moodle accessibility

moodle accessibility

by derek kerr -
Number of replies: 15

I am working on a Moodle accessibility student project here at Dublin City University. Essentially I am auditing Moodle against the WCAG 1.0 guidelines and hopefully will implement some corrections. Ive just about finished the audit, I used Wave as an automated evaluator, and used Lynx and Home Page Reader for manual checking. The big issues appear to be in the areas of:

 

JavaScript: Some assistive technologies will not support JavaScript, while some functionality in Moodle depends on JavaScript. An example is the select language drop down menu, which becomes non-functional with JavaScript turned off. And with JavaScript enabled, form processing can be confusing to assistive technologies, an example is the case of an incorrect login. A screen reader will not make the user aware immediately of an incorrect login because the incorrect login message appears some way down the existing page in red text.

 

In-page and site navigation: Improvements to in-page navigation would allow easier access to the pages main content, site news, calendar and other blocks. Site navigation could be improved with the use of a site map, and many links depend on colour and their meaning is not clear out of context.

 

Forms: Some forms (especially drop down menus) are mouse dependant, causing a problem for keyboard-only users.

 

This is just a brief summary, Ive attached a document which has a bit more detail. My next task is to finalise and prioritise a list of issues, I am very interested to hear of others experiences in this area, and would be glad to get any comments, criticism, suggestions..

regards,

derek kerr

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In reply to derek kerr

Re: moodle accessibility

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Thanks, Derek, your continued feedback and engagement on this will be very helpful in getting as much of this improved as possible. Now is a very good time as these things are being looked at for 1.5.

One small question: do you have any information on which assistive technologies can't handle the simple javascript in the popup menus, and why they can't? I've often wondered why the pressure for these sorts of little things seems to always be on web authors rather than on the screen reader makers. wink
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Vast: Re: moodle accessibility

by Antti Boman -
A simple start for fixing up the popup menu could simply be adding a button (something like "Choose") after the popup menu, and inside <noscript></noscript> . That way the user without JavaScript on wouldn't be helpless, and a blind person would find the button in it's "natural" place.
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In reply to Antti Boman

Re: Vast: Re: moodle accessibility

by John Papaioannou -
I remember being pained over the best way to do this for the calendar preferences drop down menu. The "perfect" solution, in brief:

  • Put a form with the select control that targets your redirect-to script. Make the form to auto-submit with JS when the select is changed.
  • Put a button next to the form with "noscript". If you want this to be next to the form, you 'll need to make it style="display: inline;".
  • This won't hide it when JS is enabled in Gecko. So you 'll have to follow up with <script> // hide this noscript tag and its contents </script>.

Jon
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In reply to Antti Boman

Re: Vast: Re: moodle accessibility

by W Page -
Hi Antti!

This is not in response to your post but what does the "Vast" stand for.  I have seen it in the Subject line of other posts but I do not know what it is suppose to mean.

Thanks in advance.

WP1
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In reply to W Page

Re: Vast: Re: moodle accessibility

by Teemu Sumi -
Short way to put the word "Vastaus". It's finnish and it means "Reply".

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In reply to Teemu Sumi

Vast: Re: Vast: Re: moodle accessibility

by Antti Boman -
One note about it, though. Moodle adds "Vast:" automatically, if you've selected Finnish as the language. I ran into the same problem when I coded another (proprietary) learning system, and I decided to give a thought on how to solve it. I didn't have the time, though, and I won't add a feature bug yet. The list is long enough already.

As you see from this message's subject, it might not be a bad idea to fix it eventually.
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In reply to Antti Boman

Re: moodle accessibility

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
It's not exactly difficult to edit.  smile   If it's a problem I could always force this course to be English ...
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: moodle accessibility

by Antti Boman -
I know it's not hard to edit, I just have the experience that tells me no-one _remembers_ to edit it smile I've seen it in email, for example.

Anyway, as I said, this is not a big thing and could be fixed if somebody had lots of time. And naturally we all do.

(EDIT: I forgot to fix the subject line this time, too. smile
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In reply to derek kerr

Re: moodle accessibility

by N Hansen -
Derek-I just wanted to comment on one point you made, based on my own experience, as editor of an educational website with nearly 5000 pages on it, which has wound up ironically attracting almost as much attention (and certainly more awards) for being a model of good web design as the attention it gets for the subject matter of the site itself.

I worked really hard so that our site did not need a site map. Not because they aren't useful. On some sites, they are necessary. But in my opinion, they are necessary simply because the sites are so poorly designed you can't find what you are looking for any other way. If a site has two things, there is absolutely no need for a site map:

1-A consistent navigation structure with the content placed in logical locations

2-Well-thought out labels for links and descriptions that make it clear what people will get before they click on a link

It actually takes more time and thought to do these two things than it does to automatically generate a site map. But it will make a site more usable in the long run.

So if you are feeling lost in Moodle, maybe it is necessary to look and see if there is room for improvement in these two areas.

I have to admit, I've been pondering lately whether the modularity that makes Moodle so flexible is a bit at odds with a consistent structure. But I'm too tired to expand on that further at the moment. Perhaps tomorrow.
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In reply to derek kerr

Re: moodle accessibility

by Tony Hursh -
We have a blind student using Moodle this semester. She says Moodle is more accessible than WebCT Vista at least with her specific screen reader (she's a graduate student who also TAs a course using WebCT Vista).

The only real problem she encountered with Moodle was using the WYSIWYG editor, which for some reason confused the heck out of her screen reader (this may relate to the JavaScript issues you discuss above). Turning off the WYSIWYG editor in her profile solved the problem.

I wonder if you'd be interested in talking to her? If so, let me know.
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In reply to derek kerr

Re: moodle accessibility

by Michael Penney -
Hi Derek, we've done this for Moodle 1.3.1 against US Section 508 standards (which are somewhat less strict than WCAG 1.0, I believe.)

Our version and documentation is available here:
http://learn.humboldt.edu/course/view.php?id=21&topic=1
One of our programmers, Chris Berri, did a very thourough job of documenting what was unaccessible with the 1.3.1 code in the Word doc there.

Hopefully much of the code will get cleaned up in 1.5, so you should probably take a look at what is going on in that version in CVS before starting any new work.
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In reply to derek kerr

Re: moodle accessibility

by derek kerr -

Thanks to all for your responses and advice, its very encouraging for me. I'll attempt to post updates on my progress here.

And if I could just touch on Martins one small, but valid question.. I dont know (yet) specifically which assistive technologies dont support JavaScript, I used WCAG 1.0 as a reference, and it stipulates that functionality should not depend on JAvaScript support. But maybe WCAG 2.0 will be different, I should look into that ...

... derek

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In reply to derek kerr

Re: moodle accessibility

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
My own personal prejudice is that a web site should not depend on JavaScript. It is fine to include some, but it should not depend upon it.
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