Transportation Librarians Roundtable 2018-10-25 Speaker's slide notes Slide 1 Welcome to the October 25, 2018, Transportation Librarians Roundtable: Accessibility for Document Creators and Providers, with our speaker Kevyn Barnes, Manager of Library Services, TxDOT Research Library. The webinar link is: https://transportation.libguides.com/TLR For participant audio: please call in at phone number 877-336-1274; when prompted enter access code: 5759713 Slide 2 Become an accessibility influencer or specialist for your organization. Slide 3 (Auditory issues are not covered in my talk, but are important when dealing with videos and audio recordings.) A 2008 “ study put together by Google based on data from the World Bank (WDI, 2008) and CDC.gov (NHI Survey, 2008), …[states there are] more users who are blind / low-vision than the population of Canada.” [around 30-32 million at the time] ~http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/accessibility-statistics (Source includes a graphic) Motor Limitations: traumatic injures, diseases, conditions (temporary broken hand, Parkinson’s, loss of limb, etc) You’ve all heard the stats from other accessibility overviews, unfortunately this seems to not resonate with a large majority of document creators. Just know that if you are not considering accessibility, you may be excluding the Bill Clintons and Marco Rubios of the world from understanding your visualizations. “It is estimated that, while 15-20% of all individuals would benefit from receiving communications in an accessible format, only 3-4% of all documents are currently accessible. With an increasingly aging population, and an explosion in the growth of conditions such as diabetes and macular degeneration, the need for accessible documents will continue to increase dramatically.” --https://www.crawfordtech.com/blog/document-accessibility-for-print-service-providers Slide 4 ************** POLL **************** 1. Who do you know with an impairment that affects reading or navigating electronic documents? a. Myself. b. My spouse/partner, child, or other close relative. c. My supervisor, co-worker, employee. d. A friend or close acquaintance. e. I don’t know. Probably somebody who has not told me. Slide 5 I like how Janie Lin states in in one of her section headers of her recent article in July/August 2018 Information Outlook: “Comply or Be Punished” (Lin, Jaime, “Four Ways to Talk about Accessibility,” Information Outlook, vol.22 no.4, 2018.) Also, “it makes sense to spend money on web accessibility, not on court cases.” Title II: State and local government: One landmark university case: In March 2017 UC Berkeley Removed More Than 20,000 classroom lectures and podcasts Online Videos From Public Access In Response To DOJ Captioning Demand.. “DOJ concluded in the findings that a covered entity subject to Title II has a duty to ensure content that it makes available to the public free of charge is accessible” https://www.adatitleiii.com/2017/03/uc-berkley-to-remove-more-than-20000-online-videos-from-public-access-in-response-to-doj-captioning-demand. Title III: Public / commercial facilities Considering Title III, lawsuits filed due to accessibility complaints have risen. In only 6 months, over one thousand of those have been about accessibility of web content. (see graphic.) AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER 2019, “In a letter to members of Congress, the DOJ reaffirmed its longstanding policy that Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to website, though it declined to issue specific regulations on what websites need to do to comply with the law…. Key Takeaways: The DOJ still believes the ADA applies to websites, even if it is not acting to issue regulations. The lack of regulations doesn’t mean organizations don’t need to make their websites accessible. Organizations have a little flexibility in deciding how to make their websites accessible, but in most cases, working to meet WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria will be the best strategy. Litigation will likely continue to increase in the absence of specific regulations.” -- Slide 6 According to a December 2017 article from adPharos “Since 2011, at least 142 local governments in the US have been sued due to website accessibility issues.” According to Level Access, under ADA Title II, the US DOJ reached 18 settlements from 2015-2018 and 12 agreements in 2017 (mostly polling places and detention centers). Current DOJ is not pursuing much with current admin. Laws are highly individual between states, so lawsuits are usually brought by private parties, not lawyers conducting mass fishing expeditions. “Expect minimal federal enforcement in current administration. Expect increasing private enforcement at state level.” Slide 7 ************** POLL **************** 2. Thinking about MS Word, PDF, and other electronic documents, do you: a. Create documents to post online? b. Create documents to share within your organization? (via intranet, email, or saved to a network folder.) c. Provide electronic documents to your customers? d. Post documents online, whether or not you are the creator? Slide 8 Digitized PDFs, handouts, presentations, images, flyers. *Gets the most attention, particularly due to laws that cover public facilities/accommodations and the wider visibility and impact. ** After the revised Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act rules, aka “Section 508 Refresh” (effective 2018), “agency official communication” must conform even when not public-facing https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-ict-refresh/final-rule/text-of-the-standards-and-guidelines#E205-content “For Section 508-covered ICT, all covered Web and non-Web content and software – including, for example, Web sites, intranets, word processing documents, portable document format documents, and project management software – is required, with a few specific exceptions, to conform to WCAG 2.0’s Level A and Level AA Success Criteria and Conformance Requirements. By applying a single set of requirements to Web sites, electronic documents, and software, the revised requirements adapt the existing 508 Standards to reflect the newer multifunction technologies (e.g., smartphones that have telecommunications functions, video cameras, and computer-like data processing capabilities) and address the accessibility challenges that these technologies pose for individuals with disabilities. “ --https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/communications-and-it/about-the-ict-refresh/final-rule/i-executive-summary Slide 9 U.S. factors—internationally there are other standards and regulations (but think about UN committee treaty on disabilities). People often say “ADA” to refer to any accessibility issue, but that is not always correct. At one time, judges had ruled that ADA only referred to physical spaces, but recent trends have ruled in favor of websites being included. =? At the end of September 2018, in a letter to Congress, the DOJ reconfirmed it’s stance that ADA does apply to websites. Because they have not issued exact guidelines as to what that means, lawsuits are expected to continue – Level Access https://learn.levelaccess.com/webmail/487581/223995521/fc5795ef67ff07e4f5b6d0de4fb47bb549bd14b408ceb59766934dfc670766d6 See https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 W3C recommendations from the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG): Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust Section 508 refresh “… rule references Level A and Level AA Success Criteria and Conformance Requirements in WCAG 2.0 and applies them not only to websites, but also to electronic documents and software." Section 504: “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, [shall] be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…”Most states now have web accessibility requirements codified in some way, which their state agencies must follow. “508, ADA, WCAG: What’s the difference?” https://www.logicsolutions.com/508-ada-wcag-accessibility-difference/ Slide 10 Slide 11 Since 2014, our research center’s web pages must meet a minimum of 90% compliance with the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA (WCAG 2.0 AA) standard, so I watch our accessibility scans monthly. I suspect that in the next few years, the scans will apply to document attachments including PDFs. In February 2018, we received notice that no documents will be accepted into our university’s digital repository (Texas ScholarWorks) unless it is WCAG 2.0 compliant. This affects all theses/dissertations and faculty-submitted reports. . Expect this to be a rising trend: many webmasters already send back files to the creator / department if the accessibility compliance is unacceptable for sharing and you can expect this from a growing number of webmasters. Provide compliant documents and information to your IT when submitting information to add to website. With over 3,500 documents and other media files, it would be impossible for me to remediate each one. I depend on the creators to provide files with accessibility in mind Slide 12 If equality for people with disabilities and avoiding litigation still doesn’t persuade your stakeholders and document creators, maybe this will: Better exposure in online search results.“Almost without exception, Google ranks websites with accessibility techniques included in metadata, content, visual design, and development better in organic search. Why? Search engine crawlers can’t see or hear, and they only use a keyboard, similar to many people with disabilities.” --https://blogs.perficientdigital.com/2018/01/12/website-accessibility-benefit-seo/ (Lisa Michael of Perficient Digital “Does Website Accessibility Benefit SEO?, January 2018) Slide 13 Which results would you rather see? If a screen reader can read it, then search engines will be able to read it better also. Google and other search engine algorithms may purposely rank accessible documents above inaccessible files. https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/make-your-pdfs-work-well-google-and-other-search-engines Slide 14 Also consider any special needs of people you know will use the document. Not covering all requirements of any component in depth, but I’ll provide tips for several accessibility factors that you can start practicing on all your documents to show a good-faith effort. Slide 15 See presentation slide Works Cited for more thorough checklists for complying with regulations. U.S. Department of Education ED Accessibility Checklists for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDFs: https://www2.ed.gov/web-guidance/accessibility-requirements.html. Slide 16 Consider filenames for ease of sharing (i.e., once it is web-based, people with mobility problems or on cell phones may need to copy & paste links that break due to spaces and unsafe punctuation. The longer the filename, the harder this is. If this link is pasted as-is on a website without a title or different display text (e.g., in a bibliographic database/catalog), the screen reader will read the individual characters of the encoded portions (“condition-percent-two-zero-based-percent-two-zero….”). http://next.fordham.edu/?p=230 SEO and Google indexing factors of upper vs. lowercase (counted as separate files for analytics) & underscores (does not read words before and after as separate words). Safe characters: [0-9a-zA-Z-.,_] "weird characters and spaces can cause other problems, most notably when trying to send a link to a particular file to download. “Unsafe: Characters can be unsafe for a number of reasons. The space character is unsafe because significant spaces may disappear and insignificant spaces may be introduced when URLs are transcribed or typeset or subjected to the treatment of word-processing programs.” -- Uniform Resource Locators (URL), IETG Network Working Group, 1994. http://www.rfc-base.org/rfc-1738.html https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt Patent office requirements, NIH submission requirements include limit on filename characters, but note that that includes the entire file path so filenames should not contain maximum. Entire threads and programs devoted to solving the problem of files that become inaccessible when filename is too long or has unsafe characters. Slide 17 Descriptive is good; helps SEO, too: https://accessibility.iu.edu/creating-content/documents/general-guidelines/descriptive.html Slide 18 When including links in your report, consider both screen readers and colorblind factors. Do what people expect => underline links and do not underline things that are not hyperlinks. [Click on the first FIND THE REPORT line] The text that is hyperlinked is what is used by screen readers to list all of the links on a page. Slide 19 Slide 20 PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0 https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-TECHS/pdf.html (7 October 2016): list of 23 accessibility items and techniques for complying Slide 21 PDF properties generally just import the information from the Word document or other file that it was converted from. This usually means that there isn’t much information or it is not descriptive. Slide 22 Bookmarks for all major sections. Show title instead of filename on the title bar. Slide 23 Next the properties settings Slide 24 Within the Description area of PDF Properties. Slide 25 Initial view tab of PDF Properties Slide 26 Within the Description area of PDF Properties. Slide 27 Within the Advanced tab area of PDF Properties. Setting the language is a requirement. Slide 28 Slide 29 Built in Accessibility checker in Adobe Pro Slide 30 Here I’m going to pick on one of our old internal research report templates. The Adobe internal accessibility checker doesn’t necessarily cover all requirements of 508, etc., but gets you started. ** CLICK** Here, most items pass, but there are several that fail. Also, many things will have to be manually checked--color contrast, whether or not the alt text is meaningful, whether the headings are properly set (checker only makes sure heading tags are properly nested), and whether the reading order is correct. Slide 31 Slide 32 Reading Order. Here there are a few things out of whack. #7 is an empty space where space/paragraph break was used for formatting purposes. The Image in the middle is the last section to be read (#12). Slide 33 Here, I deleted the Empty tag line that was by the image and used drag/drop to move the reading order of the image (I moved it under the Figure description). *** Note: moving the reading order only affects the screen reader’s order, however, deleting a tag will also delete it entirely from the page.*** So what I want to show you is how to create these accessible features before the document is ever converted to a PDF Slide 34 Slide 35 ADVANCED---Checking tags to make sure headings are marked as headings, paragraphs as paragraphs, etc. Also removing empty paragraphs that were used for spacing/formatting. This takes much care because if you delete the wrong tag element, it will also delete the text from the page. Slide 36 Slide 37 In PowerPoint, switch to "File" on menu bar Slide 38 File Options include "Check for Issues" then "Check Accessibility" Slide 39 Now you have a Window that show definite accessibility errors as well as things you might need to check manually Slide 40 Same process for MS Word documents Slide 41 Before we begin, if nothing else is remembered, remember this one warning to avoid wasted time. => Slide 42 “PRINT to PDF” strips all tags and other accessibility features from your Word, PowerPoint, and other documents, just like a document printed on paper. Slide 43 Slide 44 Use “Export” or “Save As…” instead. Options may depend on if you have Adobe Acrobat Pro or not. Slide 45 Use “Export” or “Save As…” instead. Options may depend on if you have Adobe Acrobat Pro or not. Slide 46 Slide 47 When you click on the item in the Accessibility checker results, you are taken to the slide with the error. Slide 48 Right click image to get “Format Picture” option Slide 49 Slide 50 Screen reader already notes it as an image, so just describe what the image conveys. Use punctuation. Position image in line with text, not with text wrapping. Slide 51 Same exact steps in MS Word, same icon in the Format Picture display. Slide 52 Slide 53 Screen readers can not interpret smart art and Alt Text can only be added for individual pieces of the graphic. Grouping does not change this. Slide 54 Better to screenshot / snip the graphic and then apply a description to the entire image. Save the version that can be modified as an extra slide or page at the end of a document. Slide 55 Same issue in MS Word… Note that each section of text is also seen as an image by the computer. Slide 56 With same solution in MS Word. Slide 57 Slide 58 Use the built-in Insert Table method. Slide 59 Right click on the table to get to “Insert captions” option Slide 60 Slide 61 Add caption. Slide 62 Caption is