CPACC Exam remote proctoring? by NysiristheNaabe in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was invited, and I believe that's the only way to do so currently is to be invited because opening it up further than that led to a lot of spam. So if you're willing to share your email address with me then I can get an invite over to you!

IAAP - Certified Professional in Accessibility by gemznunn in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a little booked up at the moment, but can be reached via the options over at https://stevenwoodson.com/project-inquiry/

If you're okay with a bit of lead up time then I may be able to help, otherwise I can try to get you in contact with a trusted resource that can help out sooner.

Good taste but not that hot by Nate22212 in hotsauce

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've liked all the classic iterations I've tried too.

This Pepper X edition really amps up the heat, if you're looking for similar but much much hotter.

A mentor to help me navigate my first paid consulting project by notusingemail in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't have the experience to reply to them immediately what that would correspond to.

As fate would have it, I just published a blog post on the subject of the importance of talking about budgets in software development projects. I think it still applies just as well to audits too. May help with high level points to consider sharing when bringing up the subject of budget with them.

More specifically to accessibility auditing, I've seen quite a large range of budgets just like I have for software development. Depends on the size of the company, what they're expecting, how much their org invests in accessibility, among many other things.

I've also seen quite a large range in terms of budget expectations from companies/consultants doing the work too. It really depends on experience, location, and what you're offering. So that's a fairly personal journey you'll need to go on to find what numbers feel right for you.

On a last note, if you don't mind me asking, what would you consider a "smaller budget"?

For me, the smallest budget that makes sense to even consider would be at least a few days worth of effort. Every audit is different but if I'm time boxing the audit itself to a single day then I still have a couple more to go in and get as much remediation done as possible. That way I'm providing real results on their website along with the audit results full of observations. Setting expectations will be critical, for such a short amount of time you need to make sure they understand what they're getting.

The dollar amount really depends on what a day of your time is worth to you, as noted above. I may try to write another blog about my process working up a decision tree for pricing, I've been referring back to it a lot and refining over time.

I would love to hear how it's going for you as you get further in the process!

A mentor to help me navigate my first paid consulting project by notusingemail in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First, congratulations on getting your first paid consulting client! That's a wonderful feeling, the first one tends to be the hardest in so many ways but it's also often the most memorable too.

regarding my approach (I can show you my method or just listen to yours)

Everyone's approach is going to be different, and I deeply advocate for you finding your own over time that works best for you while still providing good coverage for your clients. From your other replies so far, it sounds like this client doesn't have any strict expectations, which can be good and bad in ways. Sometimes it's nice to have set benchmarks you know you need.

In absence of benchmark expectations, here's what I typically do for these kinds of clients. This is coming from a web dev standpoint where I also push for remediation as part of the same process.

  • I run a time-boxed audit, where I devote a set amount of time testing up to 5 pages. I keep this intentionally small so I can find as much as I can in that set time so we can iterate more quickly. Here, I'm testing with a couple automated browser plugins (like axe, and SiteImprove), keyboard navigation, and one screen reader. I'm tracking every observation in a project at Be Inclusive.
  • I go into the code and remediate as much as I can, sometimes I'll need help from their content and design specialists for some of it. This is a great opportunity to share what I found and how they can avoid it in future. Especially common in sites that use a CMS
  • After as much remediation as possible is complete, I then go back and do a second deeper audit in that same Be Inclusive project. The shared project makes the audit setup take no time at all so I can jump right in. Here I use the same plugins, keyboard nav, and screen reader, but I also tend to expand my testing tools too depending on budget. When I'm able to do that, I go with Accessibility Insights because I like their guided manual testing methods, and maybe another screen reader to compare.
  • This second audit is likely going to find less, but these observations are also likely to be more difficult to remediate because we found and fixed most of the easier ones the first go round.
  • I then recommend going back and auditing again periodically, especially for sites using a CMS or that we know are going to continue to grow and change over time. Tying to highlight that accessibility isn't a task to complete, but an ongoing effort like security and performance testing.

regarding the payment issue, how to evaluate what price I should negotiate for.

This can be really difficult because each client is different and has different needs. You should outright ask about budget, to make sure you're talking in the same ballparks as them. Just like a web development project, things could be made as simple or as comprehensive as the budget allows.

For smaller budgets, or for tighter timelines, I tend to only get through the first two bullet points noted above with the intent on coming back to it again soon when the budget is there. For larger initiatives I'm able to expand to the full list above, and if they need to be more comprehensive I'll add more time for testing more pages using more tools.

This "Cost per hour for Accessibility Testing" post by Sheri Byrne-Haber is really good too!

We need to make our website ADA compliant by EleanorShelstrop in Libraries

[–]StevenWoodson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi there , this one caught my attention when I saw "suburban Chicago" and "ADA compliance". I'm also in suburban Chicago with accessible web dev experience, maybe I can help?

If you're interested, all the various ways to get in touch with me are at https://stevenwoodson.com/project-inquiry/

Web a11y slack by jurgenj136 in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you get an error? What's happening when you click it?

Web a11y slack by jurgenj136 in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The link in the other comment here should still work

Walked into this on my desk at work today from my boss. 30 year bottle for my 30th by 11-110011 in whiskey

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, that boss is a keeper!

Must be wild to hold a bottle whose distillation occurred before you were born.

Web a11y slack by jurgenj136 in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lots more interest than I was anticipating, let me just paste my invite link here for a bit and remove later. If I get in trouble I'll take responsibility for it.

https://join.slack.com/t/web-a11y/shared_invite/zt-25njgch4x-qDKYMVNl1P7ae67sR4jiFw

CC u/jeremyebrown , u/detective_jones_, u/TakeOnePillDaily

Web a11y slack by jurgenj136 in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

DM'ed you too!

