Edify Collaboration

Introduction

Edify is a company developing education technology which has been contracted by The NROC Project to develop and maintain EdReady - a learning management system. The design of EdReady was done by Blue Marble.

In 2015, a WebSavvy web accessibility audit was performed on the student and instructor portals on EdReady which identified a number of deficiencies related to WCAG 2.0 compliance. The IDRC, through the Floe Project, was asked by NROC in late 2015 to collaborate directly with Edify to build up capacity within Edify staff, and improve the accessibility and inclusiveness of the EdReady front end.

One particular issue identified during the meetings was the usage of modal dialogs. To address the design and accessibility concerns related to modal interactions, the Modal Dialogs guide was written for the Inclusive Learning Design Handbook.

Presentation and Training

A presentation was given to the EdReady team at Edify introducing them to concepts of Inclusive Design. Topics covered:

• Redefining "disability" as a mismatch between needs of an individual and their environment
• How to use inclusive tools and processes in design and development
• Thinking broadly for a broader benefit.
• Hands-on activities creating use case scenarios

The presentation can be downloaded here:

• Colour PDF
• Black on White PDF

Significant time was also spent on understanding the motivations of the WCAG 2.0 requirements and how it affects user experience.

Web Accessibility and Tools

To reinforce the understanding of WCAG 2.0, various accessibility tools and resources were used to analyze and fix accessibility issues on the Edify company website and on the EdReady front-end code.

Validators

• https://validator.w3.org/
• Wave.webaim.org (web app and Chrome Plugin)

Development Process

• Code practices and standards at Fluid Project - https://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Coding+and+Commit+Standards
• Laser Eye Checklist for Code Reviewers - https://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Laser+Eye+Checklist

Accessibility Guidelines for Web Content

• Portland Community College - Web accessibility Guidelines (PDF) - good simple guide
• Quick and Dirty Accessibility Testing with Solutions - https://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Quick-and-Dirty+Website+Accessibility+Tests+-+and+Fixes

Content Creation

• Creating scalable graphics
  • How to create and use Font Icons - http://docs.fluidproject.org/infusion/development/tutorial-iconFonts/HowToCreateAndUseFontIcons.html
• NoCoffee Vision Simulator - https://accessgarage.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/458/
  
• Color Contrast Analyzer - https://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrastanalyser/
  

Accessible Markup

• ARIA examples - Open Ajax Accessibility Project, http://oaa-accessibility.org/examples/