AJAX, FireVox and JAWS (oh my?) and User Experience questions

[Allison Bloodworth]

Hi Tomo,

Thanks very much for your post! I'm excited about the discussions we  
had at the Kuali meeting last week about the ways user experience can  
affect different layers of the application stack, and look forward to  
continuing to work with the Kuali team to help incorporate user- 
centered design activities into the development process.

You had also mentioned AxsJAX in your original email, and I wanted to  
ask if you could provide a little more background on how you'd used  
it. I hadn't heard of it before, but found this recent introductory  
blog post: http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2007/11/ 
introducing-axsjax-access-enabling-ajax.html and this project page:  
http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/. I'd love to hear about how,  
as the project site's FAQ says, AxsJAX "helps inject accessibility  
features into" web "applications."

Thanks!
Allison

On Dec 5, 2007, at 9:13 AM, Colin Clark wrote:

> Hi Tom,
>
> Glad to hear from some Kuali folks on the Fluid list. Apologies for  
> the
> delay in responding, I've been a bit busy with the 0.1 release and
> conference planning.
>
> Tom O'Brien wrote:
>> One of the concerns from the Kuali folks is whether using AJAX is
>> going to present insurmountable or cumbersome accessibility
>> problems.  I've made a simple AJAX app and have tried both JAWS and
>> FireVox (even without adding in AxsJAX) and they seem to work fine
>> with the dynamic content (I'm also working through the Accessibility
>> Review Checklist at
>> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Comprehensive 
>> +Accessibility+Review+Protocol+for+PC).
>
> DHTML does present significant accessibility challenges, but  
> they're far
> from insurmountable and are something we're dedicating ourselves to
> helping solve.
>
> I've been working on a checklist for DHTML developers, emphasizing
> portal-friendly techniques and accessibility. It's due for a round of
> updates--Michelle, Eli, and I gave a talk yesterday about the topic  
> with
> lots of new sample code--but it should give you a starting point to
> think about DHTML/AJAX accessibility.
>
> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/DHTML+Developer+Checklist
>
> The Fluid framework will provide JavaScript supports for helping
> developers make their components more accessible, taking care of  
> things
> like focus management and keyboard handlers.
>
> I'm glad to hear you've also found the accessibility review protocols
> helpful.
>
>> One question is whether the Accessibility Review Protocol in its
>> current state is just necessary or is it sufficient to ensure that a
>> site is fully accessible?
>
> Combined with AChecker and an under-the-covers assessment of your
> markup, I think the Simple and Comprehensive Accessibility Review
> Protocols provide you with a pretty good toolkit for ensuring that a
> site is fully accessible. These are exactly the sort of techniques  
> we've
> been doing here at the ATRC over the past 10 years for website
> accessibility reviews.
>
>> In my conversations with Allison Bloodworth we talked about the User
>> Experience Walkthroughs which seem like a great way to assess the
>> usability of a site.  The instructions and examples
>> (http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/User+Experience 
>> +Walkthroughs)
>> look like useful tools for Kuali to apply to the development process
>> but I'm wondering whether Kuali should be incorporating User
>> Experience Use Cases at the modeling stage so that they can be
>> applied to the business logic or whether applying them to
>> implementation process as User Experience Review is sufficient?  I
>> guess I'm wondering aloud if the Subject Matter Expert approach is
>> adequate to capture user edge cases?
>
> I've always thought that usability and accessibility considerations
> should be baked in from the beginning. Modeling is all about capturing
> the needs of users in working code.
>
> As you point out, thinking about usability from the beginning often
> changes the nature of your model code. In my mind, UX isn't just a
> UI-layer consideration; it affects the whole application stack, from
> model and service layer on up.
>
> Definitely an interesting discussion, thanks for posting!
>
> Colin
>
> -- 
> Colin Clark
> Technical Lead, Fluid Project
> Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
> http://fluidproject.org
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://fluidproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-talk

Allison Bloodworth
Senior User Interaction Designer
Educational Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(415) 377-8243
abloodworth at berkeley.edu




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