General Sessions for Tuesday, March 15, 2022

10:20 AM

A Guide to Accessibility Maturity

Learn about the accessibility maturity cycle and how it applies to your organization. Identify where you currently stand in your progress towards maturity and how each level is defined relating to accessibility. Discover why it's beneficial and specific measures to reach and remain at the most mature level.

Presenter: Mark Miller, TPGi

Accessible and Inclusive E-Learning

A demonstration and discussion of NextGen online Learning Management Systems. Learn how a neuropsychological design expert delivers e-learning that is accessible and inclusive, enhances cognition, reduces stress, and motivates users, with a more meaningful learning experience.

Presenter: David Fazio, Helix Opportunity LLC

Creating Accessible XR Technologies: Rehabilitation for TBI

This paper will explore possibilities for eXtended Reality (XR) in recovery from TBI, and establish general guidelines for creating XR systems for individuals with TBI.

Presenter: Jesse Flint, Design Interactive, Inc.

Effective Strategies for AAC Using a Team-Based Approach

This study demonstrates how interdisciplinary teams, using inclusive approaches, can empower all individuals to access an AAC device for communication regardless of their disability level.

Presenter: Christopher Trujillo, Midwestern University

Mobile App Development Accessibility Guidelines

Our presentation shares guidelines that mobile apps can follow to make their apps accessible and how accessibility can be incorporated into the software development lifecycle. We will focus on how we use these principles to develop and deploy the Yahoo Mail application.

Presenters: Mohit Goenka, Yahoo
Nikita Varma, Yahoo

Supporting Assistive Technology Users in the Enterprise

Two seasoned AT Specialists with over 50 years of collective experience working with the public and private sectors will discuss the many facets of supporting AT users in the enterprise and essential systems and skills that need to be in place to support AT users properly.

Presenters: Harris Rosensweig, iYellow Access
Jeff Ermold, iYellow Access
Jessica Aiello, iYellow Group

Technology Enabled Supports for Independent Living

This case study presentation showcases how LADD, an agency in Cincinnati that provides services to adults with disabilities, is using technology-enabled supports, wearable technology, and clusters of community housing to find solutions for the two largest barriers to receiving support: not enough funding and the national staffing crisis.

Presenter: Brian Hart, Ladd, Inc

Effective Communication of Branding to Screen Reader Users

Although billions are spent on marketing by large companies each year, an accessible branding experience is often overlooked when a company’s goal is WCAG compliance. This session will compare visual branding to the current comparable screen reader experience and present options for how this could change in the future.

Presenter: Ben Tillyer, TGPi

Why Accessibility Needs to be Part of Your Print and Digital

Digitally produced documents in volume are particularly challenging to make accessible. New evolving technologies such as AI are changing the game.

Presenters: David Herr, CommonLook
Jonathan Malone-McGrew, Solimar Systems

11:20 AM

Educational Technology: Classroom and Virtual Learning

Educational technology is no longer an option for our school systems. They are a requirement to ensure an equal opportunity for education. This presentation aims to provide the latest technology specifically for the SPED population, many of which are learning virtually because of COVID.

Presenter: Stephanie Robinson

Embedding Text Alternatives in Images Using Photo Metadata

Update on IPTC's new Alt Text and Extended Description properties added to the IPTC photo metadata standard in Autumn 2021. This session will explore how image providers and licensors can use embedded metadata in image files to scale human-generated descriptions, manage existing digital backlogs, and deliver born-accessible images.

Presenter: Caroline Desrosiers, Scribely

IBM's Playbook and Tools for Accessible Project Development

Seamlessly coordinating accessibility activities across your team's product development workflow takes lots of work, and we want to make it easier. Attend this session to learn about IBM's vetted playbook and updated tools for infusing accessibility at each stage of development, in a way that is repeatable at enterprise scale.

Presenter: Will Scott, IBM

Industry Outreach: Demystifying Section 508 Accessibility

To address Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the US Federal Government relies on Industry to provide accessible ICT. This win-win situation is achieved when the Industry develops ICT with accessibility in mind. The goal is to stimulate an accessible ecosystem of ICT that benefits both Industry and Government.

Presenters: Betsy Sirk, NASA
Antonio Haileselassie, NASA

Loneliness in the Aging Population with Visual Disabilities

This study offers an in-depth understanding of the emotional intelligence capabilities of older adults with visual disabilities at risk of experiencing loneliness.

Presenter: Hyung Nam Kim

The Next Generation of Assistive Technology User Testing

We discuss how Vispero brands Freedom Scientific and TPGi collaborated to empower JAWS Screen Reader users to have voice in surfacing the issues they face navigating websites.

Presenters: Mark Miller, TPGi
Matt Ater, Vispero
David O'neill, TPGi

The Use of Browser Extensions as AT: Are We There Yet?

