A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility

About The Workshop Presentation

Brian Kelly and Lawrie Phipps (TechDis) gave a joint presentation on "A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility" at a workshop on "Assistive technology Disabled people accessing digital services".

The workshop took place from 12:15-13:00 on 1^st February 2005 in London and was repeated on 28^th February 2005 in Leeds.

The workshop is part of the Framework for the Future Digital Citizenship Workshop Series 2005.

Materials

Slides

A Holistic Approach To Web Accessibility: [HTML format] - [MS PowerPoint 97/2000 format]

Accompanying Resources

Developing A Holistic Approach For E-Learning Accessibility: Developing A Holistic Approach For E-Learning Accessibility, Kelly, B., Phipps, L. and Swift, E. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 2004, Vol. 30, Issue 3.
Developing and Publicising a Workable Accessibility Strategy: Developing and Publicising a Workable Accessibility Strategy, Phipps, L., Harrison, S., Sloan, D. and Willder, B. Ariadne, Issue 38.

How To Evaluate A Web Site's Accessibility Level: Briefing 12
Use of Automated Tools For Testing Web Site Accessibility: Briefing 02
Accessibility Testing In Web Browsers: Briefing 57

Compliance with HTML Standards: Briefing 01
Use Of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): Briefing 34
A URI Interface To Web Testing Tools: Briefing 59

Summary of the QA Focus Methodology: Briefing 57
Top 10 Quality Assurance Tips: Briefing 37
Implementing Your Own QA: Briefing 58

Feedback From Discussion Groups

Brian led one of the discussion groups. Participants were asked to audit their current position already underway, review plans for the future and list priorities and concerns on barriers within the context of support for people with disabilities. The following issues were raised.

There is much valuable work currently in progress amongst the participants. The following concerns and challenges were identified:

Resource issues: This included finding and training staff with the required skills. It was felt that there was a need to ensure that support staff have good people skills as well as the technical skills needs to advise patrons. It was noted that technical support could be provided in several ways: by staff employed by the library service; by support from council IT services departments or by out-sourcing support work (which could include both profession IT organisations and groups such as local disability charities, etc.)
Environment: Sharing experiences concerning the layout of PCs. For example, centralised location for PCs which can help peer-to-peer support, etc. versus distributed locations, which may provide better privacy for patrons.
Promotion of services: Strategies for promoting the services to the community.
Technical challenges: Such as reconciling the need to allow users to create and store personal profiles and the use of software such as DeepFreeze to manage the desktop environment.
Security versus Publicity: Reconciling the conflicts between making services openly available in order to encourage their use and the need to prove a secure environment in order to avoid misuse, theft, etc.

It was felt important to continue the culture of sharing best practices and advice across the community through participation in events such as this one, mailing lists such as the lis-pub-libs JISCMail list, etc.

Biographical Details

Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus, provides a Web advisory service to the UK cultural heritage and higher and further education communities. Brian works for UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management which is located at the University of Bath. UKOLN is funded by MLA and the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee).

Brian became active in Web development in the early days of the Web, having helped establish a Web site at the University of Leeds in January 1993. He immediately saw the potential of the Web and became a early pioneer and advocate of the Web. Brian joined UKOLN in 1996 and has been active in promoting use of Web standards and best practices since then, initially within the higher and further education communities, but now also to the cultural heritage sector.

Location

The meeting on Tuesday 1^st February 2005 was held in London at the Engineering Employers Federation, Broadway House, Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9NQ (see Multimap or the location details on the EEF Web site).

Note that 50 participants were booked on this workshop.