WCAG notes from papers and LO-OBS doc

 LO OBS doc:

Text from WCAG references.

Alonso et al, 2010b (using collab learning)

WCAG 2.0 was written with a different structure to make it easier to test websites with clearer testable statements and technical criteria (Alonso et al, 2010b)

Initial lectures introduce the concept of design for all, diversity and awareness of AT, standards and legislation.

Guest speakers also give lectures on independent living, media accessibility and telecare services.

Students are given a different aspect of the guidelines document and have to prepare a presentation to their peer group of what they have found and their views on the guidance.

They found that students didn’t attend the sessions and it wasn’t an easy subject or task to cover (Alonso et al, 2010b)

Studies suggest that WCAG 2.0 was not easily testable or understood by beginners and without prior knowledge or testing tools to support the learning it made it even more complex and challenging, even though these were degree level computer science students (Alonso et al, 2010b)

Alsonso et al, 2010 (testability of WCAG 2.0)

ICTs are now at the core of society 

The study revealed in the findings that there were only 8 testable criteria that beginners could understand (Alonso et al, 2010)

WCAG 2.0 has a different language to the original WCAG 1, and has a different structure with extra resources and material (Alonso et al, 2010)

Students had to evaluate a website against WCAG.

P.2 the POUR overview offers a great introduction to the WCAG guidelines that underpin web and digital accessibility (Alonso et al, 2010)

No students had prior knowledge of digital accessibility before the course.

According to W3C the success criteria are written as testable sentences that can be tested as true or false when web content is tested against it.

It is believed that at least 80% of knowledgeable professional human evaluators are able to agree on the findings (Alonso et al, 2010)

Using this 80% as a goal to see if learners could also agree.

Students found the language used in the criteria hard to understand and they also lacked the knowledge to be able to easily engage with WCAG (Alonso et al, 2010)

Compared to Brajnik (2009) they drew the same conclusion that WCAG is not testable for beginners (Alonso et al, 2010)

WCAG assumes a level of knowledge and there needs to be prior training and support to be able to apply them (Alonso et al, 2010)

Al-khalifa and Al-khalifa, 2011

Problems encountered when teaching web accessibility to learners is lack of proper educational tools that support learning.

They focused on a tool to assist people in creating examples of inaccessible websites for people to test.

The focus of the study is in the common failures.

Learning accessibility and implementing it can be a hard task for beginners (Al-khalifa and Al-khalifa, 2011)

Novice learners need more practice to gain an understanding. Highlighting more common barriers helps novices learn (Al-khalifa and Al-khalifa, 2011)

W3C have a multi page website and set of resources to showcase practical examples on accessibility called before and after demos, yet even these examples can be overwhelming for those new to learning about WCAG (Al-khalifa and Al-khalifa, 2011)

The tool and examples created are designed to support problem based learning for students to identify and solve problems, then reflect on those experiences.

The tool was specific to web design.

The study concluded that teaching web accessibility to undergraduates requires exposing them to practical and easy to assimilate examples to be able to guide them through the process of evaluating digital content (Al-khalifa and Al-khalifa, 2011)

More basic tools are needed to present manageable examples to novice learners (Al-khalifa and Al-khalifa, 2011)

Christopherson, 2022

(INTRO) We are living in an age of extreme computing and extreme computing at this scale needs inclusive design.

(!INTRO) For many the word accessibility’ will always be inextricably linked to the needs of that small challenging group of people with disabilities and we need to change that narrative. We need to think from the perspective of making products and services better for everyone, so out with accessibility and in with inclusive design.

-me - inclusive design suggests that inclusion is considered in the design phase rather than an afterthought at the end.

Stienstra, Watzke and Birch, 2007

Refer to the different motivational forces between disability advocacy and the IT industry.

They agree that the three aspects of regulation, developing ease of use products and education need to combine.

Governments, both individually and collectively have recognised the need to regulate web accessibility and many use the W3C guidelines of WCAG.

Cooper et al, 2012

Accessibility must be situated within a real-world context and acknowledge the unequal power struggles that constitute disability and accessibility (Cooper et al, 2012)

It is not wholly appropriate to develop legislation that only focuses on metrics associated with the properties of a resource. The usage and context by people are not accounted for in these types of metric, they only address factors associated with digital resources.

The focus of WCAG is on the technical artefact, not on user groups or user journey (Cooper et al, 2012)

The technical focus divorces accessibility from the user experience of disabled people (same with automated checkers and checklists - Hassell quote) (Cooper et al, 2012)

Education and legislation using only WCAG could undermine the importance of significant cultural, political, social and other real-world issues.

