Grouper Developers Forum

["Michael A. Grady" <>]

Sounds like you might have things well in hand; getting accessibility folks 
directly involved is best,  who can provide guidance on design principles and 
frameworks to use.

I can point to a few resources though, which we've taken some advantage of in 
our work on the DMP Tool ( https://dmp.cdlib.org , of course a much simpler 
service than group management!).

First, Illinois has some expertise in accessible web design in a group at 
DRES ( http://www.disability.illinois.edu/ ):

  http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/

They've created a couple of tools for evaluating functional accessibility, 
one a web site you to and fill in a url to test (but doesn't work with https 
and authenticated pages), and one a Firefox extension that adds an 
Accessibility menu drop-down to Firefox (not sure if it works with the latest 
and greatest Firefox versions or not). Those tools are undergoing some new 
work to include WCAG 2.0 ruleset support.
Firefox extension:  http://firefox.cita.illinois.edu/

They do have a lot of info, and examples around, ARIA at:

 http://test.cita.illinois.edu/aria/
 http://oaa-accessibility.org/

and Illinois is a participating member of the Open AJAX Alliance 
Accessibility Tools Task Force:

 http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/Accessibility

Another tool which looks to already have support for WCAG 2.0 is AChecker:

  http://atutor.ca/achecker/

On Oct 26, 2011, at 9:27 AM, Tom Barton wrote:

> Keith, thanks for the tip. Yes, if that wouldn't overload your agenda, I
> think it'd be great to have a couple of grouper devs join that conversation.
> 
> Tom
> 
> On 10/26/2011 9:17 AM, Keith Hazelton wrote:
>> For other reasons some of us (COmanage) are looking forward to a chat
>> with Colin Clark mid-November.  He's lead software architect at:
>> 
>> http://idrc.ocad.ca/
>> 
>> where Fluid activity is strong.  Perhaps a shared AdobeConnect session
>> with him?
>> 
>>            --Keith
>> ______________________
>> On Wed, 2011-10-26 at 08:10 -0500, Thomas Barton wrote:
>>> Thanks Gary. One organization that might offer us the service of
>>> helping our accessibility conformance is Fluid. If not today, then for
>>> our next call let's decide how we will ensure conformance for the 2.2
>>> UI.
>>> 
>>> Tom (mobile)
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message----- 
>>> From: GW Brown, Information Systems and Computing
>>> []
>>> Received: Wednesday, 26 Oct 2011, 3:16am
>>> To: Emily Eisbruch 
>>> [];
>>>  Grouper Dev
>>> []
>>> Subject: Re: [grouper-dev] Draft Minutes: Grouper-dev Call 12-Oct-2011
>>> 
>>> --On 19 October 2011 13:06 -0400 Emily Eisbruch 
>>> <>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> [AI] (Gary) will email the Grouper-Dev list with specifics on UI
>>>> accessibility issues
>>> Apologies for the delay:
>>> 
>>> The original admin UI aimed to be accessible and deliberately avoided
>>> the 
>>> use of Javascript, partly because of cross-browser compatability
>>> issues, 
>>> but also because of accessibility constraints. We have subsequently
>>> added 
>>> Javascript for tooltips, and the Lite UI is AJAX-based.
>>> 
>>> With the Grouper UI redesign slated for v2.2 extending Javascript use,
>>> it 
>>> is important to ensure that the UI is accessible. This is mandated by 
>>> legislation in various countries and, in particular, is an important
>>> factor 
>>> for adoption in some HE institutions.
>>> 
>>> Fortunately, accessibility standards have developed, and there are
>>> many 
>>> cross browser Javascript libraries which are designed to facilitate
>>> the 
>>> creation of accessible applications. So, in addition to the original
>>> W3C 
>>> standards <http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance>, the new UI
>>> should 
>>> aim to comply with WAI-ARIA  (http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria).
>>> 
>>> It looks like validation tools are a bit thin on the ground - partly 
>>> because WAI-ARIA is supported in HTML 5 which is still being
>>> finalized, 
>>> however, <http://about.validator.nu/> and <http://validator.w3.org/>
>>> have 
>>> some support.
>>> 
>>> I've always thought that there are two parts to accessibility:
>>> 1) the box-ticking conformance with standards
>>> 2) actual usability by real individuals who rely on accessibility
>>> 
>>> Even if we make the effort during the re-design to ensure conformance
>>> with 
>>> standards it is hard to know how 'successful' we have been. Also, 
>>> compliance often drifts over time as new features are added (as has 
>>> happened with the current UI). Ideally we could do with some external 
>>> agency (or someone with a real interest) to check our compliance and
>>> its 
>>> effectiveness.
>>> 
>>> Gary
>>> 
>>> ----------------------
>>> GW Brown, IT Services
>>> 
>>> 
>> 


--
Michael A. Grady                      
Executive Program Officer for Cyberinfrastructure
Office of the CIO, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2222 DCL, MC 256, 1304 W. Springfield Ave., Urbana, IL 61801
217.244.1253 phone, 217.244.4780 fax