CampusGroups Accessibility Improvements

Overview

CampusGroups has made significant improvements related to user accessibility in 2020. Our focus for these improvements has been a combination of community/user feedback and student usage (high frequency pages).

Our goal is to provide a consistent experience between JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver across the commonly used browsers in the Windows and Apple/Mac operating environments. These are ongoing efforts.

We are in the process of undergoing a formal 3rd party WCAG Web Accessibility audit.

Development and Testing Environments

• Screen Readers Used in Development and Testing
  • JAWS (Windows)
  • NVDA (Windows)
  • VoiceOver (Apple/Mac)
• Browsers Used in Development and Testing
  • Chrome (Windows, Apple/Mac)
  • Edge (Windows)
  • Firefox (Windows, Apple/Mac)
  • Safari (Apple/Mac)
• Browser Plugins
  • WAVE

Common Improvements

• Improved keyboard support
• Improved screen reader context
• Updates related specifically to JAWS, NVDA or VoiceOver
  • To ensure a consistent experience between the three screen readers
• Skip Links
  • We’ve added skip links at the top of the page to assist users in quickly navigating to the most common controls, including:
    • Skip to Main Content
    • Skip to Navigation
    • Accessibility Information
• Color Contrast Ratios
  • We’ve revamped our colors and are now working to support Level AA color contrast guidelines.
• Page Titles
• Heading levels (H1, H2, etc.)
• Main content focus when choosing menu options in the navigation menu
• Filter bars on list pages (including search inputs and dropdown lists)
• Highlighting active elements (focus highlighting)
• Improved usage in higher zoom levels (up to 500%)
• Image ALT text (added where required, improved context where possible)
• Slideshows and carousels are now stopped by default and can not be started
  • We’ve improved keyboard support and screen reader context for slideshows/carousels and they are now usable via both keyboard and mouse.
• Page tabs
  • Improved screen reader context and keyboard support for pages with multiple tabs inside the main content area
• Dialogs and modals now maintain keyboard focus inside the dialog, as well as improved support for closing/exiting the dialog.
• Improved keyboard support and screen reader context for various controls including:
  • Calendar date selector (pick a date)
  • Filter bar inputs (select dropdowns and search inputs)
  • Select lists with checkboxes (choose one or more items from a list)
  • User search dropdown lists
  • Pin buttons are now usable via keyboard (pin/unpin a group from your favorites)
• Correct keyboard navigation order
  • When audible keyboard order does not follow visible order on the web page
• Fixed many silent or invisible tab stops (pressing tab on the keyboard changes focus but provides no visible or audible update to the UI).
• Page Footer

Guest Users

We’ve improved the following pages available to guest users:

• Events List
• Event Pages
• Event Registration
• Groups List
• Group Registration
• Guest Homepage
• Login Page
• Create Account

Authenticated Users

The above guest pages, where available after login, have also been improved for authenticated users. As well, we’ve improved the following pages or controls for authenticated users:

• User Homepage
• Account/My Profile Dropdown (top navigation)
  • Edit Profile Page
• Various common activities
  • Adding event attendees
  • Adding group members
  • Adding group officers
  • Error messaging
  • Reports
• Top Navigation Bar
  • Added or improved keyboard support and screen reader context for the top-bar navigation buttons including
    • Hamburger Button
    • School Logo Image
    • Home Section
    • Groups Dropdown (Search)
    • Events Section
    • Admin Section
    • Search
    • Notifications
    • Account / My Profile
    • Etc.
  • Hamburger button now toggles the navigation menu
    • Toggles icon view/expanded view on larger views
    • Toggles hidden/visible on smaller views or higher zoom levels
  • Dropdown menus are usable via keyboard and close when the escape key is pressed or focus leaves the dropdown.
  • Back navigation (shift-tab) from the navigation menu or main content (when no navigation menu is present) will return you to the associated top bar navigation section button (ex. Home Button, Admin Button, etc.)
• Navigation Menu
  • Clicking on a sub-menu will now leave keyboard focus on the first sub-menu item inside the menu
  • Clicking on a menu item (or sub-menu item) will set focus inside main content
  • Back navigation (shift-tab) from main content will return keyboard focus to the associated menu or sub-menu item item
• Home Section and Admin Section
  • Many of the commonly used student pages in the Home Section and Admin Section have been improved.