# Accessibility statement / Oxidize Global

## Attendee + team info

* **Ask speakers & workshop holders to pay attention to the following information when creating slides, planning talks and workshops**
* *General info*: send out [this information ](https://uxdesign.cc/designing-for-accessibility-is-not-that-hard-c04cc4779d94) to people - provides a good summary of what should be taken into account
* Less info, big fonts on one presentation slide, more slides in general *preferred* over small font and lots of information on one slide
* Makes the text easier readable and generally easier to navigate
* Use language that is easy to understand
* Blind accessibility: Image / chart captioning
* Use focus states for links, form fields, widgets, buttons, and menu items
* [Color blind awareness](http://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/)
* High (color) contrast between text and background
* https://usecontrast.com/
* Don't use colors only to indicate something crucial (combine with pattern, text labels, icon etc.)
* Making sure crucial info in presentations / workshops is not dependent on being able to see certain colours
* Avoid red and green
* Ask speakers and workshop holders to double-check their material with specific tools
* http://colororacle.org/ (color blindness simulator)
* https://siteimprove.com/de-de/barrierefreiheit/color-contrast-checker/
* Avoiding flashing effects > [Photosensitive epilepsy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy)
* Making sure that the workshops and workshop material are accessible
* Communicate: "Please get in touch with us if you need anything"

# Team Info

* Streaming software
* Screen Reader accessible
* Keyboard navigation accessibile
* Different types of captioning
* [Closed captioning vs. sign language interpreting](https://blog.ai-media.tv/blog/sign-language-vs-captioning)
* Closed captioning better for those who became deaf later in life and are most familiar with written language (their first learned language)
* Sign language better for those who are deaf since birth, and are most familiar with sign language (their first learned language)
* [Vocal vs. sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoken_language)
* "A spoken [vocal] language is a language produced by articulate sounds, as opposed to a written language. Many languages have no written form and so are only spoken. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract, as opposed to a sign language, which is produced with the hands and face."
* "Both vocal and sign languages are composed of words. In vocal languages, words are made up from a limited set of vowels and consonants, and often tone. In sign languages, words are made up from a limited set of shapes, orientations, locations movements of the hands, and often facial expressions; in both cases, the building blocks are called phonemes. In both vocal and sign languages, words are grammatically and prosodically linked into phrases, clauses, and larger units of discourse."
* Check if it is possible to blend out captioning for people who don't need it and find it distracting
* Descriptive audio / DVS
* Video has alternate audio track, that describes aspects of the video that are purely visual and not accessible to blind or visually-impaired people. Usually, there’s a second audio track that contains the description. Viewers can listen to the second track along with the primary track.
* Tickets
* Offering significantly discounted / free tickets for
* Concession holders
* Students
* Underrepresented people in the Rust / programming community
* Disabled people
* People who otherwise couldn't afford
* Discuss:
* Potentially compensate people that bought a conference ticket, but struggle with streaming quality due to limited bandwidth availability in their region / country
* Scholarship
* Digital sustainability

# Resources

1) https://uxdesign.cc/designing-for-accessibility-is-not-that-hard-c04cc4779d94
2) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/ (International Standard: Web Content Accessibility Guideline)
3) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rKhw-kK8p__4yDTaqvGwykXi9hDdq6OM/view?usp=sharing (German)
4) http://www.colourblindawareness.org/
5) https://siteimprove.com/de-de/accessibility-day/ (mostly German)
6) https://www.mycommunicator.de/home/medienproduktion/ (service)

# Draft for Homepage

Oxidize Global is an inclusive conference and as such strives to be accessible to everyone. This includes:

