BB-Accessibility Course Comments and Action Items

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Location: Accessibility Unit page_03.html Academic Resources for Section 508
Change: typo Misspelled: Recourses in H1
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: Corrected - will display during next release of the course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_03.html Academic Resources for Section 508
Change: outdated: The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)needs update; Bobby doesn't exist anymore.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: Corrected - will display during next release of the course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_03.html Academic Resources for Section 508
Change: Update REHAB711NC: Designing Universally Accessible Web Resources - University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign and the Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: Corrected - will display during next release of course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_04.html Planning and Implementing Accommodations
Change: remove using plain text as an alternative
Submitted by: Hadi and Dean
Status: Corrected - will display during next release of course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_04.html Planning and Implementing Accommodations
Change: Suggested additions to the text include:
The term "Visually impaired" can be applied to all group of users who have problem with vision. Occasionally this term is used for low-vision users requiring magnification software or CCTV to read.

Though low-vision users and blind have a lot common, their needs for reading and interacting with online information are different.

Most blind users use the speech part of the screen reader programs, however there are many blind users, especially in Europe, use refreshable Braille Displays" with or without speech to interact with computers. So refreshable Braille Displays is another way to access online information. Introduce refreshable Braille Display or at least mention it as an alternative way to access electronic information.

For the low-vision users, the content needs to be enlarged and/or the contrast needs to be customized to their needs..

Use of inline formatting in the document prevents them to enlarge the font or stylize it to their needs. So any inline formatting should be avoided.

Blind users care less for the contrast or font size or shape, however the content should linearize properly and logically. Structuring the document using H1-H6 and use of ordered/unordered/definition lists whenever possible and makes sense are strongly recommended. Use of table for layout should be avoided and instead CSS should beused for positioning.

Plain-text is *not* a good way to represent textual information to blind users because it does not provide any orientation and navigation. Instead valid and well-structured html/xhtml should be promoted for default online document types.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: revised text to address these points and appears in new version of the course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_05.html Design Guidelines for Universal Accessibility
Change: Suggested additions to the text include: A paragraph about aging and the need for adapting font size with users' needs can emphasize the liquid design. Another interesting point is that the technologies are changing and people are using PDAs Blackberries and cell phone for more interaction for private and work related matters and without a universal design you can not reach these potential users.

I usually use the example with curbcut that it has been originally designed for people on wheelchairs but it is also serving people with strollers, mailman, and many others who can benefit from it.

Your audience are primarily instructors and you should avoid any language that could discourage them from further reading. I would use more positive phrases such as "it will increase the readability of your course and help students to orient themselves better and easier in the course". or something like that.

Use standard HTML This is a good point but needs more explanation. You should see what authoring tools your audience use to create html pages. Are they using MS Word, Dreamweaver, Frontpage, handcoding, the built-in html editor of Blackboard, or other product. It is very critical to provide them with Best Practices for any of those authoring tools. Regardless what authoring tool they use, the page should validate to the defined DTD.

The above recommendations are great, however there are more general recommendations for universal design. Below is my top 10 recommendation for html-based applications/contents. Some of them might not be 100% applicable because I wrote them originally for application developers but we can customize it to become more suitable for content creators..

Top 10 Accessibility recommendations for web-based application/contents Hadi Rangin Disability Resources and Educational Services University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign

  1. Use Unique and human understandable Title for each page.
  2. Use Header elements H1-H6 to structure your page logically.
  3. Until ROLE attribute is widely supported by browsers, provide (off-screen) H2 element for navigation bars/menus and design them in consistent way.
  4. Use Cascading Style sheet for styling and positioning of objects and contents.
  5. Use structural markups such as ordered/unordered/definition lists whenever possible and makes sense.
  6. Use column/row headings for complex data tables and provide ID/HEADERS attributes to associate data cells with corresponding column/row headings. Provide Summary/Caption information for the data tables and avoid colspan/rwospan and nowrap.
  7. Use label element with form controls to associate them with their corresponding form control texts and instructions.
  8. Use keyboard model as primary interaction with your page and navigation and make sure all mouse events can be also triggered with keyboard. Avoid onChange event handlers and instead use a Select element with an button to trigger the associated function.
  9. Provide alternative text for informational graphics using the ALT attribute and set the ALT attribute to NULL ("") for stylistic graphics.
  10. Provide text transcripts for audio and video contents and if synchronization between the text transcript and audio/video is required, make sure that the text transcript is synchronized with the and auditory/visual renderings.

Again, some of them might not be applicable completely for content creater and other might need to be revised to be more suitable for content creaters.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: revised text to address these points, appears in new version of the course, but read comments.
Comments: I have not intended to include information on individual authoring tools in this course. I can add a point about validation, but talking about DTDs (Document Type Definition) is too technical for the intended audience of this course.

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers
Change: References to LYNX are old and out of date
Submitted by: Hadi and Dean
Status: revised text to address these points

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers
Change: It is important that CSS should be used for all styling and positioning. Inline formatting should be avoided entirely.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: revised text to address these points - an entire was added to the content as a link for readers who want more info on using CSS with Vista and CE6 courses. See comments
Comments: Content added to a Blackboard Academic Suite course is subject to whatever stylesheet is added to the course template. It is not possible to add a CSS to individual pieces of content added to an Academic Suite course. However, in Vista Courses CSS can be used in this way: You can use Cascading Style Sheets with course as follows. Creating the Style Sheet

  1. Determine at what level the CSS will apply, to just a learning module or to the entire course content.
  2. Create the CSS file at the appropriate level in your course.
    For example, you may wish to place the CSS file at the root level of the file manager, or within a directory used for learning modules or other HTML pages. (See notes on naming)
  3. Add your CSS code

Naming Notes:

- Vista/CE6 will only edit HTML files. If you want to edit the CSS file in Vista, you'll need to name them with a HTML extension. Since a style sheet doesn't require a ".css" extension, a file name with a .html extension works equally well.
- You'll note that when you create a file with a .css extension, .html will automatically be appended. Use Rename to change the extension, remembering you can only edit HTML files. h4. Using the Style Sheet
You can now use the style sheet by pasting the following line in your HTML document:
<link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="css_filename" >
<link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="HREF_String_from_View_File_HREF" >

For example:
<link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="style.css.html" >
<link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/style.css.html" >

Relative and Absolute References

Vista can use both relative and absolute references.

