Accessibility improvements in Jamroom 7

I'd be very interested in making Jamroom 7 more accessible for all users.

I work at a university, and because we receive some public finding we are required by law since 2018 to not spend money or work time on anything using a browser which doesn't meet current accessibility regulations. In a nutshell that means WCAG 2.1 AA: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/?showtechniques=pageinfo&currentsidebar=%23col_customize&levels=aaa&technologies=flash
I know there are very similar Section 508 requirements in the US.

Forgetting law and regulations (I do try to), I believe that there is a really good business (and moral) case for making web apps usable by all people. W3C have been advocating for an accessible web since the start. The more people who can use a web platform the better, they will be able to interact/enjoy/feedback/pay/learn/buy things via the platform. Judging by the accessibility conferences I have been to (remotely) over the past 3 years big business is way ahead on this, universities are sadly way, way behind and are now only trying to catch up because they are legally compelled to.

Making Jamroom 7 a more accessible platform is my suggestion. I don't have the skills to make it fully compliant with the guidelines (e.g. I don't even have the patience to learn to use a screen reader properly), but I do have some knowledge in the area. And I'd be more than happy to help with making Jamroom more accessible if the Team have any interest in that.






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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)
updated by @ultrajam: 09/07/22 03:03:34PM

Working with you, yep, interest in that. How big a job is it do you reckon?

If its anything like trying to get all green checkmarks on those fake SEO site analyzer tools then slightly less interest.

I think it would be quite a big project, and not necessarily something which has to be done all in one go. Might be better to think of it as a journey towards accessibility.

Jamroom is already very well thought out, clear and easy to use so that's a great place to be starting from! The disadvantage is that its capable of such a wide range of things, and there are so many modules and skins. We could start by looking at the Core with Elastic and see where it's at after that?

There are analyzer tools and services, but automatic checks can only test less than half of the requirements, and most of those still need to be verified as accurate. I like the developer tools in the browsers, especially the way they link to further info, and there are a few plugins which are quite helpful too.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

I have a tracker set up which lists the issues I've noted at over the past 24 hours (some might not be well explained, and not enough links to further info yet).

If it's ok with you I can add you to the site tomorrow so you can see the type of issues I'm talking about. Happy to add any others in the Team too if that would be helpful. I've added some form designer fields to the tracker, but I'm sure you all know your way around it well enough for it to still make sense.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)
updated by @ultrajam: 06/02/22 01:12:34PM

Yeah add me. Thanks. michael at jamroom dot net,. Not sure exactly what it is we're doing but when you build something quite often its useful in unexpected ways.

There has been discussion about building one skin structure as a base for all the skins. If this can be incorporated into that then that would save a bunch of repetitive work. Maybe, dunno, follow your lead since you know the way.

Login sent, thanks Michael


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

This is a good summary to read: https://web.dev/how-to-review/


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

Can you turn the comments module on and the chat module on.

That's done.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

Second thoughts, it might be best to wait a few days before adding your comments to the tracker. I've started to give a few people access to that site, so over the weekend I will make another site and tracker to keep things simple.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)