* Offering significantly discounted tickets for disabled people, concession holders, students, people who are underrepresented in the Rust / programming community or who otherwise couldn't afford to attend the conference
* Ensuring that our online conference, as well as the workshops, are accessible to (color-)blind and deaf people
* Providing
* closed captioning for the talks
* sign language interpreting (upon request)
* vocal/spoken language interpreting (upon request)
* descriptive audio / DVS (upon request)
* Sending out accessibility awareness information to the speakers and workshop holders prior to the conference
* Offering the possibility for CfP submitters / speakers to submit and hold (pre-recorded or live) talks in their native language - an English translation will be shown in parallel during the conference

If you’re not sure whether the concession rate should apply to you, please do get in touch. Our goal is that the conference and workshops and all other related events are accessible to people with disabilities. However, we are aware that accessibility issues are diverse and we may not have everything covered in our plans - please reach out, and we will do our very best to confirm we have those requirements under control. Send a mail to [e-mail].

We will happily reserve you a ticket if it’s not immediately clear whether necessary assistance is provided.

# Other details to discuss

* Language barriers in workshops?
*

## Suggestions from Valentina:

Oxidize Global is an inclusive conference and as such strives to be accessible to everyone. This includes:

* Offering significantly discounted tickets for people, who otherwise couldn't afford to attend the conference and/or workshops
* Ensuring that our online conference, as well as the workshops, are accessible to (color-)blind and deaf people, by providing:
* closed captioning for the talks
* sign language interpreting (upon request)
* vocal/spoken language interpreting (upon request)
* descriptive audio / DVS (upon request)
* Sending out accessibility awareness information to the speakers and workshop holders prior to the conference
* Offering the possibility for CfP submitters / speakers to submit and hold (pre-recorded or live) talks in their native language, accompanied with English subtiles

If you’re not sure whether the concession rate should apply to you, please do get in touch via [e-mail].
Our goal is that the conference and workshops and all other related events are accessible to people with disabilities or in oher difficult life situations. However, we are aware that accessibility issues are diverse and we may not have everything covered in our plans - please reach out, and we will do our very best to confirm we have those requirements under control. Send a mail to [e-mail].

We will happily reserve you a ticket if it’s not immediately clear whether necessary assistance is provided.

# E-Mail to speakers and workshop holders

Dear speaker or workshop holder,

as Oxidize Global is just around the corner, I wanted to take the time to give you a quick briefing on how to make your talk / slides / workshop accessible to as many people as possible. This is relevant (but not limited to) to people who are (color-)blind, have low vision, are deaf or have hearing difficulties, mobility impairments or cognitive disabilities. There are some very good and informative articles on accessibility topics that you can find here:

* http://accessibility.voxmedia.com/
* https://medium.com/salesforce-ux/7-things-every-designer-needs-to-know-about-accessibility-64f105f0881b
* https://alistapart.com/article/color-accessibility-workflows/
* https://uxdesign.cc/designing-for-accessibility-is-not-that-hard-c04cc4779d94

I will be summarizing the most important points below:

1) If you are using colors in your slides, make sure to add enough contrast. Ensure sufficient contrast between text and its background.
2) Don’t use color alone to make critical information understandable - instead, only use color to highlight or complement what is already visible. Don't rely on sensory characteristics as the sole indicator for understanding and operating content: You should not rely solely on images, shape, size, visual location, orientation, or sound to indicate important instructions for operating or understanding content (ex. “See the image above”). Instead, use a combination of positioning, color, and labeling to identify content.
3) If you are including images in your slides you might want to consider to give a short vocal description of the visual content, keeping in mind blind and vision impaired people.
4) Generally, have big fonts and less content on one presentation slide, instead of small fonts and lots of information on one slide. This makes the text easier readable and the content easier to grasp.
5) Be considerate of people with photosensitive seizure disorders and avoid flashing effects in your presentation.

Below you will find online tools that you can check your material with:

* http://colororacle.org/ (Color blindness simulator)
* https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ (Color contrast checker)
* https://usecontrast.com/ (macOS app for quick access to WCAG color contrast ratios)

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

See you soon,
Rafaela and the Oxidize team