Title: Accessibility in the Cloud

Boldy venture forth, ye brave explorers!

Jonas Klink (klink@google.com)

Accessibility Product Manager / Software Engineer

http://google.com/Accessibility

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Slide: Who am I?

PM/SWE, part of a Dev team dedicated to Access Engineering

With Google for the past 4 years

Education:

MS in Computer Science (Chalmers Uni. of Tech., Sweden)

PhD in Computer Science (University of Washington, Seattle)

Research on Education and Technology for the visually impaired

Project work includes:

Client-side: Toolbar, Desktop Search, Chrome

Web Apps: Gmail, Apps, Blogger, Maps, Transit, …

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Slide: Why? Users!

http://google.com/Accessibility

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Slide: The Web as a Platform

Platform layers are changing:

Low-level support framework (TTS, fonts, themes)

JavaScript APIs

Web Applications (GWS, Gmail, Docs)

Graceful Degradation vs. Progressive Enhancement

The Web has the distributed data

Universal Access Engineering makes it available through any channel

Personalization and user goals are key

Every level in the stack is customizable

APIs provides the muscle

User is less dependent on the applications

Designing for Access Workflows:

Focus on workflows, rather than UI components

Most common tasks need to be optimized

Tab/arrow navigation often too slow

Enumerating workflows often highlight common roadblocks

Workflows drill down to component-level access

Designing your product for optimized workflows:

Optimize workflows with keyboard and AT support 

Expose a public page-level API, addressable from JS

Provide a clean DOM, with non-obfuscated hooks

Document and empower the curious user! 

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Slide: Supporting the brave explorers

Exploration in the document model Web:

Web 1.0: Headings, links, frames to build cognitive model

AT optimized for quick access to key element types

Users have developed personalized techniques for exploration

Need support for exploration in Web 2.0:

Web 2.0 hs application mode and non-document structure 

Sighted users rely on visual cues learned from the desktop 

Answer: contextual, on-demand exploration aids?

Community can work together to build familiarity!

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Slide: Example: Google Reader Access

Extremely keyboard friendly:

Access keyboard shortcut through '?' or Reader Help Center

Navigate items with 'j' and 'k'

Keyboard bindings available for starring, sharing, commenting, etc

Delivers screen reader augmentation:

Follow link 'click here for ARIA enhanced Google Reader'

Screen reader support in ARIA-enabled browsers

Applies magnification lens for low-vision users:

Follows keyboard navigation

Provides customization through '-' and '='

Zero impact on latency!

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Slide: Conclusion

Collaboration and openness benefit everyone

Customization is key

Configure once, work everywhere

Focus on workflows, then widgets

Develop solutions with little or no latency impact

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Thank you!

Q & A

klink@google.com

http://google.com/Accessibility