of that, they code what they know and wait for someone to
notice. There are a few things that we could be offering developers to get
us closer to born accessible:

   - *If/then resources for code.* In sales we used to call this see/sell.
   If you have a button that is supposed to behave a certain way, here is the
   tried and true, browser and AT tested code to use. There's a secondary
   benefit to this as well - users get a consistent experience no matter who
   built the product. In education this is particularly valuable as students
   are often asked to navigate 5 or 6 different learning management systems in
   their college career alone. This reference starts with a simple question:
   What is the problem you are trying to solve and would allow users to see a
   recommended solution as well alternatives with the reason they do
not work. *I
   would pay to subscribe to this database in a heartbeat.*
   - *Certified resources for autodidacts.* I can't tell you how many devs
   I've worked with that excitedly tell me that they taught themselves JAWS
   only to begin tabbing through our sites. Yes, there are literally hundreds
   of educational resources out there for someone who wants to learn how to
   use AT but I have no way of knowing what is useful vs superficial and what
   is accurate vs untested. I once attended an in person session with an
   accessibility "expert" who then proceeded to partially block the entrance
   to the room with a chair stacked with flyers for their courses. For me,
   that's the equivalent of going to a dentist with rotting teeth.
   - *Endorsed testing pairs. *Every person I talk to has a unique set of
   Browser/AT testing pairs that they work with. And as we've all experienced,
   this can lead to wildly variable results. The variations lead to
   frustration on behalf of the devs, who throw their hands up in the air and
   say "It worked for me in this one particular instance therefore it worked."
   We can give them better, more consistent testing environments which would
   help push both browsers and AT to establishing more consistent experiences
   for their users. It is bound to be a long term change but one that will
   make the world a little better both for producers and for customers.
   - *Embed ourselves in education.* The next generation of coders is
   coming. They are learning not just languages but also about mobile
   compatibility, AR, and VR and in very limited circumstances accessibility.
   Outreach to these high school and university programs with reliable
   teaching resources could change both the attitude and the knowledge-base of
   devs to come.

I'll step off my soapbox (for now!) but I hope that as a team, we could
talk about whether these are resources that we can and/or should invest our
time and energy in.

Rachel

Rachel Comerford | Senior Director of Content Standards and Accessibility |
T 212.576.9433

*Macmillan Learning*

On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 9:55 AM, <stephane.deschamps@orange.com> wrote:

> Also, food for thought with Etan Marcotte's latest article:
> https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/accessibility-is-not-a-feature/
>
> (although, in my experience, frameworks are not enough: people tend to
> reinvent each and every component and guess what's forgotten along the way?)
>
> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Eric Eggert [mailto:ee@w3.org]
> Envoyé : mercredi 1 août 2018 09:31
> À : Shawn Henry
> Cc : EOWG
> Objet : Re: Lack of awareness example
>
>
>
> On 31 Jul 2018, at 23:07, Shawn Henry wrote:
>
> > Hi EOWG folks,
> >
> > Occasionally we talk about the level of awareness for accessibility. I
> > noted this from a WebAIM thread
> > <https://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?thread=8872#post4>:
> >
> > <quote>
> >
> > As a customer I am asking for WCAG compliance rating when I look to
> > buy new
> > systems and 95% of the time I hear: "What's WCAG, I've never heard of
> > it in
> > 30 years of sales".
> >
> > <end quote>
>
> I think the rest of the email is also interesting for us. We have to
> reach out and educate people developing frameworks for an inverse
> trickle down effect. Its the basis is accessible, stuff is less likely
> to break built on top of the stack.
>
> <quote>
>
> > Most of the time companies just say they will add in accessibility
> > later,
> > but they don't give a date and don't want to work with me to add
> > accessibility.
> > This is the wrong approach. You can't just "add" accessibility. You
> > need to
> > design your product or service to the widest number of users possible,
> > then
> > you may consider your product usable by a specific group of users.
> > It's really the company's fault for not getting UX testers for all the
> > possible users they wanted to serve, or evaluating the product from
> > the
> > developer for different features that need to be included.
> > It's also the tools the developer is using. If they use most widget
> > frameworks from React, for example, Screen reader users won't be able
> > to
> > use them. There is no way for the developer to know this without
> > testing
> > them self.
>
> </quote>
>
> Currently many organizations think that accessibility can be fixed or
> addressed later. That it is a technical hurdle instead of a human one.
> Accessibility needs to be a cornerstone of everyone’s education. From
> the project manager over the content strategists over the graphic
> designer to the videographer, coder, implementer.
>
> Eric
>
>
> --
>
> Eric Eggert
> Web Accessibility Specialist
> Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>
>
>
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