Website/App Accessibility Assessment

You should demonstrate that you are expanding your familiarity with various accessibility technologies. Not all AT will count toward this assignment, and the teaching staff will determine what counts. Here are some things that would not count. Check with us if you have any questions. A technology you are already familiar with / using (i.e. if you are a screen reader user, don't ask to be assessed on your familiarity with screen readers) - The technologies you ask to be evaluated on are very similar and/or address very similar accessibility needs. For example, if you ask to be evaluated on a web based screen reader, and then NVDA, those would be too similar. The technologies you select are not used by disabled people. Your description of these technologies does not demonstrate learning or investigation of disability use cases. How to demonstrate this competency: Turn in a reflection telling us about AT you have presented about or used in your assignments. The reflection should include information about how the AT works, users, and strengths and weaknesses of the AT. You should also demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the AT. For example, understanding that audiobooks are not only useful for BLV people but also used by people with dyslexia and what limitations exist in their availability or usefulness.

Demonstrates that you can use an accessibility checker to assess whether a web page or app is accessible. This might include things like identifying potential issues with the POUR guidelines such as: missing image descriptions incorrect structure for forms lack of language information  incorrect header structure bad color contrast How to demonstrate this competency: Turn in UARS generated based on the accessibility checker *and* a reflection describing which automated tool you used, what you liked most and disliked most about it, and how you checked POUR using it.

Accessibility problem reports are assessed by looking at UARS. A high quality UAR should Clearly describe the problem or success Correctly assigned 1 or more WCAG guidelines to the problem or success Provide a good rationale for the severity of the problem / importance of the success (If a problem) Articulate an actionable path for addressing the problem found In addition, UARS form a group that together represent an assesssment. As such, they should Reflect the most important potential issues with the system being assessed Include web page or app accessibility problems that are not found with an automated accessibility checker Address at least two of the four areas of POUR (perceivable; operable; understandable; robust). If there are no problems, or problems in only one area, positive UARs without fixes are permitted (with approval of the course staff). How this will be assessed: You should turn in a reflection stating what app or website you were assessing, which tasks you were assessing, and which AT and/or automated tools you used to generate the UARS.

This applies to presentations, word documents, and pdfs. You’ll need to demonstrate this on at least one presentation and one assignment writeup that is long and complex enough to have headers and structure to achieve competency. Best practices: Avoid visual clutter (e.g. use San serif fonts (for digital viewing), don’t have too many things on the page) Use headers appropriately. Headers should be nested like they are in HTML (e.g., H2 after and H1). For example, in Microsoft Word these are built-in “styles” and in Google Docs you can see these under “Format -> Paragraph Styles.” Use proper color contrast. Write alt text for all non-decorative photos, diagrams and videos. Use meaningful hyperlink text (e.g., "check out my web page" instead of "click here") Properly mark up tables Screen reader order is correct (in documents where it applies, such as Powerpoint)  \ Slides have room for captions Videos on slides are captioned Document/slide is not overly cluttered Font sizes are large enough (above 20 ideally for slides; above 11 for documents) How to demonstrate this competency: You will be assessed on this any time you turn in a required document.

Can describe images of various types including pictures, diagrams, screen shots, and so on in an accessible fashion. Image descriptions should be concise, complete and accurate. You should use best practices to decide when to mention the background, describe people, and so on. How to demonstrate this competency: You will be evaluated on this any time you turn in a document that has images in it. You can also ask us to assess a specific image description in some other context.