Everyone has a role to play – what's yours?
Inclusive Design 24 celebrates efforts worldwide to ensure people with disabilities have full and equal access to the web. We invite you to join the celebration and connect with the accessibility community, and learn your role in moving accessibility forward. Together we can take great strides toward making a web for everyone.
To celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day, The Paciello Group will be holding 24 one-hour webinars on all things accessibility. The sessions range from beginner-to-advanced and are aimed at everyone from executives to web developers. View the schedule below to learn more and sign up now to reserve your spot.
Thank you!
A heartfelt thank you to our wonderful presenters and to all attendees. We are currently processing and captioning the video recordings for each session and will send out an announcement once they're available.
In the meantime, why not check out last year's #ID24 sessions?
Sessions
(0:00 GMT) Hans Hillen The Response to Responsive
Responsive Web Design (RWD) has become a major influence on how web based content is developed and experienced by its users. But how does that change affect accessibility? In this session we will cover both the advantages and pitfalls RWD can provide for an accessible experience. Which paradigms can we keep, which ones have to go, and which compromises will have to be made in order to make accessible responsive design work?
Slides (PowerPoint) Hans Hillen - The Response to Responsive
Hans Hillen is a Distinguished Accessibility Engineer at The Paciello Group (TPG) where he started working in 2006. Since then he has been active as a TPG consultant and developer to help companies deal with accessibility challenges on a practical level. Hans' expertise with with WAI-ARIA solutions has helped many projects become more accessible.
(1:00 GMT) Marcy Sutton 30 Minutes or Less: The Magic of Automated Accessibility Testing
In the amount of time it would take to have a pizza delivered, I'll teach you about accessibility through JavaScript testing. By using a pragmatic approach to software quality, we can create a more inclusive Web. Take it from someone who has broken high-profile builds: you can win by automating tests for common accessibility problems and catching them before they are deployed out into the world.
Marcy Sutton is a developer at Substantial, a 60-person product development company in Seattle. She's also an instructor and co-chair of the Seattle chapter of Girl Develop It, a nonprofit organization focused on teaching women the skills of software development. She can frequently be found riding a bicycle or playing frisbee with her dog, who happens to have epic eyebrows.
(2:00 GMT) Adrian Roselli Selfish Accessibility
We can all pretend that we're helping others by making web sites accessible, but we are really making the web better for our future selves. Learn some fundamentals of web accessibility and how it can benefit you (whether future you from aging or you after something else limits your abilities). We'll review simple testing techniques, basic features and enhancements, coming trends, and where to get help.
Blog post and slides (Slideshare) Adrian Roselli - Selfish Accessibility
Adrian is a member of the W3C HTML Working Group as well as the W3C Accessibility Task Force. He has written articles for trade journals and web sites, and participated as an author and editor on five web-related books. Back in 1998 he co-founded Algonquin, a digital health company that improves providers’ and payers’ decisions.
(3:00 GMT) Patrick Fox Improving Single Page App Accessibility
Single-page applications(SPA) are increasingly common on the web. They are easy to set up, and the offer an improved user experience by not having to reload and re-render the entire UI for every new view. SPA's are inherently inaccessible, though, but with some foresight and understanding, the accessibility of these applications can be greatly improved. This talk will cover fundamental accessibility issues with single page applications, and offer working code and examples that you can use in your projects now.
Slides (HTML) Patrick Fox - Improving Single Page App Accessibility
Patrick Fox is a UI Technology Director at Razorfish in Austin, TX. Universal design and web accessibility are a passion for Patrick, and he strives to make the web a better, more inclusive place through his work and leadership.
(4:00 GMT) Henny Swan Accessible UX through the eyes of a media player
You may think accessible media players have nothing to do with you but in a world where over 65% of all search results are video even if you are not creating media players you may well be embedding them in your web pages, commissioning them and almost certainly using them on a daily basis. This is not a talk about HTML5 video, WCAG, compliance or codecs however. This is a talk about making video and audio content discoverable, fun and usable for diverse users by exploring the key principles of accessible user experience that should be applied across all digital products.
Blog post and slides (Slideshare) Henny Swan - Accessible UX through the eyes of a media player
(5:00 GMT) Sarah Horton Complementing Accessibility Standards with Evidence of Commitment and Progress
Improving web accessibility can be challenging, particularly for organizations with large, complex digital estates and internal organizational structures. Efforts can be guided by technical standards, but there are shortcomings with treating accessibility for people with disabilities as a compliance effort. What if we take a process-oriented approach to accessibility, focusing on making a commitment and demonstrating progress? In this session we explore an approach to improving digital accessibility that places value on conscious, pragmatic decision-making and sharing of evidence of progress.
