Sessions

10 quick tests to enhance your site's accessibility by Toufic Sbeiti

Description
I will present 10 tests that can be performed quickly to measure the accessibility of a web page. If you are a developer, you can fix before posting live. If you are a project manager or a client, you can ensure the level of accessibility without advanced coding knowledge.
Target audience
Interaction designers, project managers, visual designers, information architects, business analysts, developers, QA
Language
English and French

Accessibility of Web Forms by Rabab Gomaa

Description
Web forms are an easy way to access and collect information. However web forms can present a great obstacle for users with disabilities when not developed to be accessible. In this session, we will go through different considerations to make your web form accessible such as labeling, positioning and grouping form controls, validating user input, providing form instructions, and handling multi page forms. These considerations will be highlighted by screen reader demonstrations.
Target audience
Developers, Designers
Language
English and French

Accessibility: What does it all Mean? The Practical side! by Peter O'Connor

Description
A presentation demonstrating how people who use a screen reading program to read, navigate, and use any software on their computer. How information should be presented to all users in order to have the creators of this software message understood by as many users as possible.
Target audience
Developers, QA, Designers
Language
English

Adaptive technologies demo zone

Description
Come and meet a group of passionate, engaged, enthusiastic & experienced Accessibility, Job Accommodation & Adaptive Technology Subject Matter Experts who make up Shared Service Canada's Accessibility, Accommodation & Adaptive Computer Technology Program (AAACT). Over the last 24 years, this program has been blazing a trail in the field of accessibility, job accommodation and adaptive computer technology and has received international recognition for the services it provides to Federal Government Employees & the Government of Canada. Learn some of the technology used to help people with disabilities and talk to the experts at the Adaptive technologies demo zone!
Target audience
Everyone
Language
English and French

An image is worth a thousand words, but... by Toufic Sbeiti

Description
“An image is worth a thousand words”, but what about if your clients can't see the image? Worldwide, there are 39 millions that are blind and 246 millions have low vision. How can you post images on your website and still reach to everyone? In this session, I will show you how to make various type of images conform to WCAG. I will also share a variety of free tools to validate your images.
Target audience
Developers
Language
English and French

Content Delivery Network and GC Web Templates by Patrick Heroux

Description
Explore the CDN and the GC Web Template (.Net and Java) ESDC has created, which are now available to other departments. See how the CDN modernizes your web infrastructure, centralizes the management of web assets, reducing costs and ensuring sustainability with TBS mandated WET. Get a jump start of your web development and implementation of the CDN with the GC Web Templates. These projects leverage the CDN, provide standard GoC layouts, common logic and code samples in .Net and Java in an effort to reduce duplication and time spent building your applications.
Target audience
Developers
Language
English

Creating Accessible Content by Amanda McCrone

Description
Creating content that's accessible to all users isn't just a good idea - it's the right thing to do. This session will teach content creators basic points on accessibility to make sure that all users can find and use their content, regardless of how or where they access the web from.
Target audience
Writers
Language
English

Design in the Federal Government by Ryan Hum

Description

Growing demand for public sector innovation provides an opportunity to reimagine the way government, policies, programs and services are designed. User-centered design or "design thinking," which uses structured ethnographic research and visual tools, is one way to generate new ideas based on a better understanding of users and context.

This session will present some of the ways forward-thinking governments can use new techniques like user-centered design to improve their policies, programs & services and explore their potential advantages and pitfalls. It will also provide examples that illustrate these innovative techniques.

Target audience
Everyone
Language
English

Free tools to test your web pages by Brad Souster

Description
This session will demo free tools that can be used to validate web pages and identify accessibility issues. Join us in this session to learn how to use the WAVE, Web Developer, Juicy Studio and Jim Thatcher toolbars.
Target audience
Developers, QA, Designers
Language
English

Filter-by-institution on Canada.ca by Eileen White

Description
This session gives participants an opportunity to discuss and provide feedback on a proposed solution for filtering institution-specific content on Canada.ca.
Target audience
Communications, IT
Language
English

gh-pages on Github.com by Shawn Thompson

Description
Shawn Thompson will show you how use Github and a gh-pages branch to host an HTML websites. Very useful for prototyping web pages quickly.
Target audience
Developpers
Language
English

Health Canada builds mobile apps! by Kristina Aston, Sean Kibbee, and Jeremy Sivaneswaran

Description
For the last 3 years Health Canada has released mobile apps on multiple platforms in app stores for Amazon, Apple, Android and Windows. In this session, we will cover the creation of the Health Canada Mobile Team, current best practices for mobile app development process and we look to the future on where we think Mobile in the GC is headed. Additionally, we will speak about how we work within Government policy, strive to be open by default, design and develop within substantial bureaucratic constraints and ensure that our app development processes are sustainable.
Target audience
Everyone
Language
English

How to implement and maintain a QA process for web accessibility by Louis Galipeau

Description

A presentation to explain how the web team at IRCC developped a toolkit that allows

  1. web developpers and HTML coders to validate their pages quickly, and efficiently (WCAG2 and Government of Canada web standards)
  2. to manage the validation of the pages and apply any corrections necessary
Target audience
Developers, QA
Language
English and French

