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Making Conformance Work: Constructing Accessibility Standards Compliance

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Making Conformance Work: Constructing Accessibility Standards Compliance Making Conformance Work: Constructing Accessibility Standards Compliance by Alison Benjamin A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Information Faculty of Information University of Toronto © Alison Benjamin ii Making Conformance Work: Constructing accessibility standards compliance Alison Benjamin Master of Information Faculty of Information University of Toronto 2001 Abstract Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) constitute core accessibility resources for Web designers and developers. To explore their deployment, I conduct interviews with 10 practitioners who use WCAG and WAI- ARIA in their work. Using techniques derived from grounded theory and situational analysis, I develop the concept of conformance work. Conformance work refers to how designers and developers develop harmonized interpretations of WAI-ARIA and WCAG, and the Websites these specifications are meant to instruct. Conformance work is the upstream work designers and developers engage in to invest categories such as “standards compliance” and “Web accessibility” with meaning. iii Acknowledgments I wish to thank a number of the people who have generously helped me along in my studies. I consider myself very lucky to have had Dr. Steven Hockema as my supervisor. He has guided and encouraged my research over the last two years. I thank Dr. David Phillips, my second reader, for his help and guidance as well, and for pushing me to pursue how WAI-ARIA and WCAG came to be. I kindly thank Dr. David Ribes for giving me time and feedback as my third reader. I also thank the late Dr. Susan “Leigh” Star for agreeing to sit on my committee. Jutta Treviranus first interested me in pursuing research and practice that concerns itself with critical approaches to design. I thank her for the many opportunities I have had as a student, including the ability to connect with some of the WAI‟s technical custodians. I thank the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program and the Faculty of Information Alumni Association for financial support, and my partner, Lauren. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my participants, who generously shared their time, experience, and insights as to how the WAI inflects in their lives and work. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................1 1.1 Assumptions and key terms .................................................................................................2 2 Literature review .........................................................................................................................5 2.1 Disability, technology, and preoccupation with “standard” bodies .....................................6 2.2 Standards and guidelines....................................................................................................11 2.2.1 Standards ................................................................................................................12 2.2.2 Implementation and compliance ............................................................................14 2.2.3 Standards of and at work........................................................................................15 2.2.4 The standards development process.......................................................................16 2.2.5 Guidelines and best practices .................................................................................17 2.3 The Web Accessibility Initiative and its key texts.............................................................20 2.3.1 The rise of a standard body for accessibility .........................................................21 2.3.2 The WAI and its specification development process .............................................22 2.3.3 WCAG 1 and 2.......................................................................................................25 2.3.4 WAI-ARIA ............................................................................................................30 2.3.5 Extant representations of accessibility ...................................................................33 2.4 Conclusions of literature review ........................................................................................35 3 Procedures .................................................................................................................................36 3.1 Research question and overview of research procedures taken .........................................36 3.2 Delimitations and limitations .............................................................................................38 3.3 Methodology taken and implication for methods ..............................................................39 v 4 Results .......................................................................................................................................45 4.1 What is conformance work? ..............................................................................................45 4.2 Snapshot of participants .....................................................................................................46 4.3 The interpreted character of conformance work ................................................................47 4.4 Representations of WCAG and WAI-ARIA ......................................................................52 4.5 Articulating user/agents .....................................................................................................56 4.6 Enrolling tools ....................................................................................................................65 4.7 Putting it all together? The imperative to document ..........................................................69 5 Discussion .................................................................................................................................74 6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................79 References ......................................................................................................................................81 Appendices .....................................................................................................................................95 vi List of Figures Figure 1. Excerpt from WCAG 2 .................................................................................................. 25 Figure 2: Sample from Joe's manual WCAG 2 checklist ............................................................. 71 1 1 Introduction The World Wide Web Consortia‟s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) (W3C, 2009) responds to Web inaccessibility to many disabled1 people that has arisen coeval to the Web‟s evolution. It is both a remedial and proactive infrastructure, providing technical specifications such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (W3C, 2008) and the Accessible Rich Internet Applications suite (WAI-ARIA), a new standard for so-called “Web 2.0” applications (W3C, 2009b). These texts provide rules towards the aim of producing content that is interoperable with user agents such as assistive technologies2 (ATs) and authoring tools. Towards the goal of interoperability, the WAI also includes User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) (W3C, 2002) and Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) (W3C, 2000). According to the rhetoric of the WAI, when these texts are implemented by all the parties invoked by the WAI, Web content can be claimed to be robust and flexible enough to account for the range of ways that people experience the Web. As a part of my research, I conducted a study to explore how WAI-ARIA and WCAG affords for Web designers‟ and developers‟ practices. Inspired by grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), I asked how Web designers and developers from multiple sites put the WAI to 1 Disability is a contested space. In my study I assume some basic positions on disability. I use the language suggested by the social model of disability (Oliver, 1998) which reflects my understanding of “disability” as a group united by shared oppression (Linton, 2006). However, I also understand disability as a space for questioning (Titchkosky, 2003; 2007), for example, of norms of information technology. 2 WCAG 2 refers to an AT as “hardware and/or software that acts as a user agent, or along with a mainstream user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream agents” (W3C, 2008). Seelman (2005) notes there is no internationally recognized standard or definition for what an AT is, but suggests the term deserves critical attention. I suggest technology that is not inscribed as “assistive” might be probed for how it is that ability is produced. 2 use in their jobs. I interviewed 10 practitioners. My study was initially motivated by the fact that different
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