Friday, 9:30 am
Brian Kelly, Stephen Brown
Online notes for the presentation (CC license for all materials!)
Sat with some of the team from Library and Archives in Canada, a government-sponsored site with incredibly strict accessibility requirements: dual language, almost no javascript, any flash must also exist as HTML, etc. Also a Welshman in the same boat – entirely bilingual site, css layout, no javascript, and more. He’s trying to start a blog and hoping to dodge the requirement of translating EVERY blog post and comment into the other language. When I asked about translation technology, both groups laughed — the words are technically translated, but the meaning is lost.
- How do you make highly interactive e-learning services accessible?
- “Blended learning” – if the learning itself is impractical, make the outcomes available in an accessible way.
Chatting with the Canadians gave me the impression they feel hampered by some of the requirements – accessibility is obviously the right thing to do, but I think there is a growing feeling that the standards need to be continually refined to see what actually WORKS and lets people still build good sites. Blindly (pun intended) following accessibility levels can still give you an entirely in-accessible site.
Brian mentioned Accessibility Summit II – built a roadmap / manifesto for building on WAI’s successes. (A lot of good stuff in WAI, but it doesn’t always work) Focused on USERS instead of a universal solution – one size may not fit all.
They summarize their bottom line: WAI is ok as far as it goes. There’s a danger of missing all the things the guidelines don’t cover – holistic approach takes in the context of use. Is this a sensible way forward? Can museums buy into this idea?
—-
On the whole a very interesting session. It was good to hear how other museums are addressing accessibility – and realize how recently some of our development has strayed from our stated goals. We’ve been leaning heavily on Javascript as of late, even while we’ve started moving away from Flash. Our pages are generally CSS and hierarchy-correct, but I know we could do better. As we continue to tweak our CMS and design, this will have to remain on our radar…
Get Walker Reader in your inbox. Sign up to receive first word about our original videos, commissioned essays, curatorial perspectives, and artist interviews.