Drupal 8 Accessibility Skype Planning Session

Sorry, I will not be able to attend this. I do hope someone takes notes, and I will provide feedback on the notes later in the week.

Present: Brandon, Hadi, Bojhan, Mike, Dharmesh, Dan, Kathy, Cliff

Accessibility Gate Standards

Hadi: WCAG 2.0 seems like a good standard. But to be successful we will need more developer outreach.

Bojhan: The list of standards in the proposed gate requirements (http://groups.drupal.org/node/133034) is a mix of general guidelines with very specific technical requirements. We should break that into 2 lists.

Dharmesh: Have we done any testing or evaluation to find what the worst pain points are of Drupal 7? Mike Gifford gave a brief summary of what we learned and fixed from Drupal 6. Dharmesh offered to help with testing. We all agreed it would be helpful to guide our energies.

Bojhan: Separating the standards list into 2 would be helpful. Having simple checklists for developers would help. With all the initiatives (5 or more) it will be a lot for gate contacts to keep track of.

The group discussed whether this becomes a "checklist" and the problems that could arise if developers feel that they are 100% accessible if they simply meet the checklist. Because of the nature of accessibility, it is possible to meet every item on a checklist and still not be functionally accessible.

Brandon: Rather than making 2 lists, I propose that our standard is just WCAG and ATAG 2.0 Level AA. We can remove all of the more detailed items because those are covered by WCAG and ATAG. We should move those technical details into a different document of Drupal-specific best practices or sample code.

Cliff: When we give a list, we should make it clear that a checklist is never 100% sufficient. The technical examples can live in their own place that can build over time.

Mike: In 2014, when Drupal 8 might come out, will ARIA be widely used? Should we include ARIA roles and ARIA use in our standards?

Bojhan: It is hard to predict the future but it is definitely something to consider.

Do we need both ATAG and WCAG?

Cliff: WCAG is for products that have been created. ATAG is for authoring tools that create content and create products. Drupal core contains both aspects. So we need both standards.

Hadi: I have a concern that having two standards is confusing. After discussion, the group suggested that we spell out both standards and explain briefly where we need to pay attention to each standard.

Bojhan: The usability of the accessibility improvements. "We're not just meeting the guidelines, buy going beyond that to be usable."

Gate Process

Brandon gave a background of the proposed process at http://groups.drupal.org/node/133034 .

Bojhan: If there are 5 initiatives, does that mean each initiative gets one primary contact person? Or do the contacts act as contacts for all 5 initiatives? In the usability group we are appointing 2 people to be contacts for each initiative. If one person is sick, there will still be another contact. There will always be someone informed enough to take over that role when needed.

Cliff: Often the initiative owners might come up with solutions that the accessibility gate contacts or the accessibility group did not come up with. Accessibility might be different than usability in that way.

Bojhan: "We are not necessarily providing solutions, but we are helping to identify problems." It all depends on the resources we can allocate as a team. Whenever we can provide solutions we will and resources to find solutions. The usability team is definitely different in that sense.

Brandon: Each initiative would have a contact and have feedback and advice from the accessibility group. For small patches that are not part of the 5 initiatives, the process used in the past will continue: issues should be tagged for accessibility (just like they are tagged for usability). And then those of us that watch the issue queue will have a chance to give feedback.

Bojhan: Initiative owners will want to know when they should ask for accessibility feedback? And what will that feedback look like?

Discussion of a "switcher" for Drupal 8 to allow users to switch to a high-contrast version of the page.

Personal Battle Plans

Dan: Interested in HTML5 initiative and helping implement accessibility into core themes.

Cliff: Most interested in documentation. The idea of a stylesheet switcher or theme switcher is also interesting. Wants to help get it working and understood.

John: Work with accessible content module developers and trying to get an API/codebase that could be shared between the modules. That could spin off into test bot improvements for automated tests of accessibility in Drupal core.

Mike: Improvement of image handling in Drupal 8.

Hadi: Interested in working with developers to integrate accessibility into the module design/redesign and implementation process.

Kathy: Authoring tools and interest about whether we can have an accessible WYSIWYG authoring tool in core. Brief discussion of whether WYSIWYG would ever be in core.

Brandon: Sorting out gate process.

Google Summer of Code

Mike G and John broke off to work on a proposal for Accessible Help module, Accessibility Content module API and automated test spin-offs.

John: I am interested in improvements and test bots. I am not always great at answering phone calls and returning emails.

Next Meeting

Discussion of whether we should structure regular monthly meetings, or twice a month. Should meetings be broken into smaller work groups or topics, like HTML5? Should it be IRC or Skype?