CHRISTOPHER SORAN: All right, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the April edition of the Accessibility & ctcLink Open Forum. I appreciate your time coming to this meeting. MONICA OLSSON: Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here. I think it's a small, cozy group. I'm Monica from the State Board. We do have a live captioner here with us today, Amanda. So if you'd like to follow along using captions, just make sure to turn those on using the Menu bar at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We are recording today's conversation, as we do every month, and then we post those on the State Board ctcLink Accessibility web page for reference later. I think, today is going to be a relatively short and sweet update. We don't have a ton of content coming this month to you, but, of course, if folks have come with their questions or comments, we're always happy to receive those in real time here during the meeting. So I will hand it back over to you now, Chris. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Thanks, everybody. So the big feature this month is PeopleTools 8.61.08. So we're going to go review all the bug fixes and the new features that are coming in with the new PeopleTools version. So we've been testing and working on this since the beginning or end of December. So we are getting close to the go live date. It'll be Saturday, April 26, so just three weeks out or so. And kind of the big new feature coming in with is the new Accessibility button at the top left of the menu. So I'm going to go ahead and share different screen here. MONICA OLSSON: All right, that Accessibility button I think is just how the screen reader mode is enabled or turned on and off correct. Chris, so the location is changing? CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yes, and there's some other features in there too. MONICA OLSSON: OK. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. So I'll cover that here. JOSH: But you can still access the screen reader mode from the normal menu that you've been using this whole time. This is just an additional feature. MONICA OLSSON: Thanks, Josh. I see some new faces, so I'm going to say a few things that are going to feel like review for folks. So when we say PeopleTools update, we're referring to that base underlying code, the foundation of the software. And so when there's a PeopleTools update, it's a relatively big update that usually has impact across most, if not pillars. And then, the accessibility changes or improvements are tracked internally to the best of our ability. Chris and his team work really hard at that. And then a document that you're seeing now on the screen is published to help people understand those changes coming with the PeopleTools software update. And it's called an image overview document, which does not mean like a picture that needs an Alt text description. It's an overview document talking about the software code update that's going into production. And then it has different sections about the new functionality and what that means for accessibility enhancement. And this is the document that Chris is sharing now on his screen. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so there's a accessibility overview document for this new PeopleTools update. But there's also another, whole other document with all the new functionality and different changes that came in with 8.61 not related to accessibility. So for those with vision, there's some changes, some different look and feel on different pages throughout the system. So there's also some other things. Yeah, so one of the new functionality that we have now is the Skip to Main Content link. So prior to 8.61, when you were accessing a new page, you had to go through the banner to get into the page. So you had to go through all the different buttons and all the different interactive pieces in within the banner to get any of the content. And so now, the 8.61, the Skip to Main Content link is now available for you to skip past the banner and get focus into the focus area of the main content. So when you press the Tab key, it's going to bring you down from the header into the focus element on the first focusable element on the page, and when you use that Skip to Main Content link. You can also use the Control-Alt-S, keyboard shortcut to display the Skip to Main Content link. And then you can press Enter, and that brings you right into the first actual field on the page. For fluid pages, the focus is first place in the main fluid page container, which is typically not actionable. But once you press Tab, that'll get you focused in the first actionable field, so you'll be able to avoid having to go through the banner if you're keyboard navigating, which is kind of nice. And then, within that banner, there's a new button. So there's an accessibility help button in the Quick Access bar across the top. And when you click it you'll get three menu items, Enable Screen Reader, Keyboard Shortcuts, and Accessibility Help. And I'll show that here, in just a moment. Those weren't there before. So it'll be nice to have quick, easy access to it. And then, the keyboard shortcuts menu, you can press OK or Control-K if you're on a Mac. And that'll bring up the keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard shortcuts are also accessible from that new Accessibility menu at the top, Accessibility button. And prior to 8.61, when you brought that page up, instead of having bullets, they use greater than symbols for some weird reason. I don't know why they would have. So the output will read greater. When a window modal is displayed, invokes the OK button. So now, there's bullets there. So if you're in NVDA, it's going to read out as a white bullet. If you're in JAWS it reads out as a hollow round