Collaboration – WebCT Case Study

Hadi Bargi Rangin

Web Design and Accessibility Specialist

University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign

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Background

• Universities use third party applications

• No organized mean to handle accessibility

• Accessibility consultant vs. users with disabilities

• Tech support/sales have no knowledge about accessibility

• Accessibility problems recorded as technical problem

• Accessibility complaints don’t reach right people

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Collaboration

• Discussed issue with Purdue & Univ.of Minnesota

• Started WebCT Accessibility Interest Group

  • cita.uiuc.edu/collaborate/old_webct/

  • http://cita.uiuc.edu/collaborate/webct/

  • http://listserv.uiuc.edu/archives/vista-access-l.html

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Identifying issues

• Identified accessibility issues

• Documented issues & proposed potential solutions in a whitepaper

• Send the whitepaper to WebCT representatives

• Robert Dumas was identified as accessibility person to work with us

• Setup bi-weekly/monthly teleconferences & discussed issues/solutions

• Met with Chloe development manager to discuss progress & experience problems first hand

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Testing and Evaluation

• Setup Demo server to test accessibility fixes for current and upcoming releases

• Created video clips illustrating accessibility issues

• UIUC Accessibility Best Practices
  cita.uiuc.edu/html-best-practices/

• Evaluation page
  http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/collaborate/webct/forms/webct-eval.php

• Integration of accessibility testing in QA process

• Long list of accessibility improvements in new release

  • Critical & General accessibility improvement

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Goal

• Make accessibility part of design & QA process instead of repair model

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Benefit of accessibility

• Accessibility out of box

• More marketable

• Interoperability

• Reach more audience