W4A 2017: The Future of Accessible Work PEAT Webinar for Global Accessibility Awareness Day – May 18, 2017

Logistics Audio is also available over a phone line: Dial in number: 1-866-365-3921 Conference Code: 7247886139 Submit questions at any time during the presentation: Type directly into the Chat window on your screen Email info@PEATworks.org Tweet @PEATworks using #PEATTalks Captioning is available: http://www.captionedtext.com/client/event.aspx?CustomerID=1314&Eve ntID=3234057

But first – how well do you know GAAD? Poll: What inspired accessibility expert Jennison Asuncion to start Global Accessibility Awareness Day over six years ago? His colleagues encouraged him to do it He got the idea while attending an accessibility conference He read a tweet that piqued his interest

What we would like to cover today: What is W4A? What was this year’s W4A theme and why? General highlights and insights from this year’s conference? Spotlight on keynotes, papers and events relating to this year’s theme Q&A

What is W4A? The “Web For All” conference has been co-located with the World Wide Web (WWW) conference for 14 years, usually including at least one joint session – this year it was the Accessibility Hack Started in 2004 as a workshop aiming to make the internet more accessible for people with disabilities W4A/WWW is considered the top conference for web accessibility research, attracting scientists, students and practitioners Each of W4A’s 364 papers has been downloaded an average 360 times and with 4.20 citations Each year’s conference theme reflects emerging trends in web accessibility and encourages researchers to look for innovative solutions

2017 Theme: The Future of Accessible Work Inclusive work environments have the potential to greatly improve the ability of people to obtain and maintain meaningful employment. Organizations and employers are also embracing the benefits of being more inclusive in their human resource management. W4A received 32 submissions from 13 countries covering a wide range of topics. 5 technical papers and 16 communication papers were selected for inclusion into this year’s program.

Some highlights and insights to check out Working from home and the need for a shift in management style Considerations for implementing a holistic organizational approach to accessibility Web standards to enable an accessible and inclusive IoT Cross-cultural web design guidelines Evaluating the Accessibility of the Job Search and Interview Process for People who are Blind and Visually Impaired

Spotlights on keynotes, papers and events Keynote Address #3 – David Masters Creating accessible local government: the process The crowd work accessibility problem Gaze the web: a gaze-controlled web browser others Accessibility Hack

1. Keynote Address #3 – David Masters “Microsoft’s journey towards inclusion” Abstract: This paper details Microsoft's Journey towards inclusion and how Microsoft is evolving its culture to be more inclusive, which is driving a wave of innovation at the company focused on supporting people of all abilities Points: Recruiting top talent and engaging with disability community and partners Targeted recruiting approach at universities for PWDs Disability scholarship for college-bound students to encourage them to go and stay in college and establish a pipeline for future Microsoft candidates

1. Keynote Address #3 – David Masters, cont’d. Inclusive integration – making sure everything is ready on day 1, and the accommodations are US-based and centralized so no manager has to pay for the accommodations Writing material for managers to educate and employer them to be the best managers for all staff Creating an inclusive culture Incorporated accessibility into “Standards of Business Conduct” which every employee takes every year Allow for networking within employee resource groups New innovations: Learning Tools that assist students with learning difficulties, Skype Translator’s live transcript function for the deaf and Seeing AI would all not have happened if we did not have both employees with disabilities and greater disability awareness across the company culture

2. Creating accessible local government: the process Key Success Factors Accessibility should be addressed/made priority in City planning documents Identify issues via feedback and a technical audit Initiate a formal procurement process for replacement website Choose a developer who understands accessibility Train developers and content providers in accessibility Develop a project plan with accessibility checkpoints in place Identify issues and find solutions Determine the success of the project Plan next steps and projects Rather than evaluating the websites of local government, this paper examines the process involved in developing an accessible local government website, which forms an integral part of the plan for local government to be truly inclusive The City of Cockburn (in Western Australia) employs numerous people with disabilities and wanted this approach to be reflected in their websites.  The paper points to specific key success factors required to update a website to be inclusive while also keeping in mind the constraints on both time and budget Applies to both the external-facing website as well as Intranet for staff use

3. The crowd work accessibility problem – nominated for best communication paper Looked at the growing popularity of crowd work and why it would be attractive to people with disabilities – largely because of its flexible nature People with disabilities are often unable to gain access to the work because the tasks are posted in an inaccessible way Looked at Amazon Mechanical Turk and tested 120 different tasks from several common types Outlined research directions that could have an impact on the problem

4. Gaze the web: a gaze-controlled web browser – winner of Judge’s Award – TPG Challenge A web browser and open source (on GitHub) framework which adopts web interfaces for gaze interaction and where input events (mouse/keyboard interactions) are revised to eye movements Previous attempts rely on gaze emulation of the mouse and keyboard to operate the browser and results in low usability for web browsing Supports all browsing operations such as search, navigation and bookmarks Currently in clinical studies for Neuromuscular disease, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s Disease patients.

5. Accessibility Hack Hosted at Bankwest and sponsored by the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT), with prizes donated by Microsoft and The Paciello Group (12 X-box sets for winner and runner-up participants) Hack Target: TAO® TAO Website Participants were divided up according to skillset with participants from each skillset on every group We only had the afternoon for the Hack, which was short, but very intense Judges: W4A Hackathon Exciting and hopefully will assist TAO with accessibility improvements with code contributed to the TAO code repository

Hard at work in great surroundings

Thank you – do you have any questions? You can get further information on our services at our website, Web Key IT at www.webkeyit.com You can email me: v.conway@webkeyit.com You can ring me direct on +61 415-383-673 Dr Vivienne Conway, Director

It wasn’t all hard work…Looking forward to meeting up again in Lyon in 2018

Join us for next month’s PEAT Talk! PEAT Talks: Why Jobseekers Need a Digital Brand When: Thursday, June 15, 2pm-3pm ET Speaker: Ted Drake, Principal Accessibility Engineer, Intuit Topic: Today, eRecruiting dominates all aspects of hiring & recruiting, and a successful job search starts by investing in a digital brand. For students with disabilities in particular, strategically shaping an online persona can open many career doors. In this webinar, Intuit’s Ted Drake will profile how several people with disabilities leveraged social media to start successful careers. Register at www.peatworks.org