Recorded 03/28/18
Accessibility is making sure that your product can be used by as many people as possible, including the use of external technologies to help deliver your product experience to people that have disabilities. Inclusive Design is the development of products that allow for the greatest number of users to use and experience them without the need for additional technology. They sound similar, but they have different focuses. Regardless, becoming aware of how to look at software from an Accessibility and Inclusive Design perspective helps developers, testers, and users make the most of the applications they come in contact with. Doesn’t it make sense to let as many people as possible have the chance to use and enjoy our products?
In this Webinar, I will be discussing a variety of ways that anyone who wishes to advocate for Accessibility and Inclusive Design (Software Testers, Software Developers Product Owners, and Product Managers, etc.) to make them a part of their everyday software interactions. I will demonstrate tools that are readily available and in most cases free (WeAIM Wave, aXe, Hemingway, etc.) and how to leverage those tools to help test from an Accessibility perspective as well as Inclusive Design techniques everyone can use to make for a better product experience.
Michael’s Presentation & Reading List:
- Wikipedia, “Accessibility”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility
- British Standards Institute, 2005, “What is Inclusive Design?”, http://www.inclusivedesigntoolkit.com/betterdesign2/whatis/whatis.html#p30
- S. Horton and W. Quesenbery, 2013, “A Web for Everyone”, Rosenfeld Media, https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/a-web-for-everyone/
- Gareev, Albert and Larsen, Michael, 2015, “Black Box Accessibility Testing: A Heuristic Approach”, https://kwsqa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Black-Box-Accessibility-Testing.pdf
- Do’s and Don’ts for Designing or Accessibility, https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-on-designing-for-accessibility/
- WAVE, Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool, http://wave.webaim.org/
- aXe: the Accessibility Engine, https://www.deque.com/axe/
- Color Contrast Analyzer, http://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu
- Hemingway Editor, http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview, W3C, Web Accessibility Initiative, https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag
- Before and After Demonstration, W3C, Web Accessibility Initiative, https://www.w3.org/WAI/demos/bad/
Presentation: ACCESSIBILITY_INCLUSIVEDESIGN_2018.pdf
Our Speaker:
Michael Larsen – Senior Quality Assurance Engineer, Socialtext
Michael Larsen is a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer with Socialtext in Palo Alto. He has been an advocate for Accessibility and Inclusive Design for the past five years. He has worked in a variety of industries including internetworking devices, virtual machines, video games, legal software, entertainment applications and social media tools. He is the producer of The Testing Show podcast, blogs at mkltesthead.com and can be found on Twitter at @mkltesthead.
Speaker Details:
Michael Larsen – Senior Quality Assurance Engineer, Socialtext
Twitter: @mkltesthead
LinkedIn: Michael Larsen
Facebook: Testhead
Blog: mkltesthead.com
Past Events: STPCon