Re: Fwd: Unit 1 and 2 feedback

hello Helen.

Many thanks for your comments and feedback. They are very welcomed.

Let me address your comments below.

On 8/2/2019 3:40 PM, Helen Burge wrote:
Hi,

I was added to the group but not allowed to submit my answers so here 
they are:
1) No comment
2) I read the material carefully .
3. Unit 1: What is Web Accessibility: "Describe the scope of “the Web” 
beyond desktop and mobile devices" - this should be expanded on as does 
it mean expanding on assistive technology?

I was not thinking of assistive technologies yet. These will be 
addressed later on in the unit. At this point the main goal for this 
learning outcome is that students are aware that the web expands into 
many other devises different than the PC and their phone, such as smart 
watches, TVs, or smart home devices. I have reworded this learning 
outcome and now it says:

 > * Describe how “the Web” expands into other devices such as smart 
TVs, watches, or smart home appliances

Is it clearer now?

4. Topic: Stories of people with Disabilities: Will there be links to 
resources to get demonstrators or is it best to say "Tip: As you may be 
inviting only one or two demonstrators (colleagues or friends) of 
assistive technology," - as the term demonstrator is not clear it is 
someone with a disability, so could be a user?

I think specifically of "expert users with disabilities". We have 
reached a consensus to require expert users to explain how an assistive 
technology works, since having any type of user might lead students to 
confusion. It seems to me like there is a wording issue and I need to 
change the word "demonstrator" to something else. Maybe

 > * Invite expert users with disabilities to demonstrate the assistive 
technologies and adaptive strategies they use when interacting with 
websites and applications. Ask users to explain some accessibility 
features. Encourage them to present some frequently encountered barriers 
and strategies they use to work around them.

 > **Tip:** As you may be inviting only one or two users, make sure to 
emphasize the diversity among people with disabilities, even with the 
same type of disability. Also emphasize how design features can enable 
or disable people. ...

Is it clearer now?

To expand on the current suggestions, I have found highlighting examples 
relevant to the audience of good and bad practices that the audience can 
relate to.  For instance their product and what they currently do well 
for screen readers and what they can improve on. I also have given more 
relevant homework where I give a scenario in a typical user experience.  
Like "Using a screen reader, go to x website and search for a red item. 
Add it to your basket and open the checkout." I would give a scenario as 
often would highlight areas the audience assume work in their product.  
The examples given in the training are quite relevant to the homework 
and you can suggest a review session to go through what the audience 
found hard or easy and how much is down to not understanding to use the 
tools versus design of the website.

I feel the course does cover this, but is assuming the trainer will have 
advanced users of assistive technology in the class and in some cases 
this will not be possible and these are suggestions that can help the 
trainer with practical methods of helping a learner.  I didn't raise a 
ticket as feel this feedback is quite subjective and might be overkill!

I will work on trying to be more directive in the "Teaching Ideas" and 
the "Homework Ideas" for the curricula. It is important to bear in mind, 
though, that at this stage we are developing a curriculum, from which 
organisms will hopefully develop their own courses. There is also a 
project for which a MOOC course based on this curriculum will be 
developed. Further materials to guide teachers on how to develop a 
specific activity are to be developed in the future, with founds from 
the WAI-Guide project as well. So I think we need to strike the balance 
here between guide trainers who have not a very deep knowledge in the 
matter but at the same time leave room for the future materials of this 
resource that are to come.

5. Topic: Scope of Web Accessibility: "Explain that accessibility is 
part of overall inclusion, since accessibility features benefit all 
users as well as those with disabilities." a good example here is 
contrast ratios, as "normal" users can read strong ratios better than 
weak ratios and most audiences can relate.  (Also mentioned in a 
subsequent point).  Again a homework idea could be a real life example 
exercise of the student using assistive technology online to perform a 
task they are used to doing frequently like online shopping.

In unit 2 we have some of these exercises you are proposing.

 > * Ask students to explore the use of assistive technologies to 
perform a task, such as reading the news, making a purchase, interacting 
in social networks, etc. Instruct them that their experiences are not 
those of an assistive technology everyday user.


 > * Ask students to go to three different types of websites (e.g., 
shopping site, banking site, entertainment site) and to identify three 
access barriers from each of the three sites. Ask students to creatively 
explain how better design may remove those barriers found.


Once again I am hesitant to write very concrete activities in the 
curricula, since I feel these will be addressed in complementary 
resources we are to develop. The curricula is intended to be a framework 
for many types of audiences that will later develop their own training 
activities. You can have a look at the Curricula Requirements Analysis
if you want to get familiar with the background for this resource.

6. Unit 2: People and Digital Technology: I agree with the format and 
content

7. Topic: Diverse Abilities, Tools, and Strategies: "Ask students to 
engage with relatives, friends, or colleagues with disabilities that 
they may have." - is it better to say "Ask students to engage with 
relatives, friends, or colleagues with difficulties that they may have 
with web content." - mainly as asking my mum "what disabilities do you 
have?" might get me slapped!

Oh, mine would probably say "I don't have any disabilities" :-) but... 
anyway, I guess broadening the scope a little bit will help since we can 
reinforce the idea that accessibility features benefit users without 
disabilities as well. This is an idea that will be later developed, 
specially in the business case for accessibility unit. I have reworded 
it as follows:

 > * Ask students to engage with relatives, friends, or colleagues that 
they may have. Ask students to gather information on which types of 
assistive tools and/or adaptive strategies their acquaintances use to 
interact with digital technology. Help students classify the tools they 
have learned about.

Could the focus be less about disabilities and more about the need for 
assistive technology for simple tasks like the use of glasses when using 
real life examples. Might be worth adding to the tip that does cover 
this too.

This is one of the most difficult balances to strike here. On the one 
hand I agree with you that we don't want to make this too 
disability-centered but, on the other, we do need to explain the concept 
of disability, the main types of disabilities that exist and also point 
to people with disabilities at a certain extent. Now the tip looks:
 > **Tip**: While it is important to introduce different types of 
disabilities, avoid portraying them as being limiting or discomfortable. 
Compare the role of assistive technologies and adaptive strategies with 
that of other tools used by people without disabilities, such as 
glasses. Communicate that barriers are caused by design decisions rather 
than by the disability.



8. Topic: Components of Web Accessibility: For teaching ideas is it 
worth adding some examples of known limitations of assistive technology 
versus websites.  For example Android screen readers do not hide 
decorative images with alt="" unless the developer adds 
aria-hidden="true". Is the responsibility on the developer or on the 
assistive technology?


Good point, really the concept of accessibility support keeps evolving 
day after day. I think I would not exaggerate if I say that every day 
things in the accessibility support field change for better or worse. I 
have added this but as a general idea, We need to think carefully before 
pointing to any specific instance of accessibility support, same 
rationale as per the other specifics. Now the first teaching idea of 
topic "Components of Web Accessibility" looks like:

 > * Based on the previously taught topics, ask students to reflect on 
the inter-dependencies between assistive technologies, adaptive 
strategies, and digital content. Guide them to realize how one relies on 
the other and how using different combinations of tools may yield 
different user experiences.

9) No other comments

Regards,
Helen

Thanks again.
Daniel.


-- 
Helen Burge | Senior Accessibility Consultant | +44796-748-1296
Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
deque.com

Received on Tuesday, 6 August 2019 16:20:39 UTC