To get an absolute reference:

  • On the pull-down button beside the file name, click and select "View File HREF". A dialog box with the Vista4/CE6 HREF URL will be displayed.
  • Copy the HREF so it's available later. Here is the HREF URL from a sample /webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/style.css.html" /webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/style.css.html

Note that the URL is course independent. As long as the directory hierarchy is maintained, the content can be moved to other courses.
Relative URLs work the same as they would if there was a file system.

Here are examples of the link tag with relative and absolute URLs.

  • Absolute:
    <link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/style.css.html">
  • Same directory as HTML document:
    <link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="style.css.html" >
  • In a directory named cssfolder "beneath" the HTML
    <link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="cssfolder/style.css.html">"

A Note on HTML Correctness

The HTML specification states that the link tag should be used in the HTML document head tag. For better for worse, IE and Firefox will honor the link tag in the head or body. The most correct way to use the link tag in your HTML document is:
<head> 

 <link rel=stylesheet type="text/css" href="/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/style.css.html" />

</head> <body> </body>

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers
Change: Using tables information is old. Add Hadi's tips for using tables:

  1. Use tables only for data tables and avoid it for layout purposes.
  2. Do not construct huge tables and try not to exceed 7 or 8 columns per table.
  3. Define column and row headings wherever it is possible and make sense using TH element.
  4. Provide unique ID for each column/row headings.
  5. Associate each data cell with its corresponding column/row headings using HEADERS attribute.
  6. Keep the table "homogenous" and avoid callspan/rowspan, and nowrap.
  7. Provide at least the summary information for each data table.

Another problem with tables are when people use tabs to simulate data tables. This should be avoided under any circumstances.

Submitted by: Hadi
Status: revised text to address these points, appears in new version of the course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers
Change: Update tables section to include links
Screen readers since many years provide audio and Braille attributes to indicate links. Instead of this, I would say: Use human understandable link texts for links and avoid link texts such as "Click here", "More...". The key factor is that the link text should be clear enough and user should understand the target of the link by just reading the corresponding link texts.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: revised text to address these points, appears in new version of the course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers Images and Text
Change: It is important that your readers understand that they should provide alt tag information for *only* informational graphics. For stylistic graphics the alt tag should be set to Null (alt="").
Many content creators/developers use a graphical link in conjunction with a regular link both targeting to the same URL. If a regular link follows immediately a graphical icon or vice versa(both targeting the same URL) set the alt tag for the graphical link to Null, otherwise, screen reader users end up with redundant links.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: text ammended and appears in new version of the course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers Images and Text
Change: ALT has a typo
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: Fixed, appears in new version of the course.

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers Images and Text
Change: Include menu alternatives for image maps This area could get nasty and complicated. I would mention that it should be avoided as much as possible because it is not a good technique anyway. for more info I can refer you to: http://html.cita.uiuc.edu/text/maps/
Submitted by: Hadi and Dean
Status: revised text to address these points appears in new version of the course

Location: Accessibility Unit page_06.html Providing access for students with vision barriers Test Forms
Change: I believe this section should cover the problem with form controls and the need for the LABEL for form control, buttons, instructions for form, and situation where user needs to actively interact with the forms. I believe you all know that we have developed FAE (Functional accessibility Evaluator http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu) and Firefox accessibility extension (http://firefox.cita.uiuc.edu) here in our team based on functional accessibility principals. I am very comfortable to refer the reader to FAE. Firefox extension might be a little too technical for average user.
Submitted by: Hadi
Status: under review, I added a little bit more and the link your provided, appears in new version of the course. But will need more input from the group for specific and correct content if desired.

Location: General information for the Accessibility Unit
Change: Add information about disability laws in other countries, good to show that although in different stages all of these basic pieces of legislation result in genrally the same type of compliance required.
Submitted by: Jane
Comment: Any information you would care to give me and where exactly you'd like to add it in the course would be very helpful. I am not familiar with the laws of other countries, and I do not want to imply that what is stated in the course has any legal standing.
Status: under review, but I do not have knowledge in this area and would need information on content from the group.

Location: General information throughout the course
Change: I really like the idea of having case studies or scenarios where people can apply their knowledge and skills.
Submitted by: Jane
Comment: Because you are looking at just the raw content pages, you are not seeing the portfolio assignment that is a big part of the course. Participants are tasked with building a portfolio that displays a learning unit on any topic that demonstrates what they have learned about accessibility, universal design, and learning styles. I don't have any case studies to add, so you would have to supply these. Status: on hold. Any case studies would have to be funished from the group.

Location: General information throughout the course
Change: Also, it would be useful to distiguish between AT and UID, as AT is customized to an individual's needs while UID is meant to maximize the fit between curriculum and student learning styles in a more general sense.
Submitted by: Jane
Comment: You will have to provide me with more specific examples of what you mean here. I did not intend this course to contain a lot of material about assistive technology. I don't have much experience with it. If you have material to add, it might be presented as a separate unit.
Status: on hold until I get specific information from the group. See comments.

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