Web Accessibility Open Forum

1. Web Accessibility Open Forum Presented by the Web Accessibility Committee June 24, 2010

2. Overview • Web Accessibility Committee • Reason for the Policy and How It Applies • Deadlines • Specific Requests for Access • Reporting • Standards and Examples • Web Accessibility Website • Resources • Training

3. Web Accessibility Committee • Established in 2004 to address the need for a web accessibility policy. • Members are volunteers. • The committee: • Drafted the policy and submitted it for approval. • Published and manages the Web Accessibility website. • Developed the self-guided training. • Is developing instructor-led courses.

4. Web Accessibility Policy • Effective March 15, 2010 • http://www.purdue.edu/policies/pages/information_technology/v_2_1.shtml • Announced in Purdue Today • http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/purduetoday/faculty_staff_news/2010/100216_PolicyChange.html

5. Web Accessibility Policy • Reason for policy: • Ensure equal access to information. • Ensure compliance with applicable law. • Applies to: • All official Web pages and associated Web-based services developed by or for a college, school, department, program or unit of Purdue University.

6. Web Accessibility Policy • Exclusions • Individual Web pages published by students, employees, or non-university organizations that are hosted by the University and do not conduct university related business. • Archived Web Pages unless specifically requested by an individual with a disability.

7. Questions • Does the policy apply to internal staff-only administrative web pages as well as publically accessible ones? • Does the policy apply to internal staff web pages that will only be needed for a few months (e.g., current status page for short-duration projects such as summer instructional lab upgrades)?

8. Questions • Does the policy require web accessed video content to be closed captioned? • We can’t control content from other sites. However, Purdue is required to provide equal access to students and employees. • How would closed captioning be implemented and funded? • Closed captioning will be implemented and funded by each school, department or unit.

9. Deadlines • All new and Redesigned Web Pages published on or after March 15, 2010 must be in compliance with the U.S. Access Board’s Electronic and Information Technologies Accessibility Standards and must indicate in plain text a method of contact for users with disabilities having trouble accessing content within the site. • By July 1, 2010, all Legacy Web Pages must indicate in plain text a method of contact for users with disabilities having trouble accessing content within the site.

10. Questions • What is the minimum font size that should be used to display the contact information in the footer? • The best way to deal with font size is to use the relative measurement known as EM, rather than points, pixels, inches, etc. The size of an EM is determined by the browser. 1 EM = default font for that browser. The advantage of EM over fixed measurements is that the user can adjust the size, as necessary, using the browser's tools. It also makes better displays on non-computer equipment such as cell phones, pda's etc. As a practical matter, no text should ever be less than .8 to .85em (80 to 85% of the browser's base font).

11. Questions • Added a footer that reads “Purdue University is an equal access/equal opportunity university. If you have trouble accessing this page because of a disability, please email onephelp@purdue.edu| Feedback & Support”. (Where onephelp@purdue.edu and “Feedback & Support” are mailto: links.) This doesn’t appear on some pop-up windows. Is that allowable? • The pop-up wouldn’t necessarily require the footer information since the information is available on the underlying page. It is important to test the pop-up in multiple browsers or provide an alternate delivery.

12. Questions • The 508 compliance standards essentially dictate that we revert to information sites with little design. How much flexibility is there on this? • How flexible, in general, are these new guidelines?

13. Questions • Is the following design in contrast to the web accessibility rules, in terms of coloring? We use it due to aesthetics goals and Purdue traditions. These include white font on a golden background, as well as red font. • There are several online resources available for testing the contrast of foreground and background color combinations. We recommend http://www.checkmycolours.com/ (listed on our websites resources page). • Is the retrofitting of legacy content mandated?

14. Deadlines • All Legacy Web Pages must be revised to be in compliance by following the implementation priorities below: • The top 25% of Legacy Web Pages that are used most frequently must be in compliance by March 15, 2011. • Pages required for participation, funding, disability-related services, and other key pages needed by individuals with disabilities not already in the top 25% must also be in compliance by March 15, 2011.

15. Deadlines • Remaining Legacy Web Pages must be in compliance according to the following schedule: • Next 25% by March 15, 2012 • Next 25% by March 15, 2013 • Next 25% by March 15, 2014

16. Specific Requests for Access • Upon specific request for access by an individual with a disability, Legacy Web Pages, must be made accessible, or an equally effective alternative provided, within 10 business days of receiving the request. • Equally effective means that the alternative communicates the same information in as timely a fashion as does the original Web page. For interactive or service pages, equally effective means that the end result (e.g., registration) is accomplished in a comparable time and with comparable effort on the part of the requestor.

17. Specific Requests for Access • Upon specific request for access by an individual with a disability, Archive Web Sites and Pages containing core administrative or academic information, official records, or similar information must be updated to be in compliance or the content of the Web page(s) must be made available by another means that is accessible to the individual. • If the context of the information or service the page provides cannot be made accessible within 10 business days, this timeframe may be extended.

18. Questions • When is an extension to the “10 business day” rule acceptable? • How would the “10 business day” rule be implemented?

19. Questions • Who is responsible for the status reporting? • Who does status get reported to? • What form (e.g., web page, PDF document, Word template file) will the status report take?

20. Reporting • Status reports must be submitted annually no later than April 1 by each college, school, department, program, or unit of Purdue University to the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) beginning April 2011. • Requirements for the reports are described in the policy. • The format of the report has not yet been determined. • The Status Report Form will be made available at the OIE and Web Accessibility websites.

21. Questions • Our school web site is on the engineering web cluster and many of the upgrades are being made on the main css files which our site inherits and to tools we use to update our site. So, would our school report include the changes and tools that we inherited as well as individual pages we updated? • Who will be enforcing this policy and how will it be enforced?

22. Questions • When is the use of a text-only page required? Provide more explanation.

23. Standards and Examples • A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.

24. Questions • What is meant by “A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links” under the standards and examples in Appendix A of the policy? Provide more explanation.

25. Repetitive Navigation Links • Some assistive technologies need to present the content of the web page in a linear fashion.  This makes it difficult or impossible for the end user of these technologies to skip around the page.  If the navigation links are at the top or left of all of the pages in a site the user of these assistive technologies would need to read, or listen to, all of the navigation links each time a new page is loaded.  Experienced users of the assistive technology find reading through all of these repeated links aggravating.  Users who are newer to the assistive technology frequently become confused about whether the contents of the page are even changing when a link is selected. 

26. Questions • What is/will be available with regards to training, format, and content? • What types of training or information will be available for dealing with the creation of accessible PDFs from word-processing and desktop publishing applications, making existing non-accessible PDFs accessible, and dealing with accessibility issues of scanned image PDFs?

27. Questions • Is there any person or group at Purdue that could review my accessibility changes and advise me on their implementation? • Although there is no formal group for assisting with the review and advice of whole websites, hopefully the various web user groups around campus will be able to help with that as more developers take the training and become more familiar with making websites accessible.

28. Questions • The incredible volume of work required to retrofit legacy content is simply staggering, what assistance will be provided to help larger colleges perform this task? • There are many resources for learning how to make a site accessible on the Web Accessibility website. • The Status Report has a section for requesting extensions. Extensions aren’t automatically granted as there has to be good reason for the extension, particularly if other entities are completing a similar amount of retrofitting on schedule, but it is a way to help areas which are understaffed for the number of pages needed to be updated.

29. Web Accessibility Website • Home page • Web accessibility mailing list • Policy • Current and past committee members • Contacts • Resources • Training • Self-guided • Instructor-led • FAQs