What is IT accessibility and why should you care? April 2017 Sarah E Bourne Director of IT Accessibility MassIT’s mission is to drive the digital business of state government to meet the continually evolving needs of constituents, schools, businesses, and local government.

What is IT accessibility? IT Accessibility is making sure our online systems and services can be used by everybody, especially people with disabilities.

Disability is relative Calvin and Hobbes comics by Bill Watterson ©, as posted at https://twitter.com/Calvinn_Hobbes/status/846145059825184770

Computers and the Internet open doors for people with disabilities Why Accessibility? Computers and the Internet open doors for people with disabilities 57% of computer users benefit from accessible technology, even though many do not consider themselves “disabled” The things that make it convenient for you make it possible for people with disabilities Picture from Inclusive Microsoft Design, © Microsoft 2016 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) Details! Videos at https://www.w3.org/WAI/perspectives/ Web Accessibility Perspectives: Explore the Impact and Benefits for Everyone Learn more: Videos at Web Accessibility Perspectives: Explore the Impact and Benefits for Everyone 3

Why Accessibility? What most people with disabilities want is to be as independent as possible You can’t be independent if you don’t have your own income   With disabilities Without disabilities Labor force participation 19.5% 68.2% Unemployment rate 11.0% 4.9% US Dept. of Labor January 2017 US Dept. of Labor January 2017

The Governor thinks it’s important, too Governor Baker declaring March as Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month at a State House Ceremony. (Twitter) Declared March as Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month

It’s not just the right thing to do… Commonwealth Massachusetts Constitution, Article of Amendment CXIV Massachusetts General Laws Ch. 93, section 103 Ch. 151B Ch. 272 section 98 Federal Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 42 U.S.C. §2000d and its implementing regulations Titles I, II, and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. §794d Applies to federal agencies and other entities receiving grant money from federal agencies. Our standards are harmonized with Section 508 regulations Section 255 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Requires telecommunications service providers and equipment manufacturers, including interconnected voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), to ensure that their services and equipment are accessible to individuals with disabilities. We need to make sure providers of telecomm goods and services are in compliance.

How accessible IT works Assistive technologies (AT) Software: screen readers Magnification speech recognition Hardware: special keyboards or mice, single switch Interact with operating system accessibility interfaces – APIs Applications that make use of the accessibility APIs can then work with the AT

The web was designed to be accessible Browsers use the API, so our job is to make sure we follow the specifications for building web pages and applications HTML, CSS: the mark-up and presentation for webpages ARIA: HTML extension for adding accessibility features WCAG: Web Content Authoring Guidelines – do's and don't's for authoring accessible HTML It's usually when you get fancy that accessibility gets broken: Using the wrong mark-up so it will look a certain way Writing your own code to replace native features to look or behave a certain way

Not everybody needs to know everything Executive stakeholders: Top-down communication, governance, and culture Program, product, and project managers: Know who is supposed to know what and when what kind of testing needs to happen Architect: Accessibility support in selected libraries and frameworks Designer: Colors, fonts, identification of content flow and decorative- only elements Developer: Correct use of HTML/CSS/JavaScript Content providers: Correct heading levels, provide alternative text Responsibilities by role: https://wiki.state.ma.us/download/attachments/753303596/MappingWCAG2ToProjectRoles-20141020.docx?version=1&modificationDate=1428596636000&api=v2 Learn more: Responsibilities by role (DOCX)

Putting your stuff on the web Use standard features of Mass.Gov – accessibility has been built in as much as possible Use the right format A web page has the best accessibility If posting Word or PDF Are you SURE it can't be posted as a web page? Make sure it's as accessible as it can be Get training in how to make them accessible If it's data, consider posting it in a data-friendly way: CSV or Excel, for example Use the right format: https://wiki.state.ma.us/display/assistivetechnologygroup/Document+Accessibility#DocumentAccessibility-Pickthebestformat Tree as PDF: https://wiki.state.ma.us/download/attachments/777650443/decisiontree.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1471631241000&api=v2 Learn more: Use the right format and Decision Tree as PDF

Buy accessible products and services Test before you buy – whenever possible Put accessibility requirements in contracts MassIT/OSD IT Acquisition Accessibility Compliance Program – use required language and RFx templates Test during implementation and/or development Create a process for assessing and prioritizing problems Audit testing at end Good contract management Assessing and Prioritizing: https://wiki.state.ma.us/display/assistivetechnologygroup/Assessment+and+prioritization+of+accessibility+issues

Create processes for assessing and prioritizing problems Design, develop, deploy Test early and often Find and fix as many defects as early as possible Make sure an audit test does not turn up surprises Learn from results: continuous reduction of defects Create processes for assessing and prioritizing problems Audit testing at end Assessing and Prioritizing: https://wiki.state.ma.us/display/assistivetechnologygroup/Assessment+and+prioritization+of+accessibility+issues Learn more: Accessibility testing Assessing and Prioritizing

Accessibility in an Agile world Ways agile methodologies can undermine accessibility: Decentralized ownership can weaken top-down mandates Teams control their own backlogs - Shiny new features can be more likely to win out over accessibility fixes Ways agile methodologies can improve accessibility: More incentives for integration of accessibility responsibilities Better mechanisms for ensuring testing happens early and often User testing possible much earlier

IT Accessibility on Commonwiki Learn more IT Accessibility on Commonwiki How-to Internet Resources AT licenses ITS61 statewide contract for IT Accessibility Services Audit testing (Category A) Consulting (Category B) Document remediation (Category C) Training (Category D) Multimedia captioning (Category E) Custom accommodations (Category F)

Questions? Thank you.