You have (probably?) heard about accessibility ("universell utforming" in Norwegian), but do you know what it is? How to use it and how to design, develop and test for it? No? Then this is the workshop for you! And even if you are experienced and know what a11y stands for, you might pick up a trick or two.

1. FROM ACCESSIBILITY N00B
TO PRO IN 1.5 HOURS
BOOSTER 2017
VEGARD HAUGSTVEDT
ITERA

2. «THE MAIN RULE IS THAT ALL IT-SOLUTIONS IN NORWAY
MUST BE ACCESSIBLE. THIS INCLUDES BOTH WEBSITES,
SELF-SERVICE MACHINES AND SIMILAR SYSTEMS. BOTH
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC BUSINESSES, TEAMS AND
ORGANIZATIONS MUST FOLLOW THE RULES.»
– DIFI.NO

3. WCAG 2.0
• Principles
• Guidelines
• Success Criteria
• Techniques
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4. Core principals of accessibility – WCAG 2.0
• Perceivable
• Operable
• Understandable
• Robust
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5. 1. Perceivable
1. Text alternatives
2. Time-based Media
3. Adaptable
4. Distinguishable
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6. 2. Operable
1. Keyboard accessible
2. Enough time
3. Seizures
4. Navigable
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7. 3. Understandable
1. Readable
2. Predictable
3. Input assistance
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8. 4. Robust
1. Compatible
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9. WHO DO WE BUILD FOR?
CONSEPT PHASE

10. «Why should we bother with accessibility? As far
as we know, none of our users are blind…»
- Anonymous client
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11. Employment among people with significant
vision loss
• 38.3% of disabled users of screen readers are
employed full-time*
• 73.4% of non-disabled users of screen readers
are employed full-time*
WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey #6 (2015)
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12. Who are your users?
General – the average user
• Demographics
• Job responsibilities and tasks
• Frequency of use
• Hardware
• Environment
• Computer experience
• Web application experience
• Task knowledge
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13. User group: Retirees
• Age: 57-96
• 60% male, 40% female
• Reduced vision
• Reduced motor skills
• … and so on
Data from HRWeb (US)
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14. Personas
Vegard Haugstvedt
29 years old
Developer
Red-green colour blind
Doesn’t leave home without his phone, and has a computer within reach
whether he is at work or at home. Loves new gadgets, and has a dream of
making his day-to-day life as automated as possible. He recently became a
father, and therefore frequently has to use mobiles and laptops with only one
hand while carrying his son. Uses his phone in bright daylight and while in dark
rooms at night.
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15. Who are your users?
Specific – «real» users
• Name
• Image
• Age
• Profession
• Personal traits
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16. TASK 1:
PERSONAS
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17. Task 1: Personas
• Create a persona that incorporates accessibility concerns
• You should at least specify the following:
– Nature of limitations
– Special tools or assistive technology used
– Experience and skills with the relevant tools and technologies
– Frequency of use of relevant tools or assistive technologies
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18. DESIGNING FOR A
BETTER WEB
DESIGN PHASE

19. Color contrasts
• Normal text: 4.5:1 contrast
• Large text: 3:1 contrast
• Be wary of text overlaying images
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20. Click areas
• Buttons
• Checkboxes
• Links (also inside texts)
• Make as large of an area as possible clickable
• Make it intuitive what area is clickable
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21. Text formatting
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22. Sliders
• Inherently inaccurate
• Bad UX for touchscreens as well
• Use as an enhancement
– Provide alternative inputs
– Make the slider-button accessible for keyboard users
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23. Ease of navigation
• “Every click or interaction should take the user closer to their goal
while eliminating as much of the non-destination as possible.” *
• Make sure focus is clearly shown!
• Stop removing link underlining…
* http://grundyhome.com/blog/archives/2009/01/31/breaking-the-law-the-3-click-rule/
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24. TASK 2:
DESIGN REVIEW
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25. Task 2: Design review
1. Have a look at http://nba.com/
2. Discuss the following with the person next to you
– Imagine how this page would be experienced if you could not see
3. Try navigating with a keyboard (using TAB)
– Do you feel confident on where you will be taken if you click enter?
4. How would you have solved this functionality in a more accessible way?
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26. SEMANTICS
AND WAI-ARIA
DEVELOPMENT PHASE

