Enhancing Web Accessibility: Insights from Aaron Cannon, Instructure Engineer
Discover how Aaron Cannon, a dedicated Instructure Engineer, leads efforts in web accessibility. Learn about Canvas' commitment to inclusivity and the collaboration with ATHEN to improve accessibility in higher education. Explore the importance of WCAG standards and how internal reviews and user feedback drive accessibility enhancements.
Download Presentation
Please find below an Image/Link to download the presentation.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author. If you encounter any issues during the download, it is possible that the publisher has removed the file from their server.
You are allowed to download the files provided on this website for personal or commercial use, subject to the condition that they are used lawfully. All files are the property of their respective owners.
The content on the website is provided AS IS for your information and personal use only. It may not be sold, licensed, or shared on other websites without obtaining consent from the author.
E N D
Presentation Transcript
Aaron Cannon Engineer, Instructure Accessibility: How We Do It; How You Can Help
About Me: Totally blind since birth Used screen reading technology since 1988 Programmer since 1995 Worked on web accessibility since 2008 Been with Instructure since 2013
What accessibility means to us: Canvas strives to go beyond just stamp of approval compliance and certification. Instead, we strive to ensure the Canvas platform is easy and enjoyable to use for everyone, including people with disabilities. There are multiple ways for a company to commit to accessibility: No Complaints = No Problems Letter of the Law
How we measure accessibility: WCAG the gold standard Section 508 Written in late 90 s, currently being updated Americans with Disabilities Act Courts are divided on it s applicability to the web Widely believed to be satisfied by WCAG 2.0 compliance Section 504 Also likely satisfied by WCAG 2.0
Discovering the issues: Regular internal accessibility reviews Quality Assurance Engineers are trained to test for accessibility issues Collaboration with users and institutions Contract with third-party experts to test the accessibility of Canvas
What is ATHEN? Access Technology Higher Education Network http://athenpro.org/ Founded at CSUN conference in 2002 Collaborates with higher education vendors to enhance and improve their accessibility
ATHEN/Canvas Collaboration: Takes places within a Canvas course http://collaborate.athenpro.org/group/canvas/ Currently consists of 82 users from roughly 50 schools Open to any Canvas user, including those piloting Canvas Presented with Canvas at CSUN 2015
WebAIM May 5, 2015 WebAIM.org, a third party authority in web accessibility, has evaluated the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) by Instructure and certifies it to be substantially conformant with Level A and Level AA of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0. A representative sample of system views was evaluated for accessibility. This sample included course pages, calendars, quizzes, and communication tools. WebAIM cannot verify the conformance of content that is changed after May 5, 2015. However, based on our interactions with Instructure, WebAIM is confident in their ability and willingness to maintain a substantially conformant LMS. http://webaim.org/services/certification/canvas
What weve accomplished: Quiz moderation (extended time/attempts) Easily adding alt text via Rich Content Editor Agenda View Calendar Individual View Gradebook MathML and LaTeX for screen readers
Whats next? (Maybe) SVG output for equations Language switching in Rich Content Editor Addition of Markdown Text Editor Improving Chat accessibility
Accessibility by the Numbers: The number of accessibility bugs, improvements and enhancements we make in Canvas continues to grow each year. We aim to be proactive, with the majority of issues being identified by us, along with collaboration and input Tickets closed by year: 2013: 146 2014: 375 2015: 256 (so far)
