Shortcuts for everyone! Bootstrapping accessibility

An overview of how the product managers, designers & developers at Case Commons will be using an agile process in combination with elements of Knowbility's AIR competition to improve accessibility for Casebook, a web-based tool for social workers and government agencies. Vote for our SXSW panel at http://bit.ly/TvmuTy

Transcript

1. Suman Gurung . Angela Pablo . Proposal for SXSW 2013 . @casecommons Shortcuts for everyone! Bootstrapping accessibility
2. we’re a non-profit startup developing people-centered software for social workers who’s case commons?
3. a web-based tool that transforms the way social workers manage their daily work by providing real-time data and family-centered perspectives that lead to better decisions and outcomes for children and families. what’s casebook?
4. social workers, supervisors, agency staff & managers, policy-makers, and, most importantly, children & families who is casebook for?
5. casebook is a large-scale enterprise project with complex compliance requirements. but no problem is too big if you can break it down into small enough pieces & tackle the most important parts first. why agile?
6. “Disability is created by society; we build inaccessible buildings, we build websites without colour contrasts and we make movies without captions.” – Rachel Smith Sustainable transport specialist & 2012 TED Global Fellow
7. accessibility presents a frontier where we can come up with solutions that provide valuable benefits for all people an opportunity to innovate
8. the challenge – how can we develop a plan for: • making our product accessible • training our product managers, designers & developers • implement a self-sustaining process bootstrapping?
9. Knowbility promotes accessible technology & runs AIR (Accessible Internet Rally) – an annual competition where developers learn a11y* techniques & build accessible sites for nonprofits & schools. Knowbility & AIR * a11y is an abbreviation for accessibility, where 11 refers to the number of characters between the first & last letters
10. Using Knowbility’s AIR as a model, we’re: • learning a11y tools & techniques • evaluating our app • planning what training we’ll need • organizing a competition for our product teams trying it in-house
11. as we evaluate our app, we’ll be prioritizing areas that need it the most + where we’ll have the most impact to help us break down the pieces we need to work on first. reusable patterns & code will play a big part in efficiently tackling a11y for Casebook. making AIR agile
12. we think the idea of an internal rally makes this exciting to get behind, and can help motivate our teams to challenge themselves & build accessible solutions + add skills to their tool belts that can be used on future features & projects AIR = FUN
13. we want to share our story & help other teams learn new techniques for integrating a11y. vote for our SXSW proposal at bit.ly/TvmuTy stay tuned @casecommons vote!