Sarah Horton is interested in exploring ways to improve quality of life through good design. As User Experience Strategy Lead for the The Paciello Group (TPG), she works with companies and product teams to create "born accessible" digital products and services that work well for everyone. She is co-author of A Web for Everyone with Whitney Quesenbery and Web Style Guide with Patrick Lynch.
(6:00 GMT) Karl Groves Web Components, Demystified
Slides (HTML) Karl Groves - Web Components, Demystified
Karl Groves is Senior Technical Lead Accessibility Software Consultant & Director of Training for the Paciello Group. For over 12 years, Karl has dedicated his professional life to helping businesses create structurally sound web experiences that are also a delight to use. He has taught web standards and accessibility best practices to design, development, QA, and product teams from some of the largest E-Commerce and software companies in the world.
(7:00 GMT) David Sloan What's going on in the Web Accessibility Research World: A round-table discussion
Join a group of accessibility researchers as we discuss the most exciting current web accessibility research and its implications for the real world, emerging topics of interest and where there are research questions for which we don't yet have answers.
David Sloan is User Experience Research Lead for The Paciello Group (TPG). He’s spent the best part of 15 years as an accessibility and UX researcher, educator and consultant. He joined TPG in 2013, having previously worked at the University of Dundee’s School of Computing, one of the world’s largest academic research groups investigating accessibility for older people and people with disabilities.
(8:00 GMT) Liddy Nevile Using the developments of the Metadata Community to make AccessForAll Services that provide users with resources and services that are accessible to them
In this talk, I will work on the two disciplines that have come together to ensure that an individual user is able to find a resource in a format that is usable to them. This takes into account WCAG and ideas of universal design etc but it also takes account of an interpretation of the UN's Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities that favours inclusion as a way of avoiding discrimination and it involves taking advantage of work that has been done for decades now to make matching of requirements with user's needs. Users' needs come in the form of semantic needs, finding a resource that is relevant to their interest, and accessibility, being sure that the resource will actually be usable by them. This work has led to developments in both accessibility and metadata, as will be explained.
Liddy was the Director of a research laboratory at a major Australian university, and has been responsible for accessibility and metadata aspects of the development of major government websites in Australia; she is President of the Australian Web Accessibility Initiative (OZeWAI) and has worked with W3C, IMS Global Learning, ISO/IEC JTC1, Standards Australia and more to set standards for accessibility and metadata. She has 'retired' which means doing more work than before!
(9:00 GMT) Laura Kalbag Accessibility By Design
Why are aesthetics so often the enemy of accessibility, and how can we change that? Laura will explore the pillars of aesthetic design on the web: typography, colour, layout, and form, and how they affect accessibility. She'll look at strategies for involving accessibility from the beginning of the design process, in a way that'll please both the accessibility experts and the art directors.
Blog post and slides (HTML) Laura Kalbag - Accessibility By Design
Laura Kalbag is a designer with a thing for the web. She works at Ind.ie, creating design-led, free and open alternatives to technologies that are funded through the exploitation of users' data. She tends to harp on about accessibility, web development, design theory, web fonts, responsiveness and walks with her big fluffy dog, Oskar.
(10:00 GMT) Ian Pouncey Accessibility criteria for user experience and design
Along with visual design, defining how assistive technology users interact with a web page or application is a user experience concern, but is often not considered along with other user experience and design issues. Additionally, structure and order of content can be the foundation of the user experience for keyboard and screen reader users but is often not thought about at the design stage. This talk covers a checklist of user experience and design aspects that should be considered and documented in any project.
Slides (Slideshare) Ian Pouncey - Accessibility criteria for user experience and design
Ian Pouncey is a Senior Accessibility Specialist and Web Developer at the BBC, writing standards, guidelines, and training material, and advising developers and designers on creating accessible websites and applications. He has been working on the Web for over fifteen years, building a wide range of websites, from small sites for local businesses to the 'Metro' version of the Yahoo! home page and the framework on which all BBC web pages are built.
(11:00 GMT) Chaals McCathieNevile An extended look at image descriptions
Some pictures really are worth a thousand words. But describing how to find them, and where to put them, can take a lot more than that. A look at images on the web and how to make sure they're useful for everyone.
Chaals has been working on Web Accessibility since his mother told him to include it in some HTML Tutorials in 1997 - 14 years after she employed him to track software accessibility. He has also done time as WAI staff, as head of Standards for the browser Opera, and is currently part of the CTO group at russian internet giant Yandex and co-chair of the HTML accessibility group, among other activities.
(12:00 GMT) Steve Faulkner Accessibility Nerdvana
Steve will be giving an overview of HTML, ARIA, and how to get stuff done...
