Knowbility's AccessU at CSUN
This unique conference-within-a-conference will be held February 27th and 28th in collaboration with the 27th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference.
Knowbility has been a worldwide leader in accessible information technology since 1998. They have worked with hundreds of businesses, educational institutes, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to train staff, implement effective accessibility strategies, and monitor long term goals to reach millions of new users.
This will be a rewarding opportunity to take advantage of Knowbility's AccessU program and the CSUN Conference in one location, by providing the most unique opportunity of education and networking.
AccessU will run two concurrent tracks tailored for different registrants' needs:
- Track #1 – Administrative
- Focuses on the business side and geared towards procurement officers, project managers, HR professionals and more.
- Track #2 – Technical
- Dedicated to materials and topics for technical staff, designers, and developers.
Attendees may move freely through the tracks on the day(s) they have registered for. Participants may register for the full two-day program at $595.00; one-day program at $425.00. Each attendee will receive a copy of the new book from Jeff Kline, Strategic IT Accessibility: Enabling the Organization.
Participants who want to attend the CSUN Conference and AccessU will receive a 50% discount off the prevailing Attendee CSUN Conference rate in place at time of registration. Discount does not apply to Speaker, Wednesday Only, Thursday Only, Friday Only, or Pre-Conference Only registration rates. Discount on CSUN Conference rate will appear as discounted AccessU rate.
Those wishing to register for just AccessU, choose the Pre-Conference Only option when registering.
Day 1 - Monday, February 27
9:00 AM
Accessibility Overview
- Location
- Madeleine AB
Plenary Session
Lainey Feingold will speak about the civil rights and legal aspects of accessibility. Shawn Henry will walk us through the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) resources, freely available to all.
Panel Discussion - "How We Use the Web"
A panel of people with disabilities will demonstrate assistive technology and speak about barriers often encountered in accessing the web.
12:00 PM
Lunch Break
1:30 PM
Developing Accessibility Policy and Procedures
- Track
- #1 - Administrative
- Instructor
- Sharron Rush
- Location
- Madeleine AB
- Summary
- Step by step in the process of building an accessibility policy and how to support it. The course provides policy development guides; how to build accessibility into RFP language; how to develop rubrics and resources to judge RFP response; how to address the lack of accessible resources in the marketplace; how to build accessibility improvements into contract language; how to provide layers of accessibility across the enterprise. Participants will leave with time lines and templates.
Build Accessible HTML Structures
- Track
- #2 – Technical
- Instructor
- Denis Boudreau
- Location
- Madeleine CD
- Summary
- When it comes to accessibility, standards matter. Participants will learn about web standards and how to apply them during the design process for maximum accessibility and interoperability. Valid HTML is the foundation of an accessible user experience on the web, whether the site is a simple set of web pages or a sophisticated, interactive web application. The course will cover text alternatives, table design, forms labels, reading order, and other foundational techniques.
3:30 PM
Building the Business Case in your Organization
- Track
- #1 - Administrative
- Instructor
- Shawn Henry
- Location
- Madeleine AB
- Summary
- For managers and practitioners whose organizations already do some web accessibility but could benefit from increasing their commitment to accessibility, and organizations that don't address web accessibility at all. Participants will learn about the social, technical, financial, and legal and policy factors in the business case for web accessibility; understand how accessibility supports social inclusion for people with disabilities and others; understand how accessibility overlaps with other best practices such as mobile web design, device independence, multi-modal interaction, usability, design for older users, and search engine optimization (SEO); and get statistics, case studies, and other resources supporting the business case. At the end of the session, participants will have a *first draft of their own customized web accessibility business case*. (Laptop encouraged.)
5:00 PM
Day 1 Concludes
Day 2 - Tuesday, February 28
8:30 AM
Creating Accessible Documents
- Track
- #1 – Administrative
- Instructor
- Sean Keegan
- Location
- Madeleine AB
- Summary
- The principles and practices for creating accessible documents in MS Office, including references to Open Office and the Google Docs platform. Focus will be on the authoring capabilities and the steps to integrating accessibility as part of the document creation process. We will also review conversion strategies to PDF and learn the introductory principles for that format. Bring your laptop for hands-on exercises.
Social Media and Accessibility
- Track
- #1 – Administrative
- Instructor
- Jennison Asuncion
- Location
- Madeleine CD
- Summary
- Whether your organization is a university, a school, a government agency or a business - users matter and we increasingly depend on social media to reach them. This course considers how to assure you are reaching and engaging your entire potential audience. The course will look at the popular social media tools used today, and describe what the barriers are and current solutions.
Building Accessible User Interfaces Using JavaScript and ARIA
- Track
- #2 - Technical
- Instructor
- Todd Kloots
- Location
- Del Mar AB
- Summary
ARIA is a W3C specification that can be used to dramatically improve the accessibility of custom widgets, especially for users of screen readers. This talk provides practical tips and design patterns for using ARIA to create accessible user interfaces that work across all of the various combinations of browsers and screen readers that support ARIA. Additionally, this talk will focus on the tools and methodologies developers need to test ARIA in order to ensure the best possible user experience. Through this class you will learn:
- Screen readers: what they are, how they work, and how to use them during development and in testing.
- Essential DOM APIs for providing keyboard access.
- How to think about and use the ARIA widget roles, states and properties.
- How ARIA can be used to improve the accessibility of mobile user interfaces.
Lastly, attendees should bring:
- Their laptop running MacOS or Windows
- Headphones
Designing for Accessibility
- Track
- #2 - Technical
- Instructor
- Molly Holzschlag
- Location
- Ford AB
- Summary
- Putting to rest the myth that accessibility must be dull, you will learn how to apply principles of CSS to support elegant design while creating a user interface that works for everyone.
10:30 AM
Testing for Accessibility
- Track
- #1 – Administrative
- Instructor
- Sharron Rush
- Location
- Madeleine AB
- Summary
- How to perform basic accessibility tests with free tools that can install in a browser.
12:00 PM
Lunch Break
1:30PM
Communicating the Vision of Accessibility throughout the Enterprise
- Track
- #1 - Administrative
- Instructors
- Anne Chadwick-Dias and Marguerite "Margy" Bergel
- Location
- Madeleine AB
- Summary
- How to bring various elements of company policy, procurement, and user experience into an action plan to help communicate policy and vision with web developers and managers. The long range plan for accessibility management.
Progressive Enhancement
- Track
- #2 - Technical
- Instructor
- Derek Featherstone
- Location
- Madeleine CD
- Summary
- Join Derek Featherstone as he helps you tie everything together to create truly accessible web sites and applications that work in the real world. In this session, we'll look at how the long-established principles of progressive enhancement help ensure a baseline level of functionality in your sites and applications and how you can make them shine to create truly useful experiences. Add to that a mix of modern technology such as CSS3, HTML5, ARIA, and JavaScript for bulletproof functionality on web sites that works for everyone, including people with disabilities.