Tech accessibility

Group: Sarah (facilitator), Tamayo, Andrea, Jordan, Lori

Interested in learning/talking about:

We build websites and have worked on projects for people with disability and learned a lot of what and how we left folks out. Aware and conscious when developing.

What is accessibility? Defining and knowing solutions.

Accessibility of information between departments - best practice for sharing information

Drawn to projects that need to consider infrastructure limitations, physical limitations, tech limitations, language limitations

Bandwidth accessibility, slow connection and accessibility. Want to start building what to think about and what we aren't thinking about.

Maintaining and sharing information and using tools, how do we make sure information is available and accessible. Comparability and data portability.

Build list of all things accessibility could mean

WHAT IS ACCESSIBILITY?

Physical & Cognitive ability
Bandwidth
Power
Access to technology (computers, phones, mail)
Access to internet
Tech literacy
Language and Culture
Age
Data portability / ownership
Compatibility

Break it down in considerations of delivery systems / medium / content / coding

Document solutions

Physical & cognitive
Content
Design
Development
Hardware

Color & contrast

Sizing & rescale; justified text easier for (dyslexia)
Slide shows / images - has to be slow
Screen reader
Checklist (coding) http://a11yproject.com/checklist.html

Resource-constrained environment

1. Slow (low bandwidth)

lots of connections can be good

2. Latency (small tube)

lots of connections can be problem

Understand users and think of solutions accordingly in terms of: power, physical access to computers/phone/tech access to internet

have to build capacity to use technology
touch
kiosks
easy print
how much power does site use?
gender differences in tech use
social power vs. watts
intermittent electricity
what is hardware environment

Technical literacy

symbols - standard and related to culture and language - X usually means no Circle means ok
test with real diversity
test early
watch people
provide with good CMS so can interact with their site and it's intuitive, like wordpress and make sure interface is friendly and easy to use without code. Visual for backend users
don't make people write code
don't hard code
self-document
comments and feedback
before you start engage with stakeholders
visual interface

Language/culture/age

Multilingual- switch language buttons - clear how to change language (ex. LA Metro)
Google translate has got a lot better, depends on which language are "compatible"
translate back again and see what you get
no matter how many languages, not going to cover every language in LA, how to serve people you will inevitably not serve best
breathing in one language could be smoking in another
some universal - arrows, circles, exes
colors have different meanings
cell phone as main form of gathering information
what direction text read - right to left; left to right; up and down
sports references - using cultural references can be restrictive - test with audience

Data Portability

comparability
security
ownership
privacy
can I get my data back out?
interoperability
export
remove / delete / really delete
many department platforms - sales force,zoho, google
open-source vs open data
web scraping
backing up
technology policies - tool to meet common needs - management
viewing vs. using information
data policy vs. tool

Anything additional to share:

Someone at Sacramento Techfest developed SMS for deaf / blind code touch a letter and get morse code vibration ( SMS haptic morse code)

flexsy