Posted by mfratkin on March 9, 2011 at 8:04pm
We are looking for an an example of an accessible collaboration Drupal application. Does anyone know if this exists and if so can you direct me to the site so that we can test it? Thanks you.
Mike
Accessible Drupal collaboration site
Comments
Not sure I understand
Mike, do you mean an application of Drupal to create an accessible environment for collaboration?
If so, collaboration on what?
I think the short answer is that, unless a wiki will meet your needs, you're looking for something far too complex to be handled by a single module or an out-of-the-box solution.
But maybe I'm just clueless as to what you need Drupal to do for you.
Can you give a few more details?
Cliff, I am the Section 508
Cliff,
I am the Section 508 tester for a large governmnet agency. We are looking at Drupal to create a collaboration site similar to Sharepoint. Since we are most concerned about Section 508 compliance we would like to know what is available from an accessibility perspective through Drupal. I understand that a Wiki may be the best bet but we are also exploring other options and are pretty new to the Drupal environment. We are basically looking to see if there are any proclaimed "accessible" applications that we could have access to in order to test through our testing methodology process using Assistive Technologies.
We test between 200-300 applications per year that are developed in-house and through third parties so are very serious about accessibility. Thanks for any additional information that you can provide.
Mike
Core is Good & the Rest Follows
Hey Mike/Cliff,
Would have been great to have you both here at DrupalCon. There have been a number of sessions & gatherings about both accessibility & government use of Drupal. Accessibility in Drupal 7 products is going to be better by default than what you can get out of the box with Sharepoint.
Many modifications have been done to core to improve it's accessibility with content authoring. Any collaborative space needs to ensure that it's form elements are accessible.
We're not proclaiming that Drupal 7 is "accessible", we know full well how many software products make this claim, or produce a nicely worded accessibility statement for management. Drupal 7 is free to download, extend & customize. There's also quite a lot of room to improve it's accessibility. Although we've made great gains and have probably produced the most stable platform "out of the box" that there is, the thousands of modules & customized themes can easily overwrite this.
There aren't any "applications" per say that are set up for you to do your testing with, however we'd be happy to work with your organization to support your testing/evaluation needs. We'd also be very interested in getting your feedback & support in looking ahead at Drupal 8's accessibility.
Dries' keynote from this year's DrupalCon is a great starting point to see how far this community has moved to embrace this.
EDIT: Occurred to me (a bit late) that you could register & evaluate this site, especially if you were able to make it up to the unconference - http://a11yyow.ca
We've also got our main site here up with a HTML5 theme http://openconcept.ca
Both are running Drupal 7 and neither has had much site specific accessibility evaluation.
Mike
--
OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford | Drupal Security Guide
You're in government, too? Cool!
If you will, use the contact form on my profile to send me your contact information. I'm about to be immersed in South by Southwest Interactive for a few days, but I want to be sure to connect you with a couple of groups if you aren't already.
re: Cliff, I am the Section 508
@mfratkin,
Have you done any accessibility evaluations of Drupal 7? Or is that something your office/agency will be doing? And can you share your findings with us?
One of our biggest needs right now is for the large government and corporate users of Drupal to help provide accessibility testing of Drupal 7. This would help us plan our accessibility priorities for Drupal 8. We'd love to collaborate with you.
Brandon
www.pixotech.com
We have not implemented
We have not implemented anything in Drupal yet. It is my task to test it to see how accessible it may be. That is why I am looking for good examples of what developers may consider to be accessible. If I can get examples to test, I will be happy to share my findings. Thanks.
Mike
...
I would think you need to download Drupal 7 and install it, then create some content and start testing from there. The main reason you will need an installation is that Drupal has extensive administrative features that will need review, you can't get that from looking at a public facing website - you need full admin access.
I'm sure any one of us would be willing helping you set this up, especially if the data from your tests can filter back to this group and the Drupal community ;)
Testing suggestions
@mfratkin,
In Drupal 7 I would suggest testing out the front-end accessibility (for site visitors) as well as the back-end accessibility (for contributors and administrators). I've provided a lot of sample ideas below. I'm wondering if this is what you're looking for?
Front End Accessibility testing suggestions:
Back-End testing suggestions:
There are some additional usability testing tasks from the UMN Usability Testing in 2008. I've heard in May 2011 there is a new round of usability testing happening, so we could certainly get you an up-to-date list of more advanced tasks beyond that.
Is this the information you're looking for?
www.pixotech.com
Existing sites to test
Hi again Mike (@mfratkin),
It sounds like you are looking for existing sites to test. Here are two examples of Drupal 6 sites that are already built with accessibility in mind: Illinois Arts Council and Iowa Department for the Blind.
However, that would only allow you to test the front-end, public areas. And those are Drupal 6 whereas what needs more testing right now is Drupal 7 sites. Mike Gifford gave an example above, and I would also be glad to give you an example and actually set up a Drupal 7 snapshot with sample content and provide an admin login so that you could have full access to test both the front-end or back-end. That would be the most beneficial kind of testing to evaluate the current version of Drupal, both the front-end and back-end.
You said you especially wanted to test a collaboration site similar to Sharepoint. There are two Drupal-based tools that provide something similar: Open Atrium and Organic Groups. If that is most what you are looking for, we could work on finding a Drupal 7 snapshot of one of those sites that you could use to test the front-end and back-end.
Let us know if that is what you are looking for. Cheers,
Brandon
www.pixotech.com
Existing sites
Brandon,
The two sites with Drupal 6 would be a good baseline test and to see what accessibility is present. Thanks, I will check them out. In addition, I would be happy to test the Drupal 7 sample that you could provide. That would be great as well. I really appreciate all of your help. Any kind of form elements that could be incorporated would be a good test. Thanks again.
Mike
OpenPublic
Phase 2 Technologies just announced a new Drupal platform OpenPublic for government sites. They are targeting accessibility per statement below & have some resources on staff but want input. No sites based on it yet & in beta - Drupal 7.
Accessibility and 508 Compliance
We know that accessibility is a necessity in public-sector communications. OpenPublic manages this reality with Section 508-compliant designs for both back-end administrators and public users.
http://openpublicapp.com/
http://www.daisy.org