27. HTML5 Landmarks and sectioning elements
• Main (main)
• Section (region)
• Header (banner)
• Footer (contentinfo)
• Nav (navigation)
• Aside (complementary)
• Form (form)
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28. HTML Headings
• H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6
• Provides structure to the page
• Allows the user to navigate quickly through the page
• How would your page would appear if you only heard the headings?
• Don’t use heading levels for styling purposes!
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29. Custom widgets vs. Native HTML elements?
• Always use the native HTML elements if there exists one.
• Avoid issues with browser compatibility, support for assistive technologies,
and so on.
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30. Images and videos
• Non-textual content
• Alt-attribute
• Beware of text over images
• … But do use them!
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31. Links and buttons
• Link- and button texts should be descriptive
• Links should visually differentiate themselves from regular text
– Underline and color
• Buttons should also respond to keyboard interactions
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32. Forms
• Avoid keyboard traps!
• Placeholders are not replacements for labels
• Make sure placeholders satisfy contrast requirements
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33. TASK 3:
HTML5 SEMANTICS
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34. Task 3: HTML5 and screen readers
http://codepen.io/it-vegard/
1. Try «viewing» images with screen reader
2. Try navigating links with screen reader
What did you experience?
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35. WAI-ARIA
Version 1.0 was published in 2014
• Roles (describes type of widget or structure)
• State
• Live regions
• Drag-and-drop sources and targets
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36. WAI-ARIA roles
• Used to declare user interface elements
• Provides semantics for assistive technologies – how this element should be
handled
• Still needed even with HTML5
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37. WAI-ARIA state
• Used to communicate input states to assistive technologies
• Most of them are handled natively by the user agents
• Set values with JavaScript for custom elements
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38. WAI-ARIA live regions
• Used to define areas of the webpage that will change
• Informs screen readers whether and how to interrupt users with changes
• Auto-loading in comment fields, calculated values, conditional input elements, etc
• ‘aria-live’ sets how often to alert the user of changes.
• ‘aria-controls’ associates a control with the region it controls.
• ‘role’ has some predefined live regions:
– log, status, alert, progressbar, marquee and timer
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39. AUTOMATIC VALIDATION
AND USER TESTING
TEST PHASE

40. Ways of doing accessibility testing
• Browser validators
• Command line tools
• User testing
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41. Browser validators
• Chrome Developer Tools
• Ainspector (Firefox)
• WAVE
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42. Automated tools
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43. User testing
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44. TASK 5:
ACCESSIBILITY VALIDATION
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45. Task 5: Accessibility validation
1. Download a browser accessibility testing tool for your browser:
– Chrome: Accessibility Developer Tools
– Firefox: Ainspector
– IE (or Chrome): WAVE Evaluation Tool
2. Try to validate your company’s website
– What did you find?
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46. WHAT HAVE WE
LEARNED?

47. Some useful resources
• Difi: https://uu.difi.no/
• Blindeforbundet: https://www.blindeforbundet.no/universell-utforming
• WCAG quick-reference: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/
• Mozilla a11y resources: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/Accessibility
• Integrating a11y in design: http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/
• Writing accessible HTML: https://medium.com/alistapart/writing-html-with-
accessibility-in-mind-a62026493412
• WAI-ARIA: https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/introduction
• ARIA roles: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2464970
• W3C a11y tutorials: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/
• Blindness statistics: https://nfb.org/blindness-statistics
• WebAIM survey: http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey6/
• NVDA keyboard shortcuts: http://webaim.org/resources/shortcuts/nvda
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48. THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!
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