#a11yTO 2016 – Accessibility Toronto Camp notes

On November 5th, 2016, I attended to a super cool event full of brilliant people in Toronto: “#a11yTO - Accessibility Toronto Camp”. Was super enlightening and at the same time great for validating some ideas and practices I’ve been acquiring/doing through my time working with accessibility. I figured that dumping the notes I got there would be a good thing for further reference, so here it is.

Opening notes

  • Focusing on getting value out of people participating.
    • Create evangelists - spread the word.
  • a11yTO - largest a11y camp in the world
  • There will be a conference on 2017
  • Camp will be happening as usual, yearly, around the same time
  • Next year, the meet-ups will be sort of made with a curriculum. Walk people through a11y through the year
  • Conferences will be specially focused on training folks
  • a11y is not only the right thing, not only legal obligation, is a force for positive change, source of new ideas and catalyst for innovation
  • Government is highly interested into making an effort for a better a11y.
    • PM appointed the first “minister of a11y” and is personally involved on the efforts
  • Johnny Taylor - presented using a text reader. Interested to see he’s using a MacBook.
    • Almost cried here. Big heart punch
    • Locked-in syndrome
    • a11y can be the difference between life and death in some cases
    • Maybe check for a11y testing availability, remote if that’s the case

Mobilizing Web Accessibility - Seth Holladay

  • Packed. Not enough seats
  • sitecues - Bought by the JAWS company, apparently
  • Wrong understanding that people with disabilities use Desktop over Mobile
  • “Variation between device and OS is massive”
    • Slows the development process very much due to the lack of standards
  • Operating environment plays a huge part on Accessibility. Glare on the screen, noisy metro, etc.
  • “Assistive tech is VoiceOver or TalkBack, not JAWS or ZoomText”
    • VoiceOver is great at reading out the screen
    • Not as many people are familiar with the Android tools
    • Could not get why he stated that JAWS is not assistive tech but VoiceOver and TalkBack are
  • Reactions to problems
    • 2/3 of people will use the website less or not at all if they find it hard to use
    • 1/3 will look for another competitor
  • Over 90% of general public faces challenges with mobile websites
  • 66% occasionally
  • 23% regularly
  • 3% most of the time
  • Difficulty to perform activities on the web
    • 47% of the people interviewed have trouble filling out a form
    • 34% clicking buttons/link
    • 27% reading a page
    • 26% finding info on websites
    • 21% completing a transaction
  • Reasons for website challenges on smartphones
    • 40% Screen too small
    • 33% Controls not working
    • 28% Glare

You Can’t Start a Fire Without a Spark! - Mike Paciello

  • People pursue a11y because they are afraid of getting a lawsuit
  • Sad truth that it is not about empathy
  • Side note: amazing plain language skillz. OMG.
  • “Great that there are so many compliance and lawsuits out there. Forces people”
  • “Are compliance and lawsuits the big catalyst of attention to a11y?”
  • “What if we prioritized people with disabilities when designing our products?”
  • Huge issue on accessible employment scenario
  • Accessibility should be a norm, a standard, a natural thing. We shouldn’t need accessibility experts
  • New a11y paradigm: Apple is the first logo there, along with Lainey Feingold, Oslo & Akershus and Teach access
    • Inside-out thinking
    • Teaching a11y “from birth”, at universities, Norway
  • Teaching Accessibility Initiative
  • Universities CS and degree programs
  • There’s isn’t a lot of ROI into putting effort to a11y, so it’s hard to convince people/companies
    • It’s more about being inclusive. Being human
    • a11y goes out the window when thinking about revenue
  • An Accessible Design Maturity Continuum
  • Design guides are important for the newcomers
  • Integrate a11y best practices into culture or development
  • Publicly saying you’re accessible or pushing towards that adds a lot of attention to the company
    • On the negative side, mostly. Lawsuits will follow
  • Don’t separate accessibility from usability
  • “Disabilities community, blind users and such” is apparently not as divisive as many well known speakers use it comfortably
  • Validated some of Shopify efforts on a11y testing of our products

Technical Accessibility - Marcy Sutton

  • axe-core - API, set of tools for a11y
  • Build a11y on frameworks so everyone can benefit from it (Angular)
  • Accessible Wins blog
    • Value the wins. It’s easy to trash talk the fails, but we need to encourage people.
  • Accessibility code coverage
    • Add JS tests - Unit and Integration
  • The New York Times
    • Major accessibility problems
    • Fixed the search form/controls on top bar
  • The Globe and Mail
    • They are ok, but can do better
    • Fixed the log in modal

I Never Knew a Website Could Hurt Somebody - Karl Groves

  • “A11Y is not only about blind users” - remembering us about this common misconception
  • Chronic Pain (Fibromyalgia), the so neglected or misunderstood physical condition
    • “Attempting to interact with a poorly designed and inaccessible website can actually hurt users”
    • The National Pain Foundation old website was a HUGE pain for people without the disability, imagine for those with
  • OAW -> Obvious Always Wins
  • Interesting thing often neglected: alter the title tag if a form has errors, for instance
  • The users’ goals is what really matter
  • Good design: convergence between creativity and capability

Accessible & Usable Web Forms. Your How To Guide! - Rabab Gomaa

  • Missed the first 3 minutes. So packed I didn’t have good room to right anything although sitting
  • Lots of examples on simple forms. Nothing new that we’re not doing already on the Shopify Checkout #winning
  • Some stuff was relying on semantic tags, which are not a viable solution for all apps. Checkout, for instance, needs to allow people to checkout nicely on IE6, so it’s a no no to us at Shopify. The WAI-ARIA stuff helps us get there, in any case

Some comments I heard from a visually impaired user

  • Hatred for JAWS
    • “Costly, old and new versions basically add bell sounds”
  • Android - gotta be a freaking ninja to use it
  • IOS - best screen reading, but the price makes it non accessible
  • Government Sensus (CA) was really awesome