Nora Burmeister, Content Strategy Librarian Felicity Walston, UX Graduate Research Assistant Auditing Accessibility with Remote User Testing Roadmap Presentation resources and links available at go.unc.edu/accessaudit Project context Survey development and details Participant recruitment and support Analysis of results Mapping testing standards to VPATs Communicating our findings with vendors Vendor responses and feedback 2 Where We Started You’ll gain:  An understanding of our e-resource accessibility audit process Further familiarity with the standards, guidelines, and laws related to digital accessibility Strategies to assess and advocate for accessibility with your e-resource vendors When COVID-19 hit, many UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries employees needed remote tasks. The UX department saw an opportunity for these employees to perform remote accessibility testing of subscription e-resources with freely available digital accessibility evaluation tools.  NORA 3 Context & Definitions Americans with Disabilities Act: The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. Section 508: This section of the federal Rehabilitation Act requires federal agencies to use information and communication technology that is accessible to people with disabilities.  WCAG 2.0: As of January 2018, Section 508 uses WCAG 2.0 AA level accessibility as the standard to define accessibility in digital spaces. Digital Accessibility: Optimizing digital environments to be navigable and accessible to all users, regardless of ability level.  VPAT: Voluntary Product Accessibility Template. Vendors can complete these to assess their product on WCAG 2.0 standards. Recruitment COVID-19 restrictions on physical, in-person work meant many library staff needed work that could be done remotely. Recruited participants through UNC Libraries Work From Home project group, matching staff with time for remote work with remote projects. Total participants for this project: 20 project members (both staff and student employees) NORA 5 Supporting Participants Teams site Created a Microsoft Teams site to facilitate conversation, file sharing among project members Project description, survey links provided through shared Teams tab Training and support Developed a VoiceOver training video to show testers what to look for (readability, alt text on images, formatting of headings, and readable links) NORA + FELICITY 6 Survey Development Databases selected for evaluation based on total number of LibGuide mappings Standards selected based on ease of evaluation. Standards needed to be clear-cut and able to be evaluated without inspecting the resource code.  Surveys were developed and delivered through institutional Qualtrics subscription. Results were collected anonymously. Each survey evaluates 8 resources. Each resource is evaluated on 6 accessibility criteria. NORA 7 Survey Details NORA 8 For each resource, testers visited the homepage and a random content page Criteria tested: Keyboard navigation Focus indicator visibility Manual resizing Screen reader compatibility Color contrast PDF content availability Results were entered into a Qualtrics survey Free Assessment Tools NVDA screen reader - a free screen reader from NV Access WAVE accessibility checker - a browser extension that allows you to see accessibility errors on a page WCAG color contrast checker - a browser extension that allows you to check the color contrast on a page Snipping tool (or other screen capture tool) - a program that allows you to capture a portion of your screen as an image By The Numbers Total surveys completed: 582 Total number of general resources evaluated: 80 Total number of video resources evaluated: 33 Total length of project: ~1 year Metrics & Analysis FELICITY 11 Development Some recurring issues on every resource More critical issues appeared on fewer resources Creating Deliverables Turned accessibility audit results into one-page summaries of each resource Sample Snapshot Criteria Specific Issues Keyboard Navigation On a content page: one tester could not tab inside embedded PDF Manual Resizing [No issues] Focus Indicator [No issues] Screen Reader Compatibility -On a content page one tester (using NVDA) could not get it to read the embedded PDF; they tried on multiple pages -On a content page: another tester (using NVDA) could not get it to read the abstract Color Contrast: Lowest Ratio 2.19:1 for small text PDF Content Availability - 1/10 could not find a way to download a PDF of content - 1/9 could not highlight or copy and paste from the PDF Mapping Testing Standards to VPATs Keyboard navigation maps to 2.1.1 Keyboard Manual resizing of content maps to 1.4.4 Resize text Focus indicator maps to 2.4.7 Focus Visible Screen reader compatibility maps to 1.1.1 Non-text Content / 1.3.1 Info and Relationships / 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value Color contrast maps to 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) PDF content maps to 1.4.5 Images of Text NORA 13 Expanding our evaluations FELICITY 14 Implementing the same technique, but on video resources Sign language translation Criteria: Captions Transcript Audio description Communications with Vendors NORA + FELICITY 15 Composing emails to each vendor listing issues found with their resources and the matching WCAG standards Working with Resource Acquisitions & Management department to locate vendor contacts Tracking vendor responses in shared documents Snapshots of Positive Vendor Responses Wiley: "We welcome any additional input or priorities specific to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries which you would like us to consider. I have passed along your audit findings to our product team as this level of detail will be helpful to them as they work toward WCAG 2.1 compliancy. I would like to share where we are in this process." EBSCOhost: "I have a team working specifically on EBSCOhost accessibility for the next 2 weeks, and may be able to send this one along to them to fix quickly if I can get some specific details." Snapshots of Positive Vendor Responses Infobase: "First, about what date did the accessibility audits take place for Today’s Science?" "Second, we want to give you a concrete roadmap that addresses the issues you found." Social Explorer: "I wanted to reach out and confirm that we fixed all the issues that were part of your feedback (except map accessibility, which we agreed is a large task and will be done at a later date)." "Thank you again for your feedback, I really appreciate the fact that somebody is using and checking our accessibility - it makes all the effort we put in really worth it." Snapshots of Positive Vendor Responses Passport GMID: We saw prototypes of specific changes made starting Oct. 25:  - Increased screen reader compatibility (e.g. lists and top navigation menu) - More visible focus indicator - Increased functionality of tab navigation Snapshots of Less Positive Vendor Responses One vendor responded with a sales brochure. One vendor agreed that their product is not in WCAG compliance but offered no plan to address our accessibility concerns. Seven out of twenty-three vendors have not responded at all. This demonstrates vendors' lack of education or understanding about accessibility and WCAG compliance. We encourage libraries to communicate with vendors on topics of accessibility to continue to boost their awareness and concern. Communication With Our Librarians - We are developing a LibGuide to show librarians which resources work well with specific assistive technology tools. - Librarians can prioritize resources with minimal accessibility issues. Takeaways Evaluating electronic resources is a way to give remote workers productive tasks with relatively low start-up time. Qualtrics was a useful tool to standardize accessibility evaluation.  Some vendors are highly responsive to feedback regarding the accessibility of their products and will gladly meet to discuss issues and remediation in depth. We are pleased to see that many larger vendors have positions or working groups dedicated to improving the accessibility of their interfaces.  Other replies indicate that some vendors need further education on the importance and practical application of accessibility principles. Advocacy from subscribing institutions is instrumental to convincing vendors of the necessity of digital accessibility.  NORA + FELICITY 21 Thank you! Contact us:  Nora Burmeister nkburm@email.unc.edu @norakb Felicity Walston felicity@email.unc.edu Resources:  eResource Accessibility Testing Survey Template Accessibility Testing Tools Sample Vendor Contact Letter Presentation resources and links available at go.unc.edu/accessaudit image2.png image1.png image8.png image9.png image10.png image11.png image12.png image13.svg .MsftOfcThm_Accent1_Fill { fill:#007FAE; } .MsftOfcThm_Accent1_Stroke { stroke:#007FAE; } image14.png image21.png image4.png