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UW GAAD 2018

UW Global Accessibility Awareness Day

  • May 17, 2018
  • 10:00am – 3:00pm
  • Odegaard 220

UW Global Accessibility Awareness Day sessions are open to everyone in the UW Community. Feel free to come to one or attend them all! Descriptions of sessions are provided below.

Lunch and Learn

Bring your lunch to the following sessions over the noon hour!

  • Accessibility Tools Showcase at 12:00
  • Washington State Policy 188 at 12:30

Session schedule

Time Topic Presenter
10:00 – 10:25 What You Need to Know About Accessible PDFs Gaby de Jongh
10:30 – 10:55 Web Accessibility 101 Anna Marie Golden
11:00 – 11:25 Advanced Accessibility Pete Graff & Jeane Marty
11:30 – 11:55 Usability Meets Accessibility in UX Jason Civjan
12:00 – 12:25 Lunch and Learn (Bring your lunch!):
Accessibility Tools Showcase
Janelle Raven Apigo
12:30 – 12:55 Lunch and Learn (Bring your lunch!):
Washington Policy 188
Sheryl Burgstahler
1:00 – 1:55 Assistive Technology Demos Shawn Berg & K Wheeler
2:00 – 3:00 Try Assistive Technologies WATAP

Session descriptions

What You Need to Know About PDFs

Gaby de Jongh, IT Accessibility Specialist, UW-IT Accessible Technology Services

What is a tagged PDF? How does PDF/UA relate to WCAG 2.0, Level AA? Learn about resources for making PDFs accessible and tools for checking the success criteria for accessibility.
What You Need to Know About Accessible PDFs (PowerPoint)
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Web Accessibility 101

Anna Marie Golden, MHCID, IT Accessibility Specialist, UW-IT Accessible Technology Services

During this activity, Anna Marie will cover the basics of accessible web content creation including general guidelines, heading structure, images, lists, links, and color.
Web Accessibility 101 (PowerPoint)
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Advanced Accessibility

Pete Graff, Senior Developer and UX Designer, Office of CISO
Jeane Marty, Senior Front-end Software Engineer, UW Bothell Web Services

Effective navigation is a crucial element of any site, and it often presents nontrivial development challenges with regard to accessibility. In this workshop, we’ll explore building an ARIA-based navigation system, touching on landmark roles, labeling, and accessible hide/show controls. We’ll explain the basics of these techniques as well as dive into the code of a public-facing UW site which puts them into action.
Advanced Accessibility (PowerPoint)
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Usability Meets Accessibility in UX

Jason Civjan, User Experience Team Manager, Academic Experience Design and Delivery

When designing a User Experience, people tend to frame measures of success in terms of how useful & usable the end product is, while acknowledging that solutions additionally need to meet applicable accessibility standards. This way of thinking largely isolates accessibility as a technical problem of “how do I translate the information for Accessible Technology?” that can be superficially tacked onto the end of the process, rather than thinking of accessibility as another medium in which the holistic narrative of User Experience needs to be communicated. This talk will discuss usability vs. accessibility and the process that UW-IT’s Academic Experience Design & Delivery team uses to integrate these concepts throughout their process.
Usability Meets Accessibility in UX (PowerPoint)
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Accessibility Tools Showcase

Janelle Raven Apigo, Student Assistant, UW-IT Accessible Technology Services

Used during the preliminary stages of testing, accessibility tools can allow you to quickly identify technical issues on a webpage by checking elements against various accessibility standards. While these tools are not a replacement for manual testing, they can certainly aid in evaluating sites for basic accessibility. We will discuss the following tools and their applications: AInspector, WAVE Accessibility Checker, Web Developer Toolbar, and color contrast checkers.
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Washington Policy 188

Sheryl Burgstahler, Director, UW-IT Accessible Technology Services

Washington State’s Policy 188 on IT accessibility mandates that all technology developed, procured, and used in State agencies must be accessible to individuals with disabilities. In this session Sheryl will cover what that means for UW employees.
Washington Policy 188 (PowerPoint)
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Assistive Technology Demos

Shawn Berg, Master’s Candidate, Astronautics and Aeronautics
K Wheeler, Student Office Assistant, DO-IT

Shawn will demo the Job Access With Speech software, also known as "JAWS." K will demo a built-in iPhone accessibility feature called "Speak Screen." Shawn and K will show what the experience is like using their respective technologies to read websites. If there is time, they will also demo PDF documents.

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Try Assistive Technologies

Naomi Namekata, Assistive Technology Specialist, WATAP
Scott Canaan, Program Specialist, WATAP

Naomi and Scott are bringing various assistive technologies from the Washington Assistive Technology Act Program (WATAP) lending library for UW GAAD attendees to try out. WATAP provides ideas, education, tools, and advocacy related to the selection and use of assistive technology for people with disabilities to live, work, learn, and play. WATAP helps participants with device lending, device demonstration, financing assistive technologies, and obtaining used equipment.
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Disability Accommodation

To request disability accommodation, contact the Disability Services Office at 206.543.6450 (voice), 206.543.6452 (TTY), or dso@u.washington.edu, preferably at least 10 days in advance of the event.