I was overwhelmed by the amazing support that accessibility is receiving from the Drupal community, we really do rock! We had an excellent presentation at Drupalcon last week by Kate Lynch, and a couple of very productive BoF sessions. In the second session we started to put together some ideas for how we can move forward to ensure that Drupal 8 is a completely accessible CMS, including communicating an accessibility statement, and making sure as many Drupal modules and themes as possible are accessible.
I am hoping that we can use the momentum from Drupalcon to ensure that none of these great ideas are forgotten or delayed in implementation. I am proposing an accessibility conference call for May. The major goal of the call will be to touch base with each other and to begin some organization of individuals interested in working on the three major initiatives we have discussed as we brainstorm ideas together as a large group.
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Drupal needs an accessibility statement
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We need to provide a method to educate and encourage contributed theme and module developers to work on accessibility and to identify that their project meets a minimal set of accessibility requirements, #d7ax.
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We need a strategic roadmap / action plan to ensure that Drupal 8 Core is a completely accessible project out-of-box.
So, let's use the comment section here to discuss any agenda items related to the above three topics, and to sort out a meeting technology / time that will work for the majority of participants.
Comments
Skype works for me, but IRC
Skype works for me, but IRC is fine too. I believe one of things we should do too is coordinate the last few topics for Drupal 7.
Do we have a list of those topics?
Bojhan, what do you consider to be "the last few topics" for Drupal 7?
offer of an IRC server/channel
aloha, all!
i would like to offer the use of the Open Accessibility Workgroup's IRC server for any such meeting: irc://irc.a11y.org/ #drupal -- since the Linux Foundation, which hosts the Open Accessibility Workgroup, uses drupal itself, i can offer to make irc.a11y.org #drupal a permanent discussion channel for drupal accessibility work and discussion, if one is deemed to be necessary
IRC vs. Conference call
I am quite happy for our discussion to be over IRC as opposed to a conference call.
Pros of IRC
- Can accommodate more participants easily
- Is generally accessible to anyone interested in being involved.
- Promotion of the Drupal accessibility channel irc://irc.freenode.net/#drupal-accessibility
Cons of IRC
- Some people don't know how to use IRC
- Discussions can be a bit more difficult to moderate than a voice call
Accessibility Consultant & Web Developer - Zufelt.ca
@ezufelt on Twitter | LinkedIn profile
+1 for an IRC meeting. There
+1 for an IRC meeting.
There are some good resources already on d.o. on getting connected with IRC:
http://drupal.org/irc/setting-up
http://groups.drupal.org/node/19491#comment-67362
There are multiple places on the web to access IRC via a browser, which makes it fairly easy.
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
IRC web clients aren't very (if at all) accessible
regular IRC (or use of a client such as ChatZilla or Opera's built-in IRC client) would be the best ways for those who don't have (and don't want to install) a dedicated IRC client; note that i have yet to encounter a CGI-IRC web interface which was accessible (other than ReefChat, which was built using ARIA-live regions, but which seems no longer to be functioning) UNLESS one picks a dedicated user agent and uses one's adaptive technology to monitor discrete portions of the screen for dynamically updated text
So having done these kind of
So having done these kind of meetings fairly often, I do stress that especially with a small number of people - say 4 to 5 skype is extremely efficient as it allows people to verbally express themselves and more emotion in general. However anything above 4 to 5 people it becomes hard to keep track of all the discussion. So I would advise a skype call, but only if there are only a few people attending.
@oedipus Although we certainly appreciate the offer, all of our #drupal discussion happen on freenode - so it would be rather inconvenient to move to a different IRC server.
IRC usage
one place where IRC is quite useful is for generating and keeping minutes from the meeting, with the added benefit that hearing-impaired and english-as-a-fifth-language participants can follow the conversation (or supplement their understanding of the conversation) by following the IRC channel
i would, therefore, encourage the simultaneous usage of a conference call and the IRC channel, the IRC channel also being an efficient means to share URIs and other pointers which supplement or inform the teleconference
@bojan, i didn't know that there was a pre-existing IRC channel -- if you've been using freenode for drupal, than by all means continue -- is there an #a11y channel or #drupala11y channel already in existence for our use?
Yes, we have a Drupal Accessibility channel in IRC
It's irc://irc.freenode.net/#drupal-accessibility and we don't use it enough. Perhaps we can change all that.
I can volunteer use of my
I can volunteer use of my conference bridge @ work, if non-US people don't mind having to call a US number. (It's toll free in US and possibly Canada)
Is there a date/time for this yet? My schedule is getting more stacked by the minute.
