Accessibility Advocate Proposal

I (Henry Bolshaw aka henryb) propose a new 'accessibility advocate' role for the 21.05 release team. I would also like to volunteer for this role and would encourage other people interested in accessibility to do the same - the more the merrier!

Role Purpose

• To raise awareness of web accessibility within the community
• To work with the community to make Koha more accessible
• To help further embed accessibility into the development workflow

Why is web accessibility important?

• It means Koha can be used effectively by everyone
• It improves the usability of Koha for all users
• It improves compliance with web standards
• For some libraries it's a legal requirement

For a further introduction to web accessibility, please see Julius Serrano's excellent Kohacon20 presentation, Web Accessibility for your Online Libraries.

Tasks

These are some of the tasks an accessibility advocate could do. However, the accessibility advocates shouldn't be solely responsible for spotting and fixing accessibility because accessibility is everybody's responsibility.

• Identifying and reporting accessibility bugs
• Testing bug fixes and enhancements from an accessibility perspective
• Using meetings, the mailing lists and newsletter to highlight accessibility progress and issues
• Further their knowledge of web accessibility and use this to develop the existing accessibility guidance and accessibility coding guidelines

Why would this role be useful?

• Everyone wants Koha to be accessible but they don't always know the most accessible way to do something (accessibility can be hard!)
• Accessibility issues aren't always obvious so it would be helpful to have more people looking for them
• Identifying accessibility issues early will make them easier to fix
• It would further demonstrate that the community values accessibility and wants to make Koha as accessible as possible