Cao and Loiacono, 2022

Lack of developer training is a reason often cited for inaccessible content (Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

Digital accessibility is a socially responsible thing to do

Accessibility supports social inclusion on a local and global level and people from any background can contribute to a more accessible online community or digital environment.

Lawsuits can be one of the motivating factors for companies to increase digital accessibility in their products.

A list of automated evaluation tools can now be found on the W3C website. However automated tools are not accurate and only find a small proportion of accessibility barriers. They also either over simplify or offer overly detailed and complex results (Abascal et al, 2019). There are a lot of studies that examine the limitations of automated evaluation tools (see refs p. 2618).(Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

User testing is a crucial component of accessibility evaluation as real users can accurately detect barriers (Abascal, 2019).

Web accessibility education and training are vital because they can help learners identify challenges and more importantly create accessible content.

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) computer society recommend that accessibility topics must be covered on any university curriculum of computer science, information systems and IT.

Studies have shown that how a curriculum is designed has an impact on students intrinsic motivation to learn and use their knowledge (refs). How students are exposed to a topic and interact with tools and activities affects how they understand a topic, see its value and then use those tools and techniques (Ludi et al, 2018).(Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

Teaching accessibility as part of a course is critical to provide students with the skills to design accessible content that can be used by people with disabilities (Lazar, 2002, Lewthwaite and Sloan, 2016; Ludi, 2007; Ludi et al, 2018; Waller et al, 2009; Wang, 2012).

#There is little research that specifically looks at the general practices and techniques for teaching digital accessibility topics on the curriculum (Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

The WAIM (Web Accessibility Integration Model) by Lazar (2004) provides a strong framework that highlights the relationships amongst societal foundations such as education, training, policy and law as well as statistics and data regarding accessibility that can influence stakeholders application of accessible practices.

The model has been cited more than 300 times.

Education and training play a core part as a societal foundation of successful integration.

The societal foundations of education influence awareness and decisions to create accessible content.

Several studies have found that education increases awareness and use of technology towards accessibility (Friere et al, 2008; Lazar et al, 2004; Ludi et al, 2018).

Teaching interventions have also led to greater interaction or increased empathy for people with disabilities (Ludi et al, 2018).

It also raises awareness about people with a range of disabilities and their different needs in digital content (disabilities are also not a topic on the school curriculum).

They illustrate a theoretical framework for the study that represents the relationships between education and the types of knowledge needed, such as disability awareness, accessibility exposure and guidelines that they hypothesise would help make people apply the knowledge to use accessibility principles.

#DISABILITY AWARENESS ACTIVITY They devised a questionnaire to gauge disability awareness and asked the number of disabilities a student could identify or people they know in their lives with a disability (LINK TO PERM, TEMP, SIT paper that did the same).(Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

Cao and Loiacono, 2022 The main reason students were not already applying accessibility into their content was that they were not familiar with accessibility guidelines or needs.

Exposure to people with disabilities could be a critical component to increase the use of accessibility practices or engaging with the guidelines (Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

Openly available resources, checklists and tools to make the guidelines easier to understood and implement could be helpful in increasing students usage of the guidelines and creating accessible content (Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

# A reversible process was revealed from the interview data, which explained that one of the major reasons why students had not applied guidelines or accessibility before was because they were not aware of and not been educated about accessibility issues before.

Interviews with learners suggested that exposure to people with disabilities and understanding their needs is key to understanding accessibility issues and the greatest incentive for applying the guidelines and accessibility in practice (p.2627).(Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

Findings demonstrated that education is helpful in improving perceptions of accessibility guidelines. Findings were consistent with Lazar’s model on how education is a societal foundation that can influence accessibility perceptions and application (Lazar et al, 2004).

