[WG: Accessibility] Sakai 2.7 Accessibility Review Concerns

[Richwine, Brian L]

Hi,

In preparation of writing Alan Berg (Sakai's Interim QA Director) about performing the Sakai 2.7 Accessibility Review, I discovered that we are quite late in starting the review. I am not sure if the release timeline found in the release practice guidelines [1] is being followed, but according to it, accessibility testing should have begun at 24 weeks prior to the release. Yesterday I saw message on the Sakai Announcements list that published the Draft 2.7.0 Release Schedule [2] and gives a release date of 22 April 2010 for Sakai 2.7. April 22nd is only 13 weeks from now.

A past critique of the Accessibility Reviews has been that they come too late in the release process and only the easiest of accessibility issues found could hope to be fixed before the release. Since the Accessibility Reviews focused on tools worthy of release consideration, the tools' designs are already very established and accessibility issues cemented into those designs were unlikely to be addressed. If the Sakai 2.7 Accessibility Review is indeed quite late, does the group think the review as we have in the past would still be of value and worth doing given our finite resources and a strong desire to participate in the early design of Sakai 3?

I think the review would have value in checking any new tools, and in looking for new issues or improvements in the tools that have changed significantly. This would help us update the Sakai Current Accessibility page, the accessibility help page, and update/add Jira tickets.

Footnotes:
[1] http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/REL/Release+Practice+Guidelines#ReleasePracticeGuidelines-ReleaseTimeline

[2] http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/announcements/2010-January/000187.html

-Brian


Brian Richwine
Adaptive Technology Support Specialist
Adaptive Technology and Accessibility Centers
Indiana University - Bloomington/Indianapolis
http://iuadapts.indiana.edu
(812) 856-4112

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