Universal Accessibility Interest Group

  • 1.  Aug/Sept Chat: What accessibility topics are you currently struggling with?

    Posted Aug 22, 2022 07:18 AM

    Happy End of Summer Y'all!

    We are kicking off our monthly chat discussion series where Anaya and I are bringing up topics of interest where we can collaborate and learn from each other. Recognizing many of us are super busy this time of year fitting in the last summer activities and starting new school years, we thought an Aug/Sept topic would work well. I know I am definately looking forward to our summer break up in Maine. Nothing but ocean, seagulls and lobsters for a week staight. Yahoo!

    Recognizing accessibility is a complex body of knowledge, there are many areas where we all are learning more about everyday. What specific accessibility topics are you currently struggling with...either personally or within your institution?

    Personally, I am currently trying to determine the best course of action for more professional development. Should I beef up my coding skills by formally doing a bootcamp to learn html, css, java, python and hopefully ARIA? I don't particularly enjoy coding (at least I didn't when I first learned html in library school) but I think it may help me better understand the WCAG guidelines and how to actually apply them to design decisions. I've been eyeing a Coursera offering in Web Design from the University of Michigan because it specifically covers the languages I want to learn AND includes ARIA. Some of the other coding offerings seem to ignore web accessiblity which isn't super helpful. Has anyone done any PD in this recently and have some advice? Or are you already a whiz and have some thoughts for me on if learning these languages would help with the WCAG standards?

    Within my institution, I am leading a working group on A11y training which is an offshoot of our university wide Accessibility Council. This volunteer group is attempting to go through all the accessiblity trainings we have access to via LinkedIn Learning, SiteImprov Academy and others within our employee LMS (I think from Skillsoft)  and make recommendations for employees based on their roles. We hope to have a track for individual contributors, content creators and web developers so that depending on your role in the org, you can see what A11y approved trainings are available. It's been a little tough in the respect that a volunteer group is trying to push work through that should be actual job responsibilities for multiple positions. I also wish I could dedicate time to developing some our own own content which would help make accessibility more relevant to my University. It's a struggle between just getting something out there to meet at least some of the need and wanting to really do it well. Has anyone else done any similar work?

    My best,

    Trisha



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    Trisha Prevett
    ELearning Librarian
    Southern New Hampshire University, Shapiro Library
    She/Her/Hers
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  • 2.  RE: Aug/Sept Chat: What accessibility topics are you currently struggling with?

    Posted Aug 23, 2022 08:30 AM
    I'm struggling with PDF remediation standards- let me explain.

    I am testing out different PDF remediation software. I need to suggest one for us to purchase, and I've done demos and trials with CommonLook, Equidox and Continual Engine's Prep. CommonLook keeps throwing errors I weren't even aware were issues- things like the number of bookmarks doesn't match the headers- are they suppose to?

    So Apparently I have some research ahead of me on PDF standards. If anyone knows of any good resources in this area, I'm interested!

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    Anaya Jones She/Her/Hers
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    Accessibility & Online Learning Librarian
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  • 3.  RE: Aug/Sept Chat: What accessibility topics are you currently struggling with?

    Posted Aug 24, 2022 03:42 PM
    On a related note - I've been trying my hand at reviewing and correcting PDFs, including updating tags and adding alt-text for meaningful images.   

    As part of this process, I wanted to try accessing these PDFs via a screenreader to test whether my fixes work.  Our university has ReadWrite, and our accessibility office gave me a license for downloading this software to my computer.  When I test PDFs through this ReadWrite software, it does not read alt-text for imags.  It appears to skip the images.  I have tested PDFs that I've fixed and PDFs I've downloaded from other sites that also have tagged images with alt-text -- ReadWrite skips the images for all of them.

    When I looked into ReadWrite some more, I noticed that it appears to be presented as more of a literacy tool.  For example -- to help students with learning disabilities or dyslexia.  I'm curious if anyone else here could provide more context on whether ReadWrite is a true screenreader, like JAWS (which my university does not have)?

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    Laura Edwards
    Associate Director, Discovery and Metadata
    Eastern Kentucky University Libraries
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Aug/Sept Chat: What accessibility topics are you currently struggling with?

    Posted Aug 25, 2022 07:30 AM
    Hi Laura!

    To my knowledge, Read&Write is not a full screen reader, but I wasn't aware it wouldn't read alt text at all- that's a huge limitation. Some things to consider, JAWS will run for 30 minutes without a license. It's annoying to restart the program (or your machine, I can't remember) every 30 minutes, but it works fine for a quick test. Additionally, NVDA is free. They do ask for a donation, which I try to do occasionally to keep the good work going.

    CommonLook's validator tool is also free.

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    Anaya Jones She/Her/Hers
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    Accessibility & Online Learning Librarian
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Aug/Sept Chat: What accessibility topics are you currently struggling with?

    Posted Aug 26, 2022 09:05 AM
    Hi Laura,
    If you just need to double check your PDFs, the read-aloud function that's built in to Adobe Acrobat does a good job and will read out any alt text on images in your PDF.   I'll also second the recommendation for NVDA or the time-limited-but-free version of JAWS.  Windows Narrator seems to fail for some reason at the task of reading PDFs opened in Adobe. 

    Leigh Mosley
    Accessibility Coordinator
    University of Tennessee Libraries
    1015 Volunteer Boulevard
    Knoxville, TN 37996-1000

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    Leigh Mosley
    Accessibility Coordinator
    University of TN Libraries
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Aug/Sept Chat: What accessibility topics are you currently struggling with?

    Posted Mar 01, 2023 09:44 AM

    Good morning Anaya,

    I'm curious to hear more about your tests of PDF remediation software.  What were the pros/cons of each?  Which one did you recommend for purchase?  



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    Laura Edwards
    Associate Director, Discovery and Metadata
    Eastern Kentucky University Libraries
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    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Aug/Sept Chat: What accessibility topics are you currently struggling with?

    Posted Mar 01, 2023 02:25 PM

    Laura, 

    I'm happy to share my unscientific findings! Colleagues and I checked out a few different options, including Equidox, Continual Engine's Prep, and Commonlook. Commonlook is an add-on to Adobe and is a very different experience to Equidox and Prep. For our purposes, Prep was sufficient, use friendly, and cost effective. I've used Equidox in the past and been quite happy with it. 

    I hope this helps!



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    Anaya Jones She/Her/Hers
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    Accessibility & Online Learning Librarian
    Northeastern University
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    Original Message