Slides (HTML) Steve Faulkner - Accessibility Nerdvana
Steve is a TPG Distinguished Accessibility Engineer. He joined The Paciello Group in 2006 and was previously a Senior Web Accessibility Consultant at vision australia. He is the creator and lead developer of the Web Accessibility Toolbar accessibility testing tool. Steve is a member of several groups, including the W3C HTML Working Group and the W3C Protocols and Formats Working Group. He is an editor of several specifications at the W3C including HTML 5.1, Using WAI-ARIA in HTML and HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives. He also develops and maintains HTML5accessibility.com
(13:00 GMT) Doug Schepers Data visualization and SVG
Data visualization is an efficient way of conveying information, but risks accessibility problems if not done right. This talk will cover well-known challenges and pitfalls for accessible information graphics, and describe techniques to overcome them, focusing on Web solutions using SVG, HTML, ARIA, and the Web Audio API. I'll also describe some of the new accessibility features in the upcoming SVG2 specification, and the work of the SVG Accessibility Task Force.
Doug Schepers has developed SVG applications and data visualizations since 2001, and has been working on SVG accessibility since 2004. He has worked for W3C since 2007, coordinating and editing specifications for such W3C groups as the SVG, WebApps, Web Annotation, Pointer Events, and Audio Working Groups, and has combined this work into pragmatic, functional applications that aid accessibility. He recently formed the W3C Accessible SVG Community Group, and serves as its co-chair.
(14:00 GMT) Justin Stockton Accessibility in the Agile Development Lifecycle
An Agile product team moves fast. Learn techniques to keep accessibility at the forefront of your sprints and not back at the starting line.
Slides (PowerPoint) Justin Stockton - Accessibility in the Agile Development Lifecycle
(15:00 GMT) Luis Pérez A Touch of Light: Photography and Storytelling for Accessibility Advocacy
In this talk, Luis Perez, a visually impaired photographer, will demonstrate how the accessibility features of iOS devices allow him to capture and share his unique perspective on the world through photography. In addition to a live demo of some of the accessibility features he uses on a daily basis, Luis will discuss the #iAmMorePowerfulThanYouThink campaign highlighting how the accessibility features of iOS encourage people with a range of disabilities to show off their talent and challenge misconceptions about ability and disability.
Luis Pérez received his doctorate in special education and a Master's in instructional technology from the University of South Florida. He is the author of Mobile Learning for All: Supporting Accessibility with the iPad, from Corwin Press. In recognition of his accomplishments in the field of educational technology, Luis was selected as an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) in 2009 and as a Google Certified Teacher (GCT) in 2014. He is the Professional Learning Chair of the Inclusive Learning Network of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). His work has appeared in publications such Teaching Exceptional Children, Closing the Gap Solutions, THE Journal, and The Loop Magazine. In addition to his work in educational technology, Luis is an avid photographer whose work has been featured on the New York Times Bits Blog and the Sydney Morning Herald. Luis has presented at national and international conferences such as CSUN, Closing the Gap, ISTE and CEC.
(16:00 GMT) Karl Groves Adventures in Test Automation: Lessons learned from 500,000 web pages
Effective accessibility testing requires a robust methodology that includes a mixture of manual, automated, and use case testing to ensure the system is universally usable. When used effectively, automated testing can deliver valuable results very quickly. In this session we will discuss the issues found most frequently by automated testing, what those issues mean, and how we can avoid them.
Karl Groves is Senior Technical Lead Accessibility Software Consultant & Director of Training for the Paciello Group. For over 12 years, Karl has dedicated his professional life to helping businesses create structurally sound web experiences that are also a delight to use. He has taught web standards and accessibility best practices to design, development, QA, and product teams from some of the largest E-Commerce and software companies in the world.
(17:00 GMT) Léonie Watson Using ARIA to make HTML, SVG and Web Components more accessible
Understanding accessibility mechanics is the key to good interface design. Using ARIA to manipulate the browser's accessibility tree means you can create interfaces in HTML, SVG and even Web Components that are accessible to assistive technologies, without compromising on functionality or design.
After many years as Director of Accessibility at Nomensa, Léonie Watson is now a Senior Accessibility Engineer with The Paciello Group (TPG) and owner of LJ Watson Consulting. Amongst other things she is Chair of the British Computer Association of the Blind (BCAB), writes for Net Magazine, and is a member of the W3C HTML Working Group and HTML Accessibility Task Force. She even appears every now and then on TV and radio to talk about technology.
(18:00 GMT) Jamie Knight Cognitive Accessibility 101
One autistic guys view on what cognitive is, the tools he uses to access the web and some tips and tricks for designers and developers.
Blog post (HTML) Jamie Knight - Cognitive Accessibility 101
Jamie is one of the accessibility specialists at the BBC. He focuses on supporting product teams, managing the accessibility champions network and helping R&D with all things accessibility. He formally worked as a developer in the platform team and as front end lead on iPlayer Radio. He has autism, and gets involved with a wide range of autism-related projects both inside and outside of the BBC.