now added above the table. Slide 63 Here I have filled out some information. Select the header row, then go to “Table Tools > Design > Header Row.” Notice that on the next page, there is no way to know what the column headings are. Slide 64 Go to “Table Tools > Layout > Repeat Header Rows” so the headings are repeated. Slide 65 Slide 66 Next, let’s check reading order issues. Slide 67 Home > Arrange > Selection Pane Slide 68 The first column of text will be the 4th section read. IMPORTANT: “Use the Selection pane to set the order in which the screen readers read the slide contents. The Selection pane lists the objects on the slide in reverse order. When the screen reader reads this slide, it reads the objects in the reverse order listed in the Selection pane.” Slide 69 The 3rd picture is the 2nd item that will be read. Slide 70 Here, I have reordered the text and pictures so that text is read after the image that it is associated with. Simple drag and drop in the Selection pane. Slide 71 In this case, it might have been easier to rename each element before dragging and dropping. Makes it easier if you still plan on reordering itmes. Slide 72 Slide 73 Heading structure must be properly structured. In Word, if you will be converting to PDF, use only one “heading 1”

in the document (instead of “title”). In this case, our template needs to be changed so chapter titles are

and so forth. Here, you’ll see how to change the overall styles in your document so that you don’t have to rely on empty paragraphs for spacing and headings are automatically recognized. Slide 74 Dropdown to view list of style categories and to customize your styles Slide 75 Modify an individual style item here Slide 76 This is where you adjust formatting options for consistency Slide 77 Slide 78 Free Colour Contrast Analyser allows you to check color-blind accessibility directly within MS Word or other office application. Slide 79 Lets say we want to check whether this SmartArt can be read be a colorblind person. Slide 80 Open up Colour contrast Analyser and use the color picker. Slide 81 Open up Colour contrast Analyser and use the color picker to pick up the foreground and background colors. Slide 82 Open Colour Contrast Analyser and use the color picker to pick up the foreground and background colors. Slide 83 Colour Contrast Analyser tells you immediately if it passes or fails. This one passes most guidelines. Slide 84 This one fails. Slide 85 A neat option in the tool is the ability to see results for different types of colorblindness. Slide 86 The point is that you would want to use a darker background color or different color them altogether. There are some resources in the works cited handout to help with color themes. Slide 87 In the Design tab, you can change preset color themes or customize.https://venngage.com/blog/color-blind-friendly-palette/ COLOR PALETTES FOR COLOR BLINDNESS --http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/colorblind/ Slide 88 Slide 89 Slide 90 Slide 91 Slide 92 Slide 93 Thank you for attending Join us Twice in November! First: November 8, 2018, TLR Listening Session: Tools for Impacting Research; featuring speakers Roberto Sarmiento and Rachel Cole, Northwestern University Transportation Second: November 15, 2018; Tribal Libraries and Transportation Resources, with George Franchois, Director of the U.S. Department of Interior Library For Past Episodes, Visit the TLR Archive at: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/browse/collections Slide 94 Slide 95 Section 504 fold in programs receiving federal funds Slide 96 “Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended is a set of standards that requires Federal agencies to make ICT [Information and Communication Technologies] accessible to employees and members of the public who have disabilities in a comparable manner to the access experienced by employees and members of the public without disabilities. “ Slide 97 See https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ W3C recommendations from the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG). Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust Slide 98 See https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ W3C recommendations from the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG). Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust Slide 99 See https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ W3C recommendations from the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG). Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust Slide 100 Slide 101 “Almost without exception, Google ranks websites with accessibility techniques included in metadata, content, visual design, and development better in organic search. Why? Search engine crawlers can’t see or hear, and they only use a keyboard, similar to many people with disabilities.” --https://blogs.perficientdigital.com/2018/01/12/website-accessibility-benefit-seo/ (Lisa Michael of Perficient Digital “Does Website Accessibility Benefit SEO?, January 2018) Slide 102 Also consider any special needs of people you know will use the document. Not covering all requirements of any component in depth, but I’ll provide tips for several accessibility factors that you can start practicing on all your documents to show a good-faith effort. Slide 103 Caption files with proper punctuation don’t just happen automatically. The computer-generated files can also have embarrassing misinterpretations of what the person said. Slide 104 Very easy to review the video on YouTube and create a new or edited transcript / caption file for shorter videos. Can also upload a file created outside of YouTube. f