Drupal Accessibility Rights & Wrongs
or
Authoring Tool Accessibility
Guidelines for Drupal
William Lawrence ‐ @v
DrupalCon DC
March 6 2009

What's an Authoring Tool
• Drupal is an authoring tool
• It does web stuff

Why Drupal Is an Authoring
Tool
• It's a collection of authoring tools
WYSIWYG editors: TinyMCE, FCKediter
•
multimedia authoring tools
•
widgets
•
content management systems, content aggregators
•
etcetera…
•

Other Web Content
Authoring Tools
• Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube,
Wikipedia
• Web development environments: Dreamweaver,
TextMate, Frontpage
• \"Publish as HTML\" ‐ Word, Powerpoint

What Is Authoring Tool
Accessibility?
• How well does the tool support the creation of
accessible web content amongst authors, irregardless
of ability?
• Accessibility of the tool's output
• Accessibility of the tool's interface
• Ease with which authors can create accessible content

Drupal Authoring Tool
Guidelines
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
• W3C Recommendation 11 December 2008
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0
• W3C Working Draft 17 February 2009

P.O.U.R.
• Perceivable
• Users must be able to perceive the information being
presented
• Operable
• Users must be able to operate the interface
• Understandable
• Users must be able to understand the information
• Robust
• Users must be able to access the content as technologies
advance

ATAG 2.0 Part A
• Make the authoring tool user interface accessible
• Principle A.1: Authoring tool user interfaces must follow
applicable accessibility guidelines
• Principle A.2: Editing views must be perceivable
• Principle A.3: Editing views must be operable
• Principle A.4: Editing views must be understandable

ATAG 2.0 Part B
• Support the production of accessible content
• Principle B.1: Production of accessible content must be
enabled
• Principle B.2: Authors must be supported in the
production of accessible content
• Principle B.3: Accessibility solutions must be promoted
and integrated

Drupal Pitfalls
• Lack of or inappropriate alternative text
• Lack of or inappropriate document structure
• Inaccessible scripting
• Missing data table headers
• Non‐descriptive links
• Multimedia neither captioned nor transcribed
• Keyboard inaccessibility
• Color contrast

Drupal Problems for End
Users
• Lack of accessibility checking facilities
• Lack of accessibility help
• Lack of appropriate HTML knowledge
• Lack of support in adding accessible alternatives

Drupal needs ATAG because
otherwise:
• More training
• More managing
• More support
• More time
• More QA
• Hacking

Conclusion
• Authoring tools must support non‐expert end users in
authoring accessible content
• It's about making that accessibility sustainable
through the life cycle of that product

Thank you!
(cc) Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Additional Resources &
Credits
• Drupal Accessibility Group
• Joe Clark's ATAG assessment of WordPress
• David Sloan
• Wendy Chisholm
• Jared Smith
• Derek Featherstone