Web Workshop: Web Accessibility Evaluation and Inspection Tools for Illinois

AInspector Sidebar for Firefox, the Accessibility Bookmarklets, and the Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE) 2.0 are open source tools developed at Illinois to help web development teams learn about and implement accessibility features in the web resources they are developing. The tools support the implementation of the Level A and AA requirements of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. WCAG 2.0 is an international standard for web accessibility, including the latest Section 508 requirements for federal government websites. The OpenAjax Evaluation Library, a JavaScript library comprising over 120 accessibility rules, is used in both AInspector and FAE 2.0 to evaluate dynamically generated content (e.g. through the DOM) with respect to WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA requirements.  AInspector Sidebar for Firefox is a browser add-on that allows the user to evaluate and inspect the accessibility features of content in the current DOM using the Firefox web browser. FAE 2.0 is a server-based tool that spiders the web pages of a website and generates summary reports on WCAG compliance. The Accessibility Bookmarklets are lightweight tools that provide visualizations of accessibility features within categories such as Landmarks, Headings, Lists, Images and Forms, superimposed upon a web page. This workshop will explain how the tools can be used to learn about accessibility and identify the accessibility features and issues of web-based resources at Illinois.

Presenters:

Dr. Gunderson is the Coordinator of Accessible Information Technology Group in the Division of Disability Resources and Education Services (DRES). He is responsible for computer and information technology accessibility and accommodation issues for students with disabilities at the University of Illinois. He participates in the W3C ARIA working group and including the ARIA Authoring practices sub-group. He is the primary software developer of the open source OpenAjax Accessibility Evaluation library and Functional Accessibility Evaluator 2.0 (FAE).  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 participates in both regional and national consortiums of higher educational institutions to promote and collaborate on information technology access issues to people with disabilities.

Mr. Hoyt is a software developer and interaction designer, and has served in these capacities for the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services at the University of Illinois for the past 11 years. He led the development of a conceptual model for web accessibility evaluation used as the basis of Ainspector Sidebar and the FAE-based tools. He is the user interface/interaction designer and software developer for AInspector Sidebar for Firefox. He has made significant contributions to the user interface design of FAE 2.0 and the software design of the OpenAjax Evaluation Library APIs and other tools used by FAE technologies. He is currently working on the next-generation browser extension for web accessibility evaluation and inspection.