(19:00 GMT) Mike Paciello User Stories: An Effective Method for Developing User Centered Interfaces
Bob Johansen, former CEO of The Institute for the Future once said, While problems can be summarized in a formula or an algorithm, it takes a story to understand a dilemma. The future will be loaded with dilemmas, so it will take a lot of stories to make sense of them.
In this presentation, like Johansen, I contend that our primary challenge today isn't the ability to programmatically enhance information and communication technology for accessibility; rather it is the negligence of designers and developers to engage users with disabilities, empathically understand user needs and build user-centered requirements specifications. User stories is an effective usability method that can be employed to develop applications that are optimized for user experience.
For 30 years, Mike Paciello, founder and president of The Paciello Group, has pioneered the field of accessible interface design as a technologist, consultant, author and professional speaker. His internationally best-selling book, Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities, remains the definitive standard reference for accessibility design, implementation and usability. In 2006, Mike, along with colleague Jim Tobias, was appointed co-chair to the United States Federal Access Board’s Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee (TEITAC). On April 3rd 2008, TEITAC presented a historic series of internationally harmonized recommendations that will bridge the gap between technology and people with disabilities.
(20:00 GMT) Patrick Dunphy Gain Support with Empathy & Awareness
For people who aren't affected by accessibility issues or have not interacted with someone who has a disability, they don't fully comprehend the nature or severity of the barriers people encounter online. This session will discuss and demonstrate simple proven techniques that foster a better understanding of the types of barriers that persons with disabilities often face in the digital world.
Slides (Slideshare) Patrick Dunphy - Gain Support with Empathy & Awareness
Developing interfaces since '99 and specifically with digital accessibility since '07, Patrick has learned firsthand that with proper awareness and planning, accessibility does not have to be complicated. Patrick lives in Toronto Canada where he works as a Senior UI Architect and Accessibility Specialist for Canada's national broadcaster, the CBC. In addition to his day job, Patrick co-leads Toronto's digital accessibility community, #a11yTO by organizing monthly meetups and Toronto's annual accessibility camp.
(21:00 GMT) Joe Dolson Build an accessible WordPress plug-in: Social Sharing
Got an hour? In one hour, I'll teach you how to build an accessible social sharing plug-in for WordPress. You'll learn about the common problems in social sharing, and how to build an accessible solution for this as a WordPress plug-in.
Slides (Slideshare) Joe Dolson - Build an accessible WordPress plug-in: Social Sharing
Joe Dolson is a WordPress plug-in and theme developer specializing in web site accessibility. He's a member of the WordPress Accessibility core team and regular contributor to WordPress core.
(22:00 GMT) Makoto Ueki Lessons Learned from 15 Years' Experience in Japan
Japan was an early adopter of WCAG 2.0. The Japanese national standard was published in 2004 for the first time. When the standard was revised in 2010, it included WCAG 2.0. We had big challenges and made serious efforts for the last 5 years to promote the revised standard. Though there is no legal obligation even for public sectors in Japan, there area number of good examples of websites trying to conform to the standard. Besides, Japan has a new law that will take effect in 2016. Makoto will share with you lessons learned from his experience and what is going to happen in Japan.
Slides (Zip/PDF) Makoto Ueki - Lessons Learned from 15 Years' Experience in Japan
Makoto Ueki (Infoaxia, Inc.) is an Independent consultant in Tokyo, Japan. He Has consultancy work experiences including evaluation of websites, development of in-house guidelines, QA, training, user testing and localization of evaluation tools. He is the Chairman of Web Accessibility Infrastructure Committee in Japan and participates in the WCAG working group as an Invited Expert.
(23:00 GMT) Kel Smith Maslow Up: Food & Health Accessibility
Studies indicate that people with disabilities tend to be in poorer health and receive less proactive care than other patient groups. Too few clinical practices provide adequate accommodation, and providers increasingly deem those with disabilities an economic drain due to their advanced medical histories. Disability is also a contributing factor to the decreasing availability of healthy, affordable food among today's low-income populations. These are fundamental human needs that should be more accessible to people most at risk, and the reality is they aren't. But we can do something about it. This presentation will examine the digital, cultural and societal aspects of health literacy for people with disabilities. We'll explore the gaps that exist in today's e-health landscape, uncovering the ways that accessibility can bring universal benefit to people of all abilities and backgrounds.
Kel Smith is Principal of Anikto LLC and a longtime author, speaker and practitioner in digital accessibility and e-health. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, with over 100 presentation credits spanning seven countries. In 2013, Kel launched Aisle Won to help improved access to healthy, affordable food in low-income neighborhoods. Kel is the author of the book Digital Outcasts: Moving Technology Forward Without Leaving People Behind, published by Morgan Kaufmann in 2013. He lives and works in Philadelphia and New York City.