Using the W3C ARIA Authoring Practices Guide 1.1 to Build Accessible Web Resources

Using the W3C ARIA Authoring Practices Guide 1.1 to Build Accessible Web Resources

Recording Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Speaker: Jon Gunderson, Coordinator of Accessible IT Group, University of Illinois
Target Audience: UX Designers, software developers, Quality Assurance.
Skill Level: Intermediate

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Overview: Many people are familiar with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 techniques document, much fewer people are familiar with the W3C Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA) Authoring Practices Guide. The Authoring Practices Guide (APG) has been completely updated and redesigned for supporting the authoring requirements of the W3C Accessible Rich Internet Application 1.1 specification. The APG provides the technical information needed by interaction designers and web developers to design accessibility into the web resources they are creating. The APG provides design patterns and examples for landmarks and widget roles, and design information on support keyboard navigation between and within widgets, and how to describe relationships between content in a web application. This session will walk participants through the authoring guide and show examples of how the authoring guide was used to build and test the ARIA enabled examples.

The session is to help UX designers and web developers understand how to use the W3C Accessible Rich Internet Application Authoring Practices Guide (APG) 1.1 to design accessibility into web applications. The APG 1.1 has been redesigned to provide comprehensive accessible authoring information for ARIA landmarks and widget roles and the associated properties and states. The APG includes sections on how to support keyboard interaction between widgets and within widgets and the how to define relationships between content on a web resources. The APG 1.1 includes fully reviewed examples of landmark and widget roles for use in helping people understand and test the accessibility of ARIA enabled widgets. The session will engage the audience by asking them questions on common design patterns to see how their responses line up with the APG 1.1 recommendations. The session is also very important to the development of the ARIA authoring practices. The questions and comments of the audience will be taken back to the APG working group for consideration in updating the APG to address the issues raised. It is very important that the APG meet the needs of the web design and authoring community to understand how to use ARIA technologies to make web resources more accessible. This forum will provide much needed feedback to the APG working group on the strengths and weaknesses of the APG in supporting authoring learning and understanding of ARIA technologies and help raise awareness of this important resources to the accessibility community. 

Objectives:

• How to use the roles, properties and states to build accessible resources.
• Keyboard support and design patterns.
• Describing content relationships.
• Fully reviewed ARIA enabled example accessible widgets. 

Speaker Bio: Dr. Gunderson is the Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology Accessibility in the Division of Disability Resources and Education Services (DRES). He is currently responsible for computer and information technology accessibility issues for students, faculty and staff with disabilities at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. He is the past chair of the W3C User Agent Working Group and currently involved in Web 2.0 technologies more accessible as part of the W3C Protocols and Formats and W3C WCAG Techniques working groups. He leads the development of the open source web evaluation tools Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE) 2.0 and AInspector add-ons for Firefox browser. He is the primary software developer of the open source OpenAjax Accessibility Evaluation library. He has taught numerous online courses and workshops on accessible web design including courses on using the new W3C Accessible Rich Internet Application (ARIA) specifications to create accessible web applications. He leads both regional and national consortiums of higher educational institutions to promote and work together on Information technology access issues.