Lock in $30 Savings on PRO—Offer Ends Soon! ⏳

Web Accessibility and Content Management Systems

Web Accessibility and Content Management Systems

Why and how to implement accessibility into Content Management System Development

Nic Steenhout

December 08, 2008
Tweet

More Decks by Nic Steenhout

Other Decks in Programming

Transcript

  1. Accessibility & CMS Nicolas Steenhout  Disability Advocate  Physical

     Internet  Web Geek  1993  HTML 1  1996 – first awareness
  2. Accessibility & CMS What is Web Accessibility?  Several meanings:

     Able to get online  Site up and running  Etc  Accessibility is:  An accessible website is a site that people with disabilities can use.
  3. Accessibility & CMS Who is Accessibility For?  Visual, Hearing,

    Physical, Sensory, Learning  Non-native language speakers  Alternate devices – Cellphones, PDAs  Search engines  Your server & bandwidth
  4. Accessibility & CMS Legal Environment  Legislation in varying countries

     §508 vs. WCAG vs. ???  Which sites do regulation apply to?  Sydney 2000 Olympics website  Target  Global situation
  5. Accessibility & CMS Why Should We Care?  Increased target

    market (20%) for users  Getting into new markets for CMS (education, government, NGO)  Legality (who gets sued?)  Right thing to do – corporate responsibility
  6. Accessibility & CMS Basic & Easy Access Checks  Visit

    site on text-only browser (Lynx)  Visit site on PDA or cell-phone  Navigate site with keyboard only  Turn CSS off  Turn images off  Turn Javascript off
  7. Accessibility & CMS Accessibility & CMS – Front-end  Front-end

    should allow visitors to use the site.  CMS itself not accessible  Provide tools for site owners to make accessible front-end  Guideline – WCAG 1.0 or WCAG 2.0
  8. Accessibility & CMS Accessibility & CMS – Back-end  People

    with disabilities may be content managers  Limiting markets  Guidelines WCAG & ATAG
  9. Accessibility & CMS Accessibility & CMS – Fancy stuff 

    Graceful degradation  Progressive enhancement  WAI-Aria  Fancy stuff vs. Usability vs. Accessibility
  10. Accessibility & CMS Guidelines – Be Aware  Guidelines not

    definite/complete  Some guidelines are old  Some guidelines not complete  Be all and end all?  Guidelines vs. Best Practices
  11. Accessibility & CMS Implementation Scope  How much to implement?

     Old code – Refactoring or rewrite?  New code – Planning  Feature creep
  12. Accessibility & CMS Concerned Parties – Buy-in  Development team

     Everyone on the same page  Knowledge  3rd Party developers  Buy-in to changes  Knowledge  Users  Push vs pull  Unobtrusive changes benefit those needing it
  13. Accessibility & CMS Technical Know-how  Accessibility is specialist topic

     Treating accessibility like usability – no-no  Basic skills for all  Mission critical issues
  14. Accessibility & CMS Documenting Changes  Internal documentation  New

    developers  Revisiting changes down the track  Ongoing learning  External documentation  Track changes for users (themes/skins/etc)  Tutorials for adapting existing designs
  15. Accessibility & CMS Trust  Lack of trust between team

    members  Accessibility is “fluff”  Code jockeys “don’t get it”  Planning  Communication
  16. Accessibility & CMS Technological Conflicts  Using technology just because

    it exists  AJAX vs Accessibility  Priorities – how to decide?  Graceful degradation vs progressive enhancement
  17. Accessibility & CMS Working with Old Code  Legacy code

    problematic  Organic growth  Bits of code left in – no one knows why  Code/database structure limiting expansion  Limit to how much improvement - rewrite
  18. Accessibility & CMS Backward Compatibility  Demand for backward compatibility

     Just *what* do users really want?  How long do we keep compatible?  Ability to upgrade easily
  19. Accessibility & CMS Challenge, Questions, and Discussion  Implement 5

    critical accessibility improvements on your site or project this month!  Please raise questions not addressed during presentation.  Nic is available to discuss further during conference, or by email ([email protected]).