Checklists, guides and tools to make accessibility guidelines easier to understand and implement can motivate students to consider and apply in their development and creation (people need to be more aware that these tools exist) (Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

Three dimensions of learning:

1, exposure to real-world outside school so that students can connect with people with disabilities and their needs 

2, education needs to cultivate personal meaning for students, such as understanding the needs of people with disabilities with empathy activities in accessible design and development process

3, opportunities for students to think about the topics in multiple ways 

The emphasis on the importance of real-world contexts, to relate to and this can make the learning personally meaningful and ‘real’ and something they can honour (Putnam et al, 2016; Syler et al, 2006).(Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

#Students self-derived motivation to learn significantly affects their learning (refs p.2628).(Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

#Scaffold the learning with accessibility evaluation tools, guidelines and resources. If these are designed to be easy to understand they can increase students motivation and confidence in their knowledge and ability (Cao and Loiacono, 2022)

Henka and Zimmerman, 2017

Accessibility resources can overwhelm web authors and interpretation can differ between experts and novices (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

It can be tough for beginners to make the connections between WCAG criteria and the benefits for users (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

Accessibility is considered strongly as a user-centred issue, yet WCAG does not wholly make this connection (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

The usage of testing tools and automated checkers test against WCAG compliance rather than human experience making them not fully sufficient to state the accessibility of digital content.

The tension between understanding the human context, rather than just in technical specification makes WCAG challenging as the context of human need is necessary to create meaning for learning.

The human aspect provides the sociological explanation which can help those new to the topic classify the extent of the barriers faced (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

The values of understanding the barriers are easier to recognise and respond to, for example, in the physical space ramps to bypass stairs is a situation where the physical circumstances are barriers are evident. In contrast web accessibility is often a more private challenge between a user and their computer. It is therefore important to emphasise understanding the context (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

WCAG offers no legal way to experience the human barriers and exclusion.

Accessibility in the physical space can more easily be illustrated as being relevant to everyone. E.g. if someone is facing stairs in the context of travelling with a baby buggy or carrying heavy luggage, the importance of the ramp or lift is highly evident as being useful for all.

The tension between the context is stripped away when focusing solely on automatic tools and conformance to the WCAG technical criteria.

With more context based examples and experiences the intrinsic knowledge of the meaning and significance of the barrier contributes to the motivation to address it and learn more.

Human centred design is linked to the use of personas to add and create meaning.

Using walk through techniques to question content features and evaluate interactions, personas can be a tool to create contextual meaning through the eyes of a person and aid problem solving scenarios (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

#Henka and Zimmerman present the idea that the WCAG guidelines should be represented by a set of personas, similar concepts have been discussed previously (refs 11 and 12) (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

#Personas are, in their experience, just a different form of conveying user needs and requirements. (*Especially with having visiting speakers at scale not being sustainable).(Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

The important information contained in personas are the goals and motivations for the end user towards their use of digital content.

#This framing puts a mental model into the learners head and makes the example and content more vivid as an authentic character (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

#Personas support meaning making to make WCAG more comprehensible to beginners (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

#The benefits of personas have also been highlighted by others especially in the context of learning environments (refs 18-21).(Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

WCAG can also be complex for tutors, this was found as a moderate challenge for them and being able to explain each success criteria, in contrast using a more user-centric approach with personas helps with this (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017)

Mapping between just a WCAG criteria and an impairment isn’t enough to establish a confident vehicle to convey relevance and meaning. 86% of respondents agreed that it would be more helpful to highlight the impact to a real-life person or persona to emphasise the significance and relevance to barriers (*relate to legal challenges e.g. someone not able to apply for a job).

We argue that barriers should be centred around the stories that are told (Henka and Zimmerman, 2017).

NOTES FROM LO OBS:

According to Gilligan (2020), web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) principles can establish the foundation for embracing digital accessibility. He therefore applied WCAG compliance to several competences in the framework, such as information and media literacy, and content creation (both under the ‘facilitating learners’ digital competence’ area). However, WCAG and web accessibility are not widely included in training content. Among the 16 included papers, only two papers (Kontio and Radtke 2019; Heap and Thompson 2018) stated having WCAG in their training. (Bong and Chen, 2020).

UDL alone does not create accessible content, but it complements the Web Content 23 Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in many ways. (Jackson, 2023)

In a qualitative study of faculty members from higher education institutions, Sanderson et al. (2022) discovered that 19 out of 35 member participants knew little about the WCAG and that those who had heard of them stated they could not use them.

Perhaps it is time to consider the development of a standard that could be adopted for the design and development of digital materials for teaching and learning at the second-level? A standard built on consensus and compromise could make a massive difference to the type and quality of digital resources being developed. (Marcus-Quinn and Hourigan, 2021).

Web development is currently a complex endeavour. It used to be fairly straightforward; however, over time it has become more complex, as have the techniques to make content accessible. Saying that web accessibility is “easy” is no longer the truth (Mancilla and Frey, 2019).

Guidelines such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 are promoted as best practice, [W3C]. 