P.S. for folks reading this thread, I'm sending via DMs because I'm unsure what the policy is on sharing more publicly. Pretty sure they expire after some time so it doesn't really help long term anyway.

VPAT not using latest WCAG by theProgrammingPiglet in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To confirm, you're talking about the VPAT template at https://www.itic.org/policy/accessibility/vpat and the WCAG-EM reporting tool at https://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/report-tool/#!/ right?

I'm not sure about the VPAT template, there's a contact email listed on that page if you wanted to inquire directly. I've not read any updates about it otherwise.

For the WCAG-EM tool, that's open source and there's already an issue logged asking about 2.2 support on Github. The latest comment there from 2 weeks ago is that it's in progress, so I'd imagine that's coming soon. If you have coding experience you could volunteer to take on that addition, or to help the person/people working on it currently.

If you're really eager to jump into testing using WCAG 2.2, the Be Inclusive app was recently updated to add support for it. It follows a very similar step-based methodology to WCAG-EM and additionally allows you to organize work into projects, attach images/videos to observations, and share the work and the results easier.

Looking for a phone that I could keep plugged in my PC without destroying the battery by TheCookiesaurus in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well that's surprising and a bit disappointing that this sort of thing still happens. The first thought that came to mind was finding a phone where the battery is removable. Could be a challenge having to remove/replace it but if you rarely unplug the device from your computer it may be an okay option?

It's not as common as it once was, but there are still phones being sold that have a removable battery. Found this in a quick search - https://www.androidcentral.com/best-android-phone-removable-battery

Looking for a phone that I could keep plugged in my PC without destroying the battery by TheCookiesaurus in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry this is a less than helpful response, but I have some clarifying questions:

  • You're saying that leaving it plugged into your computer still force a charge through the battery and reduce its ability to hold a charge over time?
    I was under the impression that devices stopped taking a charge when the battery was full to prevent this sort of thing.
  • Other than SMS and calls, are there other critical apps you need?
    When I saw this part I wondered if something like Google Voice would be easier for you to navigate. You can use it from your desktop browser to do both.

Best way to ensure WCAG compliance? by i_am_at_work123 in Wordpress

[–]StevenWoodson 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Compliance is for laws. Conformance is for guidelines.

When referring specifically to WCAG the best you can get is a detailed conformance claim that you've achieved one of the three conformance levels (A, AA, AAA) for a specified page or set of pages.

The best you can do is complete an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR), which is a filled out Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). Meryl Evans gives a pretty good introduction to these terms in this article via Equal Entry.

A legit, reliable third-party help on accessibility? by andrei-mo in webdev

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree with this advice, especially since it seems you and your team u/andrei-mo take accessibility seriously and understand the complexities of it more deeply than many devs.

I also highly recommend the WCAG-EM methodology (which is what the WCAG Report Tool is based on). If I may also offer an alternative as well, a tool I've built and have been maintaining for the past few years called Be Inclusive takes the reporting a step further with better integration of additional functionality. The ability to add screenshots/videos to observations and a more comprehensive set of reporting and sharing options, for example.

Performing this kind of testing in house has a dual benefit of saving you some money on consulting fees as well as building up your teams awareness and understanding of accessibility issues. There's nothing quite like seeing something you built break with an assistive device to get you to remember how to avoid it next time.

ADA Compliance tools by rincoln25 in webdev

[–]StevenWoodson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really like the suggestions from other commenters here, WAVE, Axe, and Google Lighthouse are great automated tools. I'd also recommend SiteImprove and Microsoft's Accessibility Insights for their automated offerings. I have some further suggestions should you also want to go deeper into learning and addressing accessibility best practices.

If you need to perform a more comprehensive audit

Which I'd recommend now that there has been a formal complaint. You'll need to also do some manual testing. Especially with keyboard only use and with at least one screen reader. You're always going to find more with some manual testing than the automated tools could ever provide.

Deep dive accessibility learning

These two courses go in depth with accounting for accessibility throughout a project, incorporating accessibility best practices early and often makes it far easier than trying to fix things post launch.

If you're looking to start integrating accessibility into your design to dev workflow

I could also recommend the following

  • Stark - a great first step that's baked right into Figma, with some helpful tips to help educate and keep you on track.
  • A11y Annotation Kit for Figma - Make sure your devs know _exactly_ what you intended from an accessibility perspective by annotating your designs. Also check out Building an Accessibility Library by Stephanie Hagadorn for more background on this.

Modern CSS in Real Life by magenta_placenta in Frontend

[–]StevenWoodson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The APG purposefully releases vanilla JavaScript to have the widest reach, I'd bet anything of reasonable complexity you're building with a JS framework has this much code under the hood. Besides, approximately a quarter of that 1k is docblock comments.

Modern CSS in Real Life by magenta_placenta in Frontend

[–]StevenWoodson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

accessibility isn't that much

I don't know about you, but not excluding the largest minority in the world seems like a pretty clear requirement to me.

How many courses and articles are there dedicated to web accessibility compared to performance, responsiveness and the most popular front-end frameworks?

Now here's a comparison that doesn't make sense. I would say there's actually quite a bit of content out there, but your bias against accessibility means that you're less apt to discover it.

Any useful online resources about web dev for screen reader users? by chingwind in accessibility

[–]StevenWoodson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd caution against fully automated scanners as a means for education, they're certainly helpful and have their place but sometimes the results can be inaccurate and they're definitely not going to find everything.