[WG: Accessibility] Draft Accessibility Statement for Sakai 2

[Nate Angell]

Brian and Mary:

Great work! I like the tone and brevity of this statement.

Fom a Product Council perspective, I'm thinking about how to meet the
goal in the statement: "all future development on tools intended for
inclusion in Sakai 2’s core will undergo regular, documented usability
and accessibility evaluations throughout the design and development
process to ensure that it meets these goals."

I'm imagining two possible ways to meet that goal, but perhaps there are others:

1) A dedicated Accessibility Team (perhaps similar to other teams like
QA, Release, Maintenance) made up of community members, perhaps also
with some Foundation support, conducts and publishes accessibility
evaluations of new development projects.

2) The existing Accessibility WG develops and disseminates standards
and tools that projects can use to demonstrate they are themselves
meeting this accessibility goal.

In either case, part of the Product Council's review of new
development projects would be to ask for demonstrations of how they
meet this accessibility goal and projects might need to meet certain
milestones change status in the development cycle.

Option number 2 above seems more practical to me, given the resources
we've seen dedicated to accessibility so far, but how does the
Accessibility WG itself envision realizing this worthy goal?

--
Nate Angell
Client Evangelist
http://www.rsmart.com
http://twitter.com/xolotl
http://xolotl.org

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Richwine, Brian L <brichwin at indiana.edu> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>
>
> Mary Stores and I have written a draft Accessibility Statement for Sakai 2.
> Please look over the following, and provide feedback via the list or in
> today’s teleconference.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>   Brian Richwine and Mary Stores
>
>
>
>
>
> Draft Sakai Accessibility Statement (written for Sakai 2)
>
> Consistent with the goal to make Sakai the most innovative and powerful
> Collaboration and Learning Environment, the Sakai community with the support
> and encouragement of the Sakai Foundation will ensure that all of the core
> features of Sakai 2 are accessible and usable by the greatest number of
> potential users, including people with disabilities.
>
> Ensuring that Sakai 2 has as few accessibility barriers as possible provides
> a rich and enjoyable user experience for all users. Therefore, we will
> continue developing the Sakai 2 core to meet or exceed the accessibility
> design principals found in recognized international standards. Our goal is
> to meet all of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level
> A and AA Success Criteria and to use emerging standards and best practice
> design techniques (such as the WAI-ARIA Suite) that support existing and
> emerging adaptive technologies.
>
> Leveraging accessibility experts in the Sakai Community, all future
> development on tools intended for inclusion in Sakai 2’s core will undergo
> regular, documented usability and accessibility evaluations throughout the
> design and development process to ensure that it meets these goals.
>
> An "Accessibility Information" help page is provided with the default
> installation of Sakai. A copy of the page as provided with the current
> version can be found here:
> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/2ACC/Sakai+Accessibility+Information+Help+Page
>
> The results of the Sakai accessibility evaluation efforts that show Sakai's
> current accessibility status can be found here:
> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/2ACC/Sakai%27s+Current+Accessibility
>
> To report accessibility problems with using Sakai, please notify the Sakai
> Accessibility Working Group Lead (use the subject line "Sakai Accessibility
> Issue"). Contact information for the Working Group can be found here:
> http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/2ACC/Accessibility+Working+Group#AccessibilityWorkingGroup-contact
>
>
>
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