Universal Accessibility Interest Group

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last person joined: 3 days ago 

Charge: Offers librarians, support staff, students, and other advocates networking and collaboration opportunities, information sharing and programming to promote accessibility in academic libraries, including web accessibility, assistive technology, reference and instruction for users with disabilities and captioning processes.
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  • 1.  Iframes in LibWizard

    Posted May 29, 2024 06:35 PM

    Hello Accessibility Champions,

     

    If you've used LibWizard to create embedded interactive tutorials I'd love your thoughts on accessibility. Assuming the iframe title attribute is included are there other accessibility issues? I'm concerned about screen readers moving between the left column prompt/assessment section and the embedded website. I also understand that some websites and databases which require user authentication will not appear in iframes, so offering a new browser window violates accessibility guidelines. Lastly LibWizard tutorials trigger the split attention affect.

     

    The library literature about LibWizard tutorials barely addresses these points, so I'd appreciate your expertise and experience, especially if you've conducted usability testing with disabled users.

     

    With gratitude,

     

    Bridgid Fennell (she/her/hers)

    Social and Behavioral Sciences Librarian

    USC LibrariesUniversity of Southern California

     

    bfennell@usc.edu

    tel. 213-821-8269

    Zoom | Schedule a research consultation with me

    Education Research Guide

     

     



  • 2.  RE: Iframes in LibWizard

    Posted May 31, 2024 09:50 AM

    Hi Brigid, 

    I'm not an iframe expert, but I found a WebAIM iframes article that includes a couple more considerations for embedding. I wouldn't ask students to interact with information on the page and in the tutorial, precisely for the split attention affect you mention, but that should address issues with screen reader users going back and forth (at least to my understanding). Screen reader users will still need to navigate the question pane and the provided page- but there's not a whole lot to be done about that, if the content you're trying to provide requires consulting another page.

    Can you say more about the new window violating accessibility guidelines? I try to avoid new windows when I can, but there are some cases where they are needed and as I understand it, acceptable as long as they are labeled. It can also be helpful to offer a link to the tutorial so that users who would prefer not to navigate the embedded tutorial can view it in it's own window.

    I like LibWizard tutorials for being able to show a page side by side with the questions, but I do think they are not ideal for many other types of information display. Thanks for asking!



    ------------------------------
    Anaya Jones She/Her/Hers
    ___
    Accessibility & Online Learning Librarian
    Northeastern University
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Iframes in LibWizard

    Posted May 31, 2024 06:56 PM

    Hi Anaya,

     

    Thanks for your input and the article. I agree there are times when opening links in a new tab is best, but generally this should be avoided. When I did instructional design work we had a policy to open documents in the LMS not new window or tab.

     

    The use case we are considering would be to have students interact in the iframe, specifically create a RefWorks account and interact with RefWorks. I have many concerns.

     

    Have a great weekend!

     

    Bridgid Fennell (she/her/hers)

    Social and Behavioral Sciences Librarian

    USC LibrariesUniversity of Southern California

     

    bfennell@usc.edu

    tel. 213-821-8269

    Zoom | Schedule a research consultation with me

    Education Research Guide