WCAG needs to do this - Any user testing of WCAG 2.1 at CSUN

John,

I completely understand the logistics and challenges of setting this up.

I’m a tenacious, make it happen leader who is passionate for the disabled.
What discomfort and challenges we may face in assisting them with our work and talents is nothing compared to what many of them experience 24/7 day and night.

Here is my executive action plan:

1. The Value:
a. This is perhaps the greatest opportunity to have the audience for which WCAG is intended for be able to  - and in person - participate and give input and feedback.
2. The Past:
a. The opportunity to set this up months ago was missed.
3. Now:
a. This is the WCAG, the body that sets up the guidelines and international standards for most of what CSUN topics are based on.
4. The Action:
a. Tell CSUN that: we see great value in this type of effort, we missed the opportunity to plan for it,  how can we get it set up for the sake of the international disabled community.
5. I am able to assist in any way needed.

Alan Smith

From: John Foliot
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 9:24 AM
To: ALAN SMITH
Cc: Alastair Campbell; WCAG
Subject: Re: Any user testing of WCAG 2.1 at CSUN

​Alan wrote:

> The How:
I had not thought about the how. I figured it was something that should have been planned by WCAG.
​
The big problem. Planning for CSUN starts (started) at least 6 months ago, and even as a W3C Working Group we started planning for our Face-to-Face meetings at CSUN back before Christmas. Finding a location to do this kind of user-testing is a bit of a logistics problem, as often spaces in advance of, or post-CSUN are hard to come by, and during the event CSUN tends to take over much if not all of the available space. Setting up a "testing lab" at this short juncture would likely fail, even though it is a good idea.

As you noted, there will likely be a number of presentations at CSUN focused on the new SC in WCAG 2.1, and we can still have hallway chats and other social activities to discuss them with end-users in attendance. It would have been a great idea, but we should have started planning for it in October...

JF

On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 7:59 AM, ALAN SMITH <alands289@gmail.com> wrote:
Alastair,
 
I appreciate your reply. 
 
The What:
I thought: CSUN is a captive audience and this would be a great way to have WCAG get out into the real world with real users and in person present what is planned and find out if it will actually work for real users with diabilities.
 
The How:
I had not thought about the howt. I figured it was something that should have been planned by WCAG.
 
After I sent this query originally to another email list, I did find  that David MacDonald is doing something like this with a presentation on Wednesday at 9:00 am.
 
Best. 
 
Alan Smith
 
From: Alastair Campbell
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2018 8:17 AM
To: ALAN SMITH; WCAG
Subject: Re: Any user testing of WCAG 2.1 at CSUN
 
Hi Alan,
 
>  is there any effort to have actual users with disabilities who may be attending CSUN queried on whether the new SCs in WCAG 2.1 will in fact meet the needs of those they are intended for?
 
I suspect that no site will ‘meet the needs’ of everyone, it would be a case of how much does it improve the access & experience for people with particular needs.
 
Therefore there are two possible approaches to this question:
 
1. Research into what change the success criteria have made to websites, and what difference that makes to people (difficult before sites start updating to meet them).
2. Demos of what impact the changes based on meeting the success criteria have.
 
The second approach (demos) is a lot easier to do, in revising our site I could probably provide examples for reflow & content-on-hover because those were two new issues that we are changing the site in order to meet the new SC.
 
If you mean are we trying to do the research approach, that’s a lot of prep to find particular sites with issues affected by 2.1-only criteria… it would be easier after sites start trying to meet it.
 
-Alastair
 
 




-- 
John Foliot
Principal Accessibility Strategist
Deque Systems Inc.
john.foliot@deque.com

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion