Making Accessible Drupal Sites

Rick EllsUW Technology

About Drupal

• Standards Based; xhtml, css, PHP

• Large user community

• Many templates to choose from

• Many modules to choose from

Drupal Is Cool

• Centralized management– Templates and modules– Styles– Scripting

• Content creation, editing, and maintenance can be done without technical Web knowledge

• Changes in styles, layout can be done across the site without content maintainers involvement

…More Cool

• Information management– Categories– Taxonomies– Keywords

• Navigation structures generated for you

• Easy to add Web2.0 features

…Even More Cool

• Authentication, roles

• Workflow

• Customization based on default designs, templates, styles– Intercepts, overrides, and subthemes

Being Accessible

WCAG 2.0 Guidelines

• Perceivable

• Operable

• Understandable

• Robust

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

Accessible Design Efficiency

• Templates, stylesheets, modules can address many aspects of accessible design

• Content authors and editors do not have to know as much about…– Skip to content– Font sizing– Color choices– Labeling, Alt texts– Semantic markup– Page layout

Steps to Accessible Design

1. Install

2. Update

3. Select theme

4. Add modules

5. Build blocks

6. Apply your design

1. Install

• Installing Drupalhttp://www.washington.edu/computing/web/publishing/drupal.html

• SQL Databasehttp://www.washington.edu/computing/web/publishing/mysql.html

2. Update

• Updates are essential

• Each time the administrator logs in Drupal will display messages of needed updates

• Do them promptly

3. Select Theme

• Tables or tableless?– Tableless layouts best, especially if fluid

• Controllable with CSS• Reading order can be independent of layout position• Fluid sizing allows scaling by user as needed

– Table layout not so good• Imposes reading sequence• Presentation only somewhat controllable with CSS

– Nested tables bad• Navigation nightmare

• Many theme design philosophies

Managing Themes

Accessible Themes

Box_grey Theme

Blue Bars Theme

Blue Lake Theme

Celju Theme

Clean Theme

CWS Theme

Flexible 2 ThemeGenesis ThemePluralism ThemePixture Reloaded ThemeTendu ThemeZen Theme

The Eleven Most Accessible Drupal 6 Themeshttp://openconcept.ca/blog/mgifford/function_assessment_of_valid_drupal_6_themes

Theme Problems

• Non-nested use of h-elements– One h1 per page; main topic– h2; subtopics– h3; subsubtopics, etc.

• Inconsistencies among modules in how headings are done

• Deeply nested tables• Not specifying default language

4. Add Modules

• Hundreds of modules are available

• Offer a wide range of functionality– Editors, games, feeds, tools

• Most are standards compliant– Problem: Inconsistent implementations

among modules

• Frequently updated

Managing Modules

5. Build Blocks

• Blocks contain the code fragments for the different areas of your layout

• Blocks are placed in page regions• Must be well-formed and strictly compliant to

fit in context– Structured, semantic markup very desireable to

get CSS to work

• How you add things like “Skip to Content”

Semantic Markup

• Use elements according to their logical type– Make headings with h-elements, not big bold

paragraphs

• Properly nest h-elements– H1 is the main page topic, h2s are subtopics, h3s

are subsubtopics, etc.

• Choose a content editor that makes semantic markup possible, even if you have to go into html mode sometimes

6. Apply Your Design

• Use subtheme, intercept, and override methods– Never modify original templates, stylesheets,

• Customize templates• Customize CSS

– Layout adjustments– Color scheme– Font size– Contrast

Color Scheme

• Color Selection: Consider the colorblind

Color Scheme

• Contrast: 5:1 or more for text:background contrast

Maintaining Accessibility

• Do– Validate all modifications - strictly compliant– Choose editor that makes semantic HTML– Consider content flow in page structure– Add aids such as “Skip to Content”– Use semantic markup– Use scripting libraries and methods that support

accessibility

Maintaining Accessibility

• Don’t – Invent non-semantic elements (divs) when

appropriate semantic elements are available– Used fixed sizes– Reduce contrast for artistic effect– Put essential content exclusively in media– Have visual media without captioning

Drupal Accessibility Activity

• Accessibility Grouphttp://groups.drupal.org/accessibility

• The Eleven Most Accessible Drupal 6 Themeshttp://openconcept.ca/blog/mgifford/function_assessment_of_valid_drupal_6_themes

• Accessibility Best Practices in Drupal Theminghttp://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/accessibility-best-practices-drupal-theming

Evaluating Your Drupal Site

• WAVEhttp://wave.webaim.org/

• Functional Accessibility Evaluatorhttp://fae.cita.uiuc.edu/

• WebAnywherehttp://wa.cs.washington.edu

• Yellowpipe Lynx Viewerhttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1944

• Wickline Colorlab http://colorlab.wickline.org/colorblind/colorlab/

• Paciello Group Color Contrast Analyzerhttp://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-analyser.html