Talk:Accessibility

Organization of This Section

How is this section, ideally, to be organized? Currently it's functioning well as a way to toss around accessibility ideas, but I think it would be helpful to consider how these documents are going to end up being used. I'm of the opinion that the actual pages should contain less conversational style, and we should hash out our ideas on the Talk: pages, instead of in-line on the document itself. (Of course there are cases where this is appropriate, especially at these early stages.) Here are some of my ideas, and all of you are willing to take or leave them as you wish. Please comment on them -- commenting is happy.

• perhaps we could get our own mailing list going -- for communication purposes
• identify users with disabilities that are interested in helping Dreamwidth achieve accessibility
• after identifying a need or problem, make sure that there is an established way of dealing with it -- ensure BugZilla tickets are opened, etc.
• develop a strategy for deploying documents in this wiki that identify what the Dreamwidth community intends to do to become accessible to all
  • find editors for the documents, invite the Documentation team to review pages and suggest edits to conform with the rest of the site/community

When tackling Web Accessibility issues, it is important to recruit interested members of the disability community to rigorously test everything. I kind of envision that these documents will -- in some fashion -- serve as recruitment tools for the community, inviting users to get feedback on things that do/don't work for them. (This has been discussed elsewhere, but I think it could be written up in a way that recruits users long after the open beta concludes. Web Accessibility is something that is constantly in flux, so remaining open to input is very important.)

As is probably obvious, I'm willing to donate my time toward any tasks that help make the Dreamwidth community accessible to all, regardless of disability. Feel free to use this page to introduce yourself, if you feel comfortable, (and please don't feel like you have to have a disability to give an introduction or help out, either!) as I'm just about to do so myself! --Textish 03:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm Russell, and I have cerebral palsy. Although I am somewhat of a neophyte when it comes to proper Web Accessibility, I'm of the opinion that the Web should be usable by everyone, regardless of disability. I realize that there are certifications, standards, etc. that organizations often use to "achieve" Web Accessibility, but I think this project -- with its stated goals -- can go beyond established standards, if it's deemed necessary. If the site is inaccessible, affected users will simply go somewhere else, missing out on the opportunity to join and share ideas with the rest of this community. (I realize that this isn't a proper bio, but that's not really what I'm shooting for here. Feel free to structure yours differently, though. I just kind of envisioned it as a way to meet each other, and potentially discuss goals.) --Textish 03:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Russell, are you on the dw-discuss list, where they've announced the accessibility mailing list, for the accessibility team led by rickybuchanan? You should totally join that list -- I'm not sure how many people on it have accessibility needs but I think many of us do. Have you read the Dreamwidth Diversity Statement? I don't think you will have any problem finding people here who believe that we should go beyond minimal compliance. :) Jadelennox 03:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)