How to simplify tables and code mobile friendly tables by Pierre Dubois

Description
Discover a structured method simplifying tables by increasing your knowledge about under-exploited table elements in order to optimize them for mobile devices.
Target audience
Developers, QA
Language
English and French

Implementing and updating WET on your website by Brad Souster

Description
Plunge into the process and challenges of applying and updating to the latest version of WET. Find out how to choose the right template, define scope of the project, assess and manage risks, and execute a flawless template launch on medium-to-large sized websites. The presenter will discuss the process in the context of implementing and updating the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website to WETv4 from WETv3, the challenges faced when updating a large operational website and how to overcome them.
Target audience
Developers, Managers
Language
English

Improving your website based on accessibility foundation by Pierre Dubois

Description
See how WCAG is a baseline for any UX (Usability) activities and go beyond for your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Target audience
Developers, Designers
Language
English and French

Introduction to WAI-ARIA by Mike Buckthought

Description
What is WAI-ARIA, and how can we use this web technology to enhance the accessibility of web sites? Using the Web Accessibility Initiative's Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) standard, we can design web pages that work with assistive technologies. ARIA roles, attributes, and properties provide information to screen readers used by people with visual impairments.
Target audience
Designers, Developers
Language
English

Open Collaboration & Innovation by Mike Gifford

Description
Open standards, open source, open data, open government, open dialog are moving to becoming a reality with the open web. This represents a real shift toward transparency that allows citizens to become engaged and can empower civil servants.
Target audience
Developers, Designers
Language
English

Paws Forward! Understanding the Life of a Guide Dog by Daniel L. Gervais and Leo

Description
Have you ever seen these wonderful animals work around town and wondered how they do it? Join me beneath the harness as we discuss the life and training of a modern-day guide dog.
Target audience
Everyone
Language
English and French

Sublime Text 3 by Shawn Thompson

Description
Learn how to code front-end web pages using a sophisticated text editor like Sublime Text 3. Shawn Thompson will show you useful features and common keyboard shortcut he uses on a daily basis while working on Canada.ca.
Target audience
Developers
Language
English

Testing Web Site Accessibility with an iPhone by David MacDonald

Description
In this session we will learn how to fire up VoiceOver, the free screen reader that comes in the Accessibility settings of iOS. We will learn how to move through the page and how to target specific components and test them to ensure the can be Perceived, Operated, and Understood by a screen reader user on the iPhone, and pass WCAG conformance on this platform. The facilitator, David MacDonald is a veteran member of the WCAG Working Group of the W3C, and consulted to the Treasury Board on the Donna Jodhan Case which mandated WCAG across Government. (Bring your headphones)
Target audience
WCAG testers, developers, and users of assistive technology
Language
English

Testing for accessibility before development begins: wireframe and prototype reviews by Aidan Tierney

Description
Explore practical techniques to introduce accessibility early in the website or app design process. We'll look at how to review early artifacts such as wireframes, prototypes or mockups to identify potential accessibility issues and to document requirements for development and QA. This approach can be more efficient than the typical experience of building the app, testing for accessibility and only at that point identifying the detailed accessibility requirements in a list of issues and fixes.
Target audience
Interaction designers, project managers, visual designers, information architects, business analysts, developers, QA
Language
English

The Future of Web Applications by Marc Regimbal

Description
This session will delve into how web applications can take advantage of centrally deployed Web Content Management Systems. The vision of breaking down the common components found across all web applications allows applications to be easily built deployed while meeting all the web standards that the public expects from professionally built websites.
Target audience
Web publishers, Dvelopers, Managers
Language
English

Using analytics to make evidence-based decisions for your website by Patrick Burt

Description
Presenting real-life applications of analytics concepts to help you make better content, information architecture, development, and marketing decisions.
Target audience
Interaction designers, project managers, visual designers, information architects, business analysts, developers, QA
Language
English and French

What's new in WCAG for Mobile accessibility and more by David MacDonald

Description
The WCAG 2 is a complicated standard, whether in English or the French translation. In this talk we will give an overview of the WCAG Principles, Guidelines and Success Criteria. We will discuss the next steps for the WCAG, the Mobile Task Force, and what we are doing to help ensure that authors of mobile content can produce accessible mobile documents and applications. What are the important things to think about when creating accessible mobile content? David MacDonald is a veteran member of the WCAG Working Group of the W3C
Target audience
Developers, QA, Designers
Language
English

Web Accessibility, ATAG & Drupal 8 by Mike Gifford

Description
Drupal 8 was released in December and it provides by default accessibility that is head & shoulders above any other CMS. For the last 8 years we have been working on implementing defaults that are good for everyone. This is only possible if you think about the system that your website lives in.
Target audience
Developers
Language
English

Writing for the Web and Social Media by Amanda McCrone

Description
As we move further through Web Renewal, more and more communicators are being asked to write content that is clear, concise and user-focused – regardless of whether it's on a departmental website, Canada.ca or Twitter. This session will give participants practical tips on how to transform their web content into something that users will be able to easily find, scan and understand; as well as tips and best practices for developing content for Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Target audience
Writers
Language
English