Accessibility: Doing blind & VI user testing, would like guidance and feedback

Accessibility: Doing blind & VI user testing, would like guidance and feedback

by Randall Hansen -
Number of replies: 5

Hello all ~

I'm working with CANnect, under a grant from Sloan C, on a Moodle accessibility study, focused specifically on blind and visually-impaired users. I'd like for my work to complement, rather than duplicate or fork, the good work Moodlers have already done.

Later this month I'm going to Carroll Center for the Blind in Boston to observe user behavior and do some testing, and then in August I'll be doing user testing at our offices here in Portland.

I've read a lot about Moodle and accessibility here[1], and read back in these forums for a while. I have some specific questions:

  • It looks like the last change to the accessibility specification was over 2 years ago. How current is it?
  • Are there particular issues or problems around which I should focus my accessibility testing? I have plans of my own, but would like help from you folks who have been plugged into Moodle for some time.

By trade I'm a UX designer, on the web for nearly 15 years. I'm fluent in the core technologies and experienced at user testing. What I've never done is test users with visual disabilities. I should get a good start at that in Boston.

Thanks in advance. Any and all advice and feedback appreciated.

Randall

1.

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In reply to Randall Hansen

Re: Accessibility: Doing blind & VI user testing, would like guidance and feedback

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
The history is roughly this:

There was a big push to improve accessibility (funded mainly by the Open University, UK) for Moodle 1.8. Since then accessibility is just a normal part of our processes, as documented in the coding guidelines at, err... blush ... Development:Coding#Accessibility (see below). Any specific accessibility problems that are found should be reported to the Moodle Tracker like any other problem, so it can be fixed.


OK, here is what the Accessibility guidelines should probably say, based on what I do while developing.

1. All Moodle output should meet http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php to at least level A, and preferably higher.

Well, that is probably enough wink

OK, some more specific technical things

2. All Moodle output should be valid XHTML Strict.

3. Moodle output should use proper semantic markup, including proper use of headings, alt="" attributes, <labels> for form controls, scope="" attributes on tables, ...

4. Appropriate provision of skip links.

5. Everything in Moodle should work with JavaScript off. JavaScript should only be used for progressive enhancement.

6. Everything in Moodle should work when using the site with just the plain HTML, no CSS - or better with a screen-reader simulator like Fangs for Firefox.

7. Sufficient contrast in CSS and images.


The thing that makes accessibility interesting is that most Moodle sites contain a lot of user-input content, so the overall accessibility of a Moodle site is a combination of the accessibility of Moodle and the accessibility of the content. But, then you can bounce some of that responsibility back to Moodle again, because people input the content using the tools Moodle provides.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Accessibility: Doing blind & VI user testing, would like guidance and feedback

by Randall Hansen -
Thanks for the great reply, Tim. Now I have more questions smile

1. In the absence of the accessibility guidelines you linked to, are any of the three documents I linked to used instead?

2. Is there a designated owner of those guidelines? Any plan you know of to flesh them out?

Your own list of guidelines certainly looks good and sensible. I hope that my testing uncovers useful specifics.

Another part of our study is focusing on content creation guidelines. I don't know if those folks are plugged into the Moodle community yet. Certainly this is a big challenge: even if Moodle's tools are perfect, someone can easily paste in horrible HTML.

Thanks again.
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In reply to Randall Hansen

Re: Accessibility: Doing blind & VI user testing, would like guidance and feedback

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Oh, I thought Martin was planning to reply to this. I guess too many other things came up today.

Rather like the coding guidelines which Martin has been working at on and off for a while. I guess, that Accessibility will be edited into Development:Accessibility when the time comes.

Development:Accessibility_notes and Development:Moodle Accessibility Specification Were hugely useful two years ago at the time of the big accessibility push in Moodle 1.8. I think they are basically obsolete now. The place for current information is the Accessibility component in the bug tracker. You can search and sort there to find what has been done, what is planned to be done for the next release, and so on. The tracker is what we acutually use to manage Moodle development. Documents are not very helpful to us. See Development:Overview and Tracker for an introduction.

Yes, the guidelines are only general principles. We need testing to find specific issues, and they should be reported to the tracker so they can be fixed. It is really great that you will be doing some.

Moodle docs is a wiki, you are welcome to publish your Content accessibility guidelines there if you like. That would be great.
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In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Accessibility: Doing blind & VI user testing, would like guidance and feedback

by Randall Hansen -

Development:Accessibility_notes and Development:Moodle Accessibility Specification Were hugely useful two years ago at the time of the big accessibility push in Moodle 1.8. I think they are basically obsolete now.


Ok, that's good to know.

I've been working with a local copy of Moodle, a weekly build of 1.9.5+ from June. Forgive my ignorance of the development roadmap, but assuming I find bugs, am I best of testing and filing against that version, or the 2.0 development branch?
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In reply to Randall Hansen

Re: Accessibility: Doing blind & VI user testing, would like guidance and feedback

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
That is a good question.

There is some new stuff in Moodle 2.0 that it would be great to get some usability testing on, like
1. the new file picker interface
2. the new conditional activities feature
3. the new interface for quizzes
4. changes to our use of skip links and the overall page layout
5. The new TinyMCE editor
6. ... I could go on.

The problem is, it is really too early to do most of that, as Moodle 2.0 is still very much under development.

1. is mostly done
2. is done, and does work!
3. was working, but some changes I made recently broke it, and I have not re-fixed it yet.
4. in progress now.
5. Mosty done, but not completely finished.
6. ... and so on.

You get the picture. So, for now I would concentrate on Moodle 1.9.5.

Make sure you make the necessary configuration changes that avoid the obvious problems we know about. Disable the HTML editor (the one in 1.9 and before is known to have accessibility problems). Consider turning on the screenreader option in users' profiles. Those are the two I can think of now.

And don't bother testing quiz, wiki or workshop. They are changing a lot in Moodle 2.0. If you want us to review what you are proposing to test, post here and we will.

And, if there is any way you could get to do this again in about 6 months, then it would be good to get some feedback on the Moodle 2.0 features wink (I can wish.)
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