The presentation will expose the best extensions for post-secondary students with and without disabilities, discuss who can most benefit, and whether the extensions are an alternative to other more expensive and often more comprehensive assistive technologies.

Presenters: Rosie Arcuri, Adaptech Research Network
Catherine Fichten, Adaptech Research Network

1:20 PM

A.I. Enabled Notetaking and Curation to Scale Accessibility

Thousands of hours of long form lecture videos are being recorded every day and the lack of accessibility of these videos are leaving those with disabilities behind. Artificial Intelligence provides a means to make this content accessible through automating video editing and content curation.

Presenter: Monal Parmar, Educational Vision Technologies

Accessible 360º Immersive Video Storytelling

360º video needs to be accessible. The main goal of the EU2020 project MediaVerse is to create a prototype to understand how to produce, interact and consume media content in immersive HMD. This presentation will summarise the findings from making a three-minute immersive video narrative fully accessible.

Presenter: Andrew Duchowski, Clemson University

Accessible PDF/HTML Tables: Here's What You Need to Know

The use of tables has become increasingly prevalent. This session will focus on the issues that document accessibility specialists face when making tabular content accessible. Tagging simple tables is pretty straightforward. Challenges arise when dealing with tables containing merged columns, nested tables, or even paragraphs and lists.

Presenters: Aimée Ubbink, Crawford Technologies
Mackenzie Banks, Crawford Technologies

Bridging the Accessibility Gaps from MS Word to PDF

This session reviews common limitations and shortcomings of exporting accessible documents from Microsoft Word and how to easily overcome them using good MS Word document hygiene and several remediation techniques in Adobe Acrobat.

Presenter: Chad Chelius, AbleDocs

Dinosaur Accessibility: How to Unearth Legacy Code Problems

Join Nerdery's amateur paleontologist on this journey through digital time. We'll dig through layers of code to examine some of the most common issues we encounter with legacy code, including navigation menus and custom-built checkboxes and radio buttons, and discuss how we build them back up to be accessible.

Presenters: Laura Shields, Nerdery
Russell Ahrens, Nerdery
Dan Holbrook, Nerdery

Improve Website Accessibility & Readability with ReachDeck

Inclusive and accessible digital experiences are more important now than ever. Sixty-one million adults in the US live with a disability and the average American reads to a 7th/8th-grade level. Find out how you can ensure your website, content, and social media are easily accessed and understood by all.

Presenter: James Deignan, Texthelp

Nothing About Us Without Us: Power & Diversity of Disability

In the heartland of Oklahoma, READable, an accessibility team employs people representing five distinct disability categories improving the accessibility of digital communications. What challenges and victories have we experienced? How can your organization harness the power of including a diverse population of people with disabilities?

Presenters: Amir Ghahremani, READable
David Herr, CommonLook
Karey Jo Wise, NewView Oklahoma

Opportunistic User Research with People with Disabilities

Involving people with disabilities in design decision making brings value yet is often seen as effort that's difficult to budget and schedule. Learn creative approaches to gathering input from people with disabilities, using diverse tools and techniques to help advance your accessibility efforts beyond compliance to accessible user experience.

Presenter: David Sloan, TPGi

Preliminary Research on AI-Generated Caption Accuracy Rates

Our study presents an AI-generated caption accuracy analysis with educational videos by platforms (Kaltura, Microsoft, Google, and Panopto) and variables (gender, rate, accent, and content).

Presenter: Jinhee Choo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Texthelp Tools to Make Content "Smore" Accessible

Over the last couple years, learning has changed for everyone. Digital documents became the norm. This session will focus on Texthelp's accessibility tools, Read & Write and EquatIO, as well as introduce you to our brand new PDF tool called OrbitDoc.

Presenters: Louis Shanafelt, Texthelp
Greg Crisolo, Texthelp

2:20 PM

Accessibility Overview of Common Component Libraries

An informal case study reviewing how well a handful of the most popular Angular Material and React Native components conform to accessibility guidelines and best practices when used to create web content and how these libraries can be improved to provide a more accessible and usable experience.

Presenter: Joe Humbert

AI-Based Recommendation and Assessment of AT for Cognitive Disabilities

This paper describes a modern approach enabling people with a cognitive disability to discover suitable AT for their specific needs via a web-based recommender system.

Presenter: Klaus Miesenberger, Integriert Studieren - JKU Linz

Best Practices for Enterprise Document Accessibility

Accessibility is a requirement, and it is here to stay. Document accessibility can be challenging. How do you create a culture of inclusion? What tools, culture, or training is required? We will discuss best practices and strategies that can be implemented to support enterprise document accessibility.

Presenter: Dennis Quon, Crawford Technologies

Developing & Implementing a Native Mobile Testing Strategy

This presentation outlines the journey undertaken by the mobile group at UnitedHealth Group in developing accessibility testing standards specific to native mobile applications. Learn about the process we developed for creating documentation and guidance around accessibility testing for native mobile, and the challenges we encountered along the way.

