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A11yFirst Editor Enhancements Module for Drupal 8

Presented at 8:00am in Waverly on Thursday, November 21, 2019.

#29322

Speaker(s)

  • Jon Gunderson, Coordinator of IT Accessibility, University of Illinois

Session Details

  • Length of Session: 1-hr
  • Format: Lecture
  • Expertise Level: All Levels
  • Type of session: General Conference

Summary

The A11yFirst Editor Enhancements Module for Drupal 8 provides a way to support students, staff and faculty in creating and learning about accessible web documents by modifying the default WYSIWYG editor used by Drupal. Drupal is a popular Content Management System (CMS) used in higher education.

Abstract

Most web content is made by students, staff and faculty using web based WYSISWYG editors embedded in Content Management Systems (CMS) like blogs, learning managements systems, and administrative websites. These users have little understanding of accessibility or the technical details of HTML or web accessibility. Embedded WYSISWYG editors like CKEditor often include accessibility checkers as an optional feature, but this requires an intentional action on the part of author to use them. The checker approach reinforces the remediation stereotype for accessibility, which is also extra work for the author. In contrast, the A11yFirst project changes the user interface features to guide authors in creating accessible content as they create documents. A11yFirst supports the creation of structured documents and providing just-in-time information on accessibility. The A11yFirst module has been developed for Drupal 8 and Drupal is a widely used CMS in higher education.

Keypoints

  1. Accessible authoring versus accessibility remediation of web-based documents.
  2. User interface features that support and encourage accessible authoring.
  3. Support features to help authors learn about understand accessibility

Disability Areas

All Areas

Topic Areas

Uncategorized, Web/Media/App Access

Speaker Bio(s)

Jon Gunderson

Dr. Jon Gunderson is the Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology Accessibility in the Division of Disability Resources and Education Services (DRES) at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. He leads the development of open source web accessibility evaluation tools and coding practices resources to help web designers and developers understand accessible coding techniques. He is a member of the W3C ARIA Working Group has been a major contributor to the ARIA Authoring Practices and is a contributor to the ARIA Assistive Technology community group to test ARIA implementation in assistive technologies. He has given numerous presentations, workshops and courses related to web accessibility. He is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA) form the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP).