Policy Update
Wikipedia's Accessible Canada Act Article - Many people find out about the world through Wikipedia, and increasingly summaries of subjects that are pulled from this resource. It is a great way to get a high level view of other governmental policies like the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, Nova Scotia Accessibility Act, The Accessibility for Manitobans Act and compare it with other similar legislation around the world. All of these pages are edited by volunteers. If you wrote the policy it isn't appropriate for you to improve it, but there are always ways that citizens can make understanding accessibility legislation easier by providing better external resources, clarifying the text and ensuring that it is accurate.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 - The W3C's first Public Working Draft was released. WCAG 2.2 builds on WCAG 2.0 & 2.1. The big new feature is 2.4.11 Focus Visible (Enhanced). Focus will now need a minimum area, contrast and/or thickness.
Resources
A11yWeekly Issue #172 - I get so much from David A Kennedy's short concise weekly newsletter on digital accessibility. Common Look, a PDF remediation vendor sponsored an article touching on the impact of California's AB-434 legislation. Laura Ciporen has an article on use of personas to improve accessibility. Hidde DeVries answers the question can't browsers can solve this problem. Vincent Abbate writes on steps for creating accessible content and there is so much more.
13 Letters - Will Butler and Cordelia McGee-Tubb have just launched a new digital accessibility podcast. This team will interview some of the world’s leading experts on accessibility. Their first interviewee is Mike Shebanek who led the creation of Apple's VoiceOver screen reader. This episode has some really great insights into how Apple changed it's culture to be more inclusive. Cordelia's an accessibility specialist and comic artist, worth listing to her 2017 Inclusive Design 24 Talk where she merges the two. When Will isn't making podcasts he's building community around the free Be My Eyes app.
Ryerson University's Web Accessibility for Developers - Ryerson has published a whole series of books on accessibility that are licensed under Creative Commons License, so there is no reason not to circulate them around. I have previously shared the Understanding Document Accessibility, but they also have ones on Professional Web Accessibility Auditing Made Easy, Digital Accessibility as a Business Practice, and also Introduction to Web Accessibility.
WET-BOEW Web and Open Data Validator - The Government of Canada has released a Quality Assurance tool that addresses accessibility & bundles in Pa11y & axe-core. In February we highlighted ssa.gov's ANDI, what other tools are being developed and used by government agencies to improve accessibility?
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Surveys
2020 State of Digital Accessibility Survey - Ottawa's Derek Featherstone of LevelAccess encourages organizations to take their survey and contribute to the next State of Digital Accessibility summary.
Content design in the Canadian public service survey - Ksenia Cheinman is a lead content strategist in the Government of Canada and has put together a survey for the public sector on content design. Ksenia created an impressive visualization of digital content skills and training landscape in the Canadian public sector, and is looking at filling in the relationships between jobs, roles, training, and skills of content practitioners.
OpenConcept's Color Contrast Survey - Color Contrast is often overlooked with digital products/services. This survey is designed to raise awareness about color contrast while at the same time assess general levels of awareness about this piece of digital accessibility. Results of the survey will be shared in an upcoming newsletter. Please take the time to fill in this short survey on this important issue.
Upcoming Events
Register by March 6 to Attend the April 6 First Public Meeting of Accessibility Standards Canada - This will be an important opportunity to learn about this great new government department. Learn more about the grants and contributions programs to support advancing accessibility research.
Spotlight on ACCESSibility Series (Programs and Services) March 11 [Webcast] - Join the Spotlight on ACCESSibility Series of the CSPS to learn about efforts to improve the support of PwD within government programs and services.
Accessible Social Media Webinar on March 31st - The USA Government's National Institutes of Health (NIH) is presenting at the next Section 508 Best Practices Webinar Series. For all intensive purposes, Section 508 is largely based on WCAG 2.0 AA. If your social networking team wants to stay abreast on current best practices, this is a good opportunity to learn. Accessibility Online has an number of their webinars archived, including one I gave in 2017 on Drupal's accessibility.
Ryerson University's CKCS 126 - Web Accessibility for Developers [Spring/Summer] - This is a good time to get your web developer team signed up for the next course that Ryerson offers.
DrupalCon Minneapolis: May 18-22 - It isn't too late to register for DrupalCon, and it is such a great learning experience. Every year more Canadian public sector employees go because of the opportunities to learn about so much more than Drupal. There are several great sessions coming up in May including:
Plus two sessions on the new Olivero theme, named in remembrance of Rachel Olivero who was a blind developer who advocated for greater inclusion in the Drupal community. Learn about the design process behind Olivero and the process of setting up new Core Initiatives. If you can't make it, remember that all of these talks will be available for free on the Drupal Association YouTube Channel a few hours after they are presented live.
University of Guelph's Annual Accessibility Conference on May 26-27 - This annual event is always a great learning opportunity. This year registration begins in mid-March, once the conference program and workshops are finalized.
A11yCourses - Mike a few other keeners are maintaining a list of accessibility courses and events that might be of interest. If there are others that you think should be added, please let us know.
Updates from OpenConcept
Interview TEN7 Podcast: Accessibility is a Journey - I really enjoyed talking with TEN7's Ivan Stegic about web accessibility and of course Drupal. I've had the pleasure to get to know Ivan while he hosted me when I came last to Twin Cities Drupal Camp. Was terrific to come back on Ivan's podcast and see it grow since I was first interviewed. It's really impressive to see this collection of interviews and how the TEN7 team is using podcasting as a way to feature innovation in Drupal, but also with their clients. I hope you find this discussion as interesting as I did and please consider subscribing to The TEN7 Podcast.
Would you publish without spellchecking? - I published this article in January on effective use of automated accessibility tools given that so many people in government do not have the basics that they need to do proper accessibility testing. I highlighted the Webaim's WAVE Toolbar & Microsoft's Accessibility Insights. Everyone involved in creating digital content should have tools at their disposal to do the job effectively, and this includes having access to popular browsers like Firefox and Chrome. Public Sector employees should not have to ask for these tools, but they should be installed by default as part of doing their job. This is a big impediment to the public sector being able to meet the ACA.
a11y Office Hours - The Accessibility Team in Drupal is organizing monthly "Office Hours" to answer questions from the community about accessibility and review projects in real time. Join us to learn more and contribute your experience.
We are offering our one-day workshop for organizations on web accessibility. If your organization would like to re-assess their approaches to web accessibility, please let us know. This course provides leaders with the tools that they need to do high-level reviews of their content. Reach out if you want to book an organizational workshops.
Remember to fill in our Color Contrast Survey!
Mike is one of the facilitators in the Institute on Governance's Digital Executive Leadership Program. If you are already a digital leader, or want to become one, it is worth signing up for the next session on March 23-27, or if that is full the one on June 1-5. Mike provides a thorough overview of our modern technical stack, and a roadmap to Government of Canada IT policies.
Mike Gifford's Bio
For almost 20 years Mike has worked to shape open source software and the communities around them. In 2008, Mike began building a community of global experts in accessibility to help shape the Drupal community. He spearheaded the advancements made by the community, working to make it accessibility by default. In 2012, Mike was officially made a Drupal 8 Core Accessibility Maintainer.
Mike has a long association with people with disabilities. Mike founded the first Ottawa Accessibility Unconference Dec 2, 2011. Since then A11yYOW.ca has been organizing events to build a community of practice in Ottawa. He has presented at several accessibility conferences including A11yTO, CSUN & M-Enabling.
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