The WCAG Scavenger Hunt introduced in the auditing course, is adapted for this course. Throughout the course a variety of hands-on mini activities add an experiential component to their learning, helping them understand from a practical perspective what accessibility and inaccessibility look like. (Gay, 2023).

WCAG Scavenger Hunt - After being introduced to WCAG and the “10 Key Guidelines”, participants were given a series of potential barriers, for which they needed to identify the relevant WCAG guideline, then find at least one solution to correct the issue through the Techniques documents accompanying WCAG. In a game scenario, participants post their findings to a course discussion forum for peer feedback, and compare their results with those of their classmates. (Gay, Djafarova and Zefi, 2017) .

A variety of downloadable documents were provided including the “10 Key Guidelines” reference that summarized the more commonly used WCAG guidelines. Scaffolded with a template for user-tester intake interviews, user-tester observation checklist, a formal accessibility audit template, and an example of a formal accessibility review, among others. (Gay, Djafarova and Zefi, 2017).

Also scaffolded with a wide variety of videos provided multimodal content, including public videos from sources like YouTube, interview videos created specifically for the course, as well as “how-to” videos that explained how to use tools and strategies being introduced in the course. (Gay, Djafarova and Zefi, 2017).

With regard to technical density, I7 stated: “Most of the materials out there assume a level of technical and conceptual understanding” and I4 stated that, “The WCAG guidelines are still very difficult for students to understand and work with. Yes, they provide tools to make it easier, but they still are difficult.” Overall, 56% of instructors responded that their course enhancement will be taught again, and 69% responded that since beginning with this work, other members of their department/academic community expressed interest in teaching accessibility best practices. (Kearney-Volpe et al, 2019).

There was some frustration on the part of instructors with the number of resources and technical density. (Kearney-Volpe et al, 2019).

Many instructors were unsurprisingly put off by WCAG. This dense technical document is ironically, inaccessible for many beginners interested in learning about accessibility, and requires prior knowledge to navigate effectively. (Kearney-Volpe et al, 2019).

Our findings showed that 44% (n=31) and 63% (n=45) of the survey participants were either “not very familiar” or “not at all familiar” of accessibility guidelines (e.g., WCAG) and laws (e.g., Section 508, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)) respectively (Figure 1). (Patel et al, 2020).

Mistake #2: Complex knowledge, 

LEARNING ACTIVITIES: We had tried to cover accessibility, disabilities, and web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) in addition to programming in one setting. The result was that students were confused and disengaged. Working with high school or first-year college students requires us to break down complex knowledge (Kelly and El-Glaly, 2021).

WCAG is the most universal set of guidelines currently available for digital accessibility around the globe. (Heinrich, 2024).

P.266 There is a table specific to Word documents and WCAG - covers headings, alt text and decorative images, images that float (not inline) sequencing (Caprette, 2024b).

According to Gilligan (2020), web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) principles can establish the foundation for embracing digital accessibility.

Many recommend to provide training on accessibility standards and guidelines, particularly web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) (Kontio and Radtke 2019; Heap and Thompson 2018). (Bong and Chen, 2020).

General notes and thoughts

Introduction to disability, what can be recalled for the types of disability. Consider people they may know or members of the family. Consider four main disability types. Social model considerations, link it to social justice and legal aspects of accessibility and inclusion being a legal obligation. Microsoft offer permanent, temporary and situational disabilities as part of their inclusive design toolkit. Perm, temp, sit handout for learners to fill in.

Laws a vital part and why, guidelines and lawsuits, POUR principles e.g operable using only a keyword, check sites against WCAG (but agreement comes with challenges and not suitable for beginners, recommended to outline the main barriers and principles for novices. Basics aligned to WCAG criteria but for applying it to everyday content not just websites so it references back to legal standards, think of legal cases for application forms documents e.g. recruitment lawsuit. #synthesis of examples that could work and findings. Adding personas makes it more meaningful than just a technical criteria or that it can assist with a certain type of disability, wrapping the user experience and impact on their goals makes it human and relatable. 

Testing websites against criteria, using automated tools, these tools also available in Microsoft office.

Empathy and involvement of people with disabilities a great idea ans most impactful, speakers or collaborators, but not always possible and not a scalable solution for wider scale adoption for the national curriculum. Also, literature highlights people initially feeling awkward towards those with disabilities as they worry they might offend or get etiquette wrong.

Videos can be developed from and by people with disabilities and combined with personas for broader impact. Also, can be directly linked to WCAG criteria to bring it to life in the classroom, which is especially helpful for novices and making learning more meaningful.

Notes made from reading papers: