Fixing the developer Mindset

Fixing the Developer Mindset
Accessibility is not a checklist
15.02.2010

Subramanyan
Murali
YDN Evangelist, Audience Platforms Tech Lead
http://rmsguhan.com
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Goal of Web developer is not merely to dazzle, but to deliver information to the widest audience possible
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Developers on the web
Today web developers and designers are more concerned about dazzling the customer with fancy features
Web developers are self educated, and often focus on visual aspects
Internet is a world wide information and communication medium. One of the biggest reasons its so popular is because it is a medium to get information and deliver content
And since information is useful for everyone, delivering that information to the widest audience possible, irrespective of Medium, platform and capability is really important
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Neither Accessible nor Usable
Web Designers and Developers are usually ignorant or arrogant
Lack of awareness and Interest create problems and add to the list of badly developed websites
According to a report, commissioned by the United Nations as part of its International Day of Disabled Persons
93% failed to provide adequate text descriptions for graphics
73% relied on JavaScript for important functionality
…
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Neither Accessible nor Usable …
…
78% used colors with poor contrast, causing issues for those with color blindness
98% did not follow industry web standards for the programming code
97% did not allow people to alter or resize pages
89% offered poor page navigation
87% used pop-ups causing problems for those using screen magnification software
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Accessibility is more than a checklist item
Lot of developers usually treat developing accessible web sites as a check list item
Topics like semantic web, CSS3, ARIA are all developer favorites at conferences, but actual application is a hurdle
In many companies, not being 508 compliant means a Million dollar law suite
So Developers always live in fear and think of accessibility as a road block
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Accessibility is more than a checklist item ..
Developers think that making a site accessible will mean radical changes in design and additional man hours
It is a radical change if you do not apply guidelines and best practices ground up
Procrastination is the root of all accessibility failures
We as technologists portray accessibility as a gigantic problem to solve and being incredibly hard to tackle
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Mindset and approach has to change. Doing things right will help everyone
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Rethink the approach
To threaten people with big laws and law suites is point less
You cannot sell anything by showing that it doesn’t work. Approach must be positive
Developers, Designers and Engineers are really creative people, need to channel their interests better
present the technology as a useful add on rather than a check list item
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Consider Module patterns on Web pages
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Markup focused on presentation
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Markup focused on content and semantics
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Actual Markup of the examples
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Good clean code benefits all
Semantic markup will benefit everyone. Web crawlers make better sense out a page, pages fare better for Search engines (SEO)
Simplicity is everything. Start off with a simple design and then layer endlessly
Progressive enhancement is a great approach
Offer functionality only when platform has capability of handling it
Opposite of graceful degradation
Never depend on Javascript, Flash or Silverlight for major functionalities
Always design for basic functionality, not for enhancements
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Working with technology should be fun
Through correct mindset and approach, solving problems ground up is actually fun
Solve real problems that impact real people
Fancy Ui's with 100 click through are not a useful solution, but a challenge to get from point A to point B in the fastest easiest time is a good problem
Smart solutions to solve real problems
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/builder/
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The developers of today are only as capable as their current limitations, and one of our biggest limitation is attitude and mindset
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The New mindset
Content is the most important component on the web. Content must always come first
Knowledge of assistive technologies is as essential as knowing HTML, CSS or Javascript
Smart user engagement techniques is really important
Clean Layouts
Ground up standards compliance
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What Tech industry can do
Educate their employees about benefits of scoping in for accessibility best practices ground up
In many cases, accessibility is an after thought, and teams scope for it as a separate activity
This is when it becomes extremely hard to handle and time consuming
Have the tools in place right from the start
Invest in Accessibility has a solid test criteria for success of a product
User engagement design groups need to factor in application usability with application presentation
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What Education institutes can do
It is important to start with strong fundamentals. One cannot teach great Web design without proper fundamentals
Place emphasis on content and not presentation
Do not start with fancy titles like Ajax, Flash, DHTML etc
Stress on features as core components of an application, not colors and font sizes
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What Yahoo! Inc. is trying to do
Accessibility is no longer a separate discussion topic
We are working towards improving our existing solutions
Emphasis on Clean and Simple designs
Develop for Core functionalities first, then layer endlessly
'Code Preliminaries' even before a single line of code is written
Focus on what needs to be done for a given UI mock
Cover all accessibility related items ground up
Periodic reviews
Focus on ARIA on our platforms
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What Yahoo! is trying to do ...
Yahoo! UI libraries have ARIA support and are all progressively enhanced
Explore cleaner ways to indicate progress, show dynamic updates and Ajax status
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What we have been trying to do
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http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/

What we have been trying to do …
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http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/

What we have been trying to do ...
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http://search.yahoo.com

What we have been trying to do …
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http://search.yahoo.com

Accessibility is about removing the barriers and a mindset change can break barriers
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Thank you
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References
http://www.slideshare.net/guest2d6a45/yahoo-accessibility-rewiring-inclusion-strategies-tools-and-techniques-to-promote-barrierfree-learning-a-national-one-day-conference-in-nottingham-at-the-national-college-on-tuesday-9-february-2010
http://www.slideshare.net/cheilmann/accessible-web-applicationss
http://www.slideshare.net/cheilmann/seo-and-accessibility
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References …
http://www.slideshare.net/cheilmann/liberated-accessibility-presentation
http://www.accessibility-professionals.org/accessibility/mindset.html
http://dnis.org/interview.php?issue_id=1&volume_id=7&interview_id=132
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Fixing the developer Mindset

by Subramanyan Guhan

Accessibility

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