OpenConcept Consulting Inc is a digital accessibility consulting firm located in Ottawa with 10 employees. They provide consulting, Drupal development, and support/maintenance services. Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 15th brings attention to the challenges of making the digital world accessible to people with disabilities or impairments. Accessibility involves removing barriers to allow websites and technology to be used by all people, and many guidelines and laws require digital accessibility. Testing tools can help evaluate websites and identify issues to improve inclusive design.

1. GLOBAL
ACCESSIBILITY
AWARENESS DAY
The Challenges of Digital Accessibility – May 15

2. OpenConcept Consulting Inc.
Facts and Figures:
President: Mike Gifford
Creation date: 1999
Switch to Drupal: 2006
Number of employees: 10
Location: Ottawa
Services
❏ Consulting
❏ Drupal Development
❏ Support and Maintenance

3. The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by
everyone regardless of disability is an essential
aspect.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

4. Definitions
❏ The degree to which a
product, device,
service, or
environment is
available to as many
people as possible.
❏ The inclusive practice
of removing barriers
that prevent access to
websites by people
with disabilities.
Accessibility Web Accessibility
❏ A design that
considers the full
range of human
diversity with respect
to ability, language,
culture, gender, age
and other forms of
human difference.
Inclusive Design

5. Visible vs Invisible disabilities
TYPE RELATED DISABILITIES
Vision
Color blindness, Low vision
Blindness
Brain
Dyslexia
Learning/cognitive disabilities
Epilepsy
Movement
Carpal tunnel
Repetitive strain injuries
Arthritis, Cerebral Palsy
Hearing
Hearing impairment
Deafness
Population with disabilities
Canada: 14.3% (56.3% of 75+)
Ontario: 15.5%
Quebec: 10.4%
Source: Statistics Canada (2006)

6. Guidelines & Legislations
❏ Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
❏ Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0
❏ Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2001
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities (AODA)
❏ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

7. Illustration
❏ The Arthritis Society❏ Ontario.ca
An pretty accessible website A less accessible website

8. Testing Tools
❏ Wave Toolbar - Sites
❏ Functional Accessibility Evaluator
❏ Firefox Extension WCAG Contrast checker
❏ ChromeVox
❏ NVDA
❏ Apple VoiceOver (Mac & iPhone)

9. Fixing problems at the source
■ Drupal CMS
■ jQuery UI
■ CKEditor

10. You will receive this presentation by email.
Thank you
@mgifford
@openconcept_ca
http://openconcept.ca