Additional TPAC accessibility (WCAG) improvements

[Bill Erickson]

The TPAC has seen many accessibility improvements over the last year, but there is still more to do. For compliance with local accessibility standards, the Natural Resources Canada Library (http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/library/167) performed an audit of their TPAC install, based on Evergreen 2.3, and found number of issues with the catalog.

Here is a copy of their report:

https://docs.google.com/a/esilibrary.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Anzq1UBUy_1MdHROMFB1VTVLQlJkYk91MnJGRFRFeUE#gid=0

They were using the WCAG 2.0 (AA) guidelines (http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag) for verification. Using a web compliance tool (http://www.totalvalidator.com/), I have been able to reproduce most of the same issues in the TPAC from Evergreen master.

My plan for this project is to work through each page of the catalog using the validator to implement suggested changes. These are primarily minor issues like missing alt tags, repeating (nondescript) link titles, etc. and some HTML validation issues (like extra divs, etc.). Items from the NRCAN report which the validator cannot catch will be discussed here and addressed individually.

[Beware the free version of the validation tool I'm using does not support cookies, so it's of limited value without a license.]

I've already started working on the simple stuff. Working branch to follow shortly.

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Code pushed:

http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/berick/lp1268636-tpac-wcag-improvements

The commits are not well-documented at this point, so when I reach a good stopping point, I'll rebase and add better docs.

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

I've rebased the code to master (same branch). I think it's at a good stopping point now to consider including the changes in the 2.6 release. Code review and testing appreciated.

Most of the changes center around repairing alt/title tags (adding some, removing some, making some more expressive), adding hidden header elements to provide page structure for screen readers, repairing/adding labels, minor HTML validation improvements, and a few other miscellaneous bits.

The code is spread out among 25 or so modestly documented commits. If there's interest, I can do some light squashing and improve the code commits before adding the pullrequest.

Note, the goal is for zero visual change, so when testing the UI, the only thing to look for is bustedness.

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Did another rebase with some light squashing in the same branch. Adding pullrequest tag.

[Dan Scott (denials)]

Hmm. Shouldn't the facet entry links themselves have alt text like "Limit to results matching this term" / "Show all results, not just those matching this term" (or something like that)?

This would be one of those "accessibility helps everyone" wins.

[Dan Scott (denials)]

On the whole, though, this is a massive amount of change, almost all of it flawless and in the right direction. The one flaw I found was an extraneous trailing "]" left over after a modification to the holds page; otherwise, I also found the four-image border for the Fines summary was effectively useless (just adding 4 requests to the render pipeline for no visible result).

Tested in Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, with accounts logged in and out, in narrow-width and full-width mode, searching, browsing, placing holds, working with user preferences, looking at fines, looking at the library info pages... thank heavens for the concerto data set.

So I pushed a signed-off branch with two extra commits (for the extraneous "]" and the four-image Fines border) to http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/dbs/test_wcag

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Thanks, Dan.

I've signed off on Dan's two additional commits, absorbed Dan's sign-offs, and pushed one more commit (for adding facet link titles) back to the tip of:

http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/berick/lp1268636-tpac-wcag-improvements

[Dan Scott (denials)]

Looks great, Bill. I added a commit for a release notes entry and pushed the whole shebang to master. THANK YOU!