--Susan
Alright, we have concluded I
Alright, we have concluded I think that IRC is the best option? As oedipus points out it also has other advantages.
Lets start picking a date!
I would prefer a time thats not in the middle of the night @ Europe.
Time Suggestion
How about 2pm Eastern Time on Tuesday May 4th.
2pm should allow for folks in both Europe & North America to attend in the daytime.
--
OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford | Drupal Security Guide
May 4 does not work for me
Our organization is putting on a major conference May 4–5, so I'll be doing guerrilla usability tests all day long.
The following week, the 10–12 is tied up with Access U.
But don't let me hold you back if this works for everyone else.
Pre-Call Preparation
@cliff we definitely need you to be involved in the process -- will you have time to contribute to a thread on everett's initial points-to-be-discussed / actions-which-need-to-be-taken before your time is spoken for in the immediate future?
i've been participating in W3C teleconferences for 15 or 16 years now, and know that, whilst teleconferences and face2face meetings are important and essential components of any process, the majority of the "real" work gets done via email and (increasingly) via wiki, so if we can get a critical mass for 2010-05-04 at 2 PM E.D.S.T. i vote to shoot for that date and time, with the understanding that agenda and issue gathering will be done in this thread
A stroke of luck!
It turns out my boss wants me to cover the office that afternoon. So I can take a late lunch to participate in this call.
@oedipus, were you suggesting earlier that we need a phone connection to include some folks who would find IRC accessible? If so, how would that work?
Also, I'm interested in learning more about your work with W3C. Please contact me offline when you have the chance.
Cliff
re: Time Selection for A11y conference call
@mgifford tuesdays at 2pm EDST is fine with me
here are my blackout times (note: all times are given in EDST):
I'm a bit peripheral to all
I'm a bit peripheral to all this, but want to be heavily involved, and yes Tues. May 4th at 2pm EST works for me (11am my time).
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
Works for me as well.
Works for me as well.
May 4 2pm
2pm Eastern Time on Tuesday May 4th works for me too.
www.pixotech.com
Count me in
I would love to participate & 2pm Eastern Time on Tuesday May 4th works
Works for me
May 4 at 2pm eastern on Skype or IRC works for me.
Accessibility Consultant & Web Developer - Zufelt.ca
@ezufelt on Twitter | LinkedIn profile
And for me
2PM EST on May 4 works for me as well, IRC or phone (no Skype, but I can dial in)
Might be a little late
12:00PM meeting got moved to 1:00PM today...should be back around 2:00PM but may be a little late.
Sorry guys, that was my first
Sorry guys, that was my first time using Skype, didn't know my mic was on and I also did not know this laptop I am using has a microphone built in. Hope the rest of the call goes well and I'll be eager to see how the usability and accessibility testing I am setting up her at SF State can help meet the goals you guys were discussing.
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
Ya, the Skype Addition was an unsuccessful experiment
Least for larger groups it didn't work very well. It can work exceptionally well for even 5 people. It's also useful to know when people are online and when you can reach out to someone if you've got an immediate pressing question.
It's certainly still useful, but not for big discussions like the one yesterday. i think we had nearly 20 people participating. Not sure how many we gained/lost because of the Skype experiment.
So next #a11y conference call is Tuesday June 1st at 2pm on IRC #drupal-accessibility
--
OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford | Drupal Security Guide
22 participants yesterday
My IRC client showed 22 participants involved in the discussion at one time or another in yesterday's meeting. No wonder Skype bogged down!
Personally, I am quite
Personally, I am quite relieved to hear that, as I'm much more comfortable with IRC than with Skype, as you noticed from my microphone issues.
I'll be talking with our a11y team today and am going to bring up something of the things you guys discussed, but hopefully in June we can talk some about usability and a11y testing? I know that at the BoF it was agreed more usability and a11y testing was needed, but then I haven't heard much more towards it. I think the team here is willing to do the testing if I can provide them with the proper framework. So far, I am working off of what Kate Lynch showed us and the previous usability studies as examples.
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
Link to event, please sign up
Just wanted to put a link in to the event mentioned above - http://groups.drupal.org/node/66498
--
OpenConcept | Twitter @mgifford | Drupal Security Guide
IRC logging live
Hello all,
Logging is now on, on #drupal-accessibility. The live logs can be found here:
http://log.therealcha0s.net/drupal-accessibility.log
For the moment, it's one big log; I'll be archiving about once a month to my own servers. We have the awesome cha0s aka Ruben to thank for making these logs live.