myoujourney: November 2011

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Activity 24.3

Preliminary Review

Step 1 (Selecting a representative page sample)

Should include the first page users will visit.
Pages with tables.
Pages with diagrams etc.
Pages that perform functional scripts.

Step 2 (Examine pages using graphical browsers)

Turn off images and observe if ALT text is present.
Turn off sound and see if audio content is available through text equivalents.
Use browser controls to see if text responds to changes, is it still usable at large size?
Change the display to grey scale and check the colour contrast is adequate.
Navigate around the content without using a mouse.

Step 3 (Examine pages using a specialized browser)

Use Home Page Reader (voice browser) or a text browser (Lynx) and answer the following

Is the site at an equivalent level to the GUI version?
Is it in a meaningful order?

Step 4 (Use automated Web accessibility evaluation tools)

Use at least 2 tools to analyse a selection f pages.
Be cautious with the results, they should also be checked manually.

Step 5 (Summarise obtained results)

Problems and positive aspects of the site.
Indicate how you went about testing.
Recommend follow-up steps, ie full conformance evaluation.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Which approach could you take in your role?

Firstly I would make sure all elements are in line with the relevant guidelines. Once I though I had go the package as good as I could I would ask someone with Dyslexia to test it for me. In an ideal world it would be nice to have a number of users, but sadly they are quite hard to find (or encourage to help). In reality I would ask my wife to take a look as she has similar technical knowledge to me but also has severe dyslexia. Best of both worlds. Lectora has an inbuilt checker so I think I would rely on this. I might even give screen readers a go, although we don't have any visually impaired users.

Are there any other approaches that you are familiar with?

No

Which approaches could you ask someone else in your organisation to do?

Follow guidelines

Which approaches would be appropriate for a large virtual learning environment (VLE) such as the one used for this module?

Set up a group of disabled users lead by an "expert"

Thursday 3 November 2011

Activity 19.1

Read the guidance resources in the next sections and make notes on:

the level of detail – is the technical level suitable for you in your role?
is the guidance complete – does it provide links to further information?
would you recommend this guidance to anyone else in your organisation who needs this information?

Accessible Digital Media Guidelines

Very detailed resource covering many aspect of e-learning. This includes images, forms, tables, Interactivity, Graphs, Math, Multimedia. Seems very detailed, maybe a bit too much. I think I will use this but probably not recommend to anyone in my organisation.

WCAG 2.0 at a Glance

This looks like a very usable list of guidelines, not over technical so I would definitely recommend colleagues to take a look. From this page you can also go very deep into each area that needs to be made accessible.

Screen Readers and the Web

Dyslexia Style Guide

Very useful resource, as our main disability is dyslexia this will be useful. Although most of the guidelines are already in place.

Creating Accessible Presentations

Seems very similar to the site above.

Accessible PowerPoint – Guidelines

Very simple but good advice

Writing accessible electronic documents with Microsoft® Word

Same as above ppt ones

Preparing accessible documents

Can't access

Making the most of PDFs[Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

Seems like a good resource, lots of detail on how to make a pdf accessible.

Using Adobe tools to make accessible content

Bit boring

Creating Accessible PDF from MS Word 2003

Lot's of detail, would I use it? Probably not.

Creating Accessible Flash content

Nice site, I use flash so know most of what is stated.

Flash

Same as above.