Presenters: Karen Herr, Optum
Michael Keane, Optum
Ryan Strunk, Optum

From Disability to Superpower With Clusiv.io

Clusiv has gone from being ignored in Silicon Valley to being accepted into the nation's top accelerator. Hear the story about early struggles with dyslexia, to being wounded as a paratrooper to founding the first venture-backed assistive technology company changing the conversation around digital access for all.

Presenter: Lukas Simianer, Clusiv, Inc.

Kiosks Are All About the User

This discussion will focus on best practices for designing an accessible kiosk user experience. Gain insight to what makes a usable and accessible kiosk from application workflow to input device, and more.

Presenter: Laura Miller, Vispero

Onsite Work or Work at Home? Hybrid Workforce Accommodations

This presentation will feature scenarios in which an interactive process was used to successfully identity and implement reasonable accommodations for employees and job seekers with disabilities in remote, onsite, and hybrid settings, as well as resources for identifying and providing effective accommodations.

Presenter: Teresa Goddard, Job Accommodation Network (JAN)

Taking A11y from Passion to Policy as a Small Business CEO

This talk will cover specifics behind how one small tech company is overcoming common barriers that keep businesses stuck and share advice and resources for how you can do the same.

Presenter: Ben Congleton, Olark Live Chat

Using Voice Applications to Improve the User Experience

The field of voice assistants is growing as more people adopt voice-navigable technology and integrate it into their lifestyle. Learn how this accessible medium is changing the way we engage with technology and experience one of APH's newest innovations for providing an accessible and conversational website browsing experience.

Presenters: Tyler Maddox, American Printing House for the Blind
Greg Stilson, American Printing House for the Blind

3:20 PM

Adopting a Hybrid Approach for Web and PDF Accessibility

Tackling web and document accessibility require continuous effort, but what's the best approach for success? In this session, we'll look at how a hybrid approach of incorporating both automation and human verification can provide a more realistic and successful path to improving the digital inclusivity of your website content.

Presenters: David Herr, CommonLook
Jacob Riff, Monsido US

An Inclusive Framework for Indoor Mobility in Low Resource Settings

We propose an inclusive solution to create accessibility information over indoor maps and deliver them to people with visual impairments over smartphones to support navigation.

Presenter: Volker Sorge

Authoring Stylish and Accessible Canvas Courses

Discover how a team of accessibility consultants, multimedia specialists, and instructional designers from Penn State World Campus created an interactive resource with accessible and responsive code snippets to enhance the visual design of online courses in Canvas. Participants will gain access to the resource and learn how to use it.

Presenters: Sonya Woods, Penn State University
Matt Farley, Penn State University

Automation vs. Manual Tagging: Some Factors to Consider

This session will provide an overview of the differences between automation and manual remediation. We'll discuss the various factors that can help you to determine which process would be most appropriate for your content. Some documents lend themselves to automation, while others are better suited to the manual remediation process.

Presenter: Mackenzie Banks, Crawford Technologies

Becoming Independent: How AT Gave Me Freedom

Join me to learn how AT gave me the freedom to be my true self. Listen to my struggles and successes with AT and how AT helped me regain my independence from an abusive situation. Then join me for a brainstorming session for your AT support needs!

Presenter: Stephanie Fassov

Equitable AI in the Workplace

Innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly reshaping the workplace, from automated hiring systems to assistive technology. This session will explore AI's potential to both help and hinder employment success for people with disabilities, with an emphasis on promising practices for responsible and inclusive implementation of AI-enabled workplace technologies.

Presenters: Corinne Weible, Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT)
Phill Jenkins, IBM
Bill Curtis-Davidson, Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT)

Making Graphics and Charts Accessible: Case of MATLAB Online

Charts contain various context-setting, stylistic, and graphics elements that lack uniform structure, presenting a unique set of accessibility challenges. We discuss improving keyboard and screen reader accessibility in charts by taking the example of MATLAB Online, a complex single-page web application where graphics are rendered within an HTML canvas element.

Presenters: Abhinav Srinivasan, The MathWorks, Inc.
Bora Eryilmaz, The MathWorks, Inc.

PDF/UA-2 - Everything You Need to Know

The ISO is expected to release PDF/UA-2 in January of 2022. This presentation will discuss the upcoming changes to the accessibility standard and how to prepare for it.

Presenter: Paul Rayius, CommonLook

So, You Want an Accessibility Score?

So, you want an accessibility score? Unless it accurately reflects how a system performs for people with disabilities, no grade will be of any real value for anything other than vanity metrics.

Presenter: Karl Groves, Tenon

Truly Empowering Independence, an Introduction to Low Vision

Low vision devices provide great benefits at home, at work, and in the classroom. Check out this session for answers to common questions.

Presenter: Mike Wood, Vispero