bullet. But it's a bullet not just the word "greater," which isn't helpful. So that's nice. And then the new window and help, which displays directly below the banner. If you're looking visually at the page, it's typically at the top right. And so there was a hidden table around that. So it was showed as a data table with no name. And so now, this is displayed as a presentation table. So it's there just for presentation purposes, not to display actual data or data to read through. And then, so there's JAWS hotkey combination. It wasn't reading the page title. So for example, if your Employee Self-service, you go to the Profile Tile and you go to Emergency Contacts. You would hit the Plus button, open a modal page, and you press the Insert T, have it read out the page title. So prior to 8.61, JAWS would read Pop up Window Dialog. And now, it'll read the title as Emergency Contact. So it'll actually properly read out the title of the page when you're using those hotkeys. And then, there was also in some insufficient color contrast between the primary button and the focus indicator. So for example, if you're on, go to the Action menu, go to My Preferences page and you see that Save button, the color contrast should pass a 3 to 1 color contrast ratio and the focus is over that. But it was failing that at 2.66:1. So that color contrast ratio has been updated. So now, when you have that focus on that button, it's color contrast compliant. Yeah, so that's an image overview document. And so what I'm sharing now is one of our development variants. So you can see the button in action. So previously, you would go to the Actions menu, and you go to My Preferences. And then, there was an accessibility layout dropdown, where you could turn Screen Reader Mode on or off. And then you would select the Save button. Now, you can go to the Accessibility button in the top menu. And so I'm showing clicking that Accessibility button. And then, you'll be presented with three options, Enable Screen Reader Mode, Keyboard Shortcuts, and Accessibility Help. If you select the Keyboard Shortcuts, it pops up with the keyboard shortcut information. And you can close out of that. If you select Enable screen reader mode, you're presented with a dialog box that says, the screen reader mode will be enabled. Would you like to persist this setting for subsequent sessions? So you can do it for just this session or permanently for all your sessions. If you'd like to keep it that way, you can say yes. It gives you that confirmation, and then you can select the Back button. And now, when you go to the Accessibility button in the menu, the Enable Screen Reader Mode option is gone because it's enabled. And now, you have to go back to the My Preferences to disable it. It's just stays on. We're presuming that if you want it on, you probably want it on all the time. Be nice to see a Disable option there or something. MONICA OLSSON: Yeah, I agree with your comment. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Like, yeah. MONICA OLSSON: Just keep the options all in the same location. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. JOSH: Yeah. You go from having a dropdown list of three items, to now hearing the dropdown list only has two items. MONICA OLSSON: Yeah. JOSH: Doesn't make much sense. And another FYI, this button only shows up on the home page. So as a student, it's only going to show up on the student home page. So once you click on one of these tiles it will disappear. And the same goes for staff if you have-- oh. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: It appears for any fluid not for classic pages. MONICA OLSSON: Oh, OK. JOSH: Oh, got you. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. MONICA OLSSON: So fluid means, for folks who don't know, it's a page that's responsive to mobile display. And so classic pages are not that. And what I'm hearing Chris say is that the new Accessibility button that's in that top banner area will appear consistently throughout the application on those fluid responsive pages, but not the classic pages. Is that what I heard you say? PADMAJA VILLALON: Home pages and dashboard pages. MONICA OLSSON: Yeah, OK. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah, and then if you select the Accessibility Help option, it brings you to this Accessibility Help Viewer page, has some welcome text. Early last meeting I showed they had some broken images in here. So I just took those images out. We asked them to fix it. I didn't see any need for it. So there's just some information on the screen reader mode here. How to enable it, how to disable it, what it does. Also let's you know some information about how the page gets laid out. They say it's not intended for sighted users. And then there's just about the keyboard shortcuts. And then skip to main content information. And this is very easily customized. So if you want any wording changes on it just let me know. We can make those. MONICA OLSSON: From my perspective, I'm curious if Josh and Chris you feel the same way or differently is I think the biggest improvement that's coming with this update actually is the Skip to Main Content. Because that's such a key accessibility feature for our AT users. And it's a pretty basic WCAG compliance requirement. But it's shocking to me actually many applications and websites don't put that there. Oracle's not alone in that choice. So I think that, for me, that's like the biggest positive. The other improvements are really good too. But from a navigation like a navigators experience, I feel like that's going to bring the biggest benefit. JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. This Skip to Main Content is something that we've been wanting from day one. And it's nice to finally see it happening. MONICA OLSSON: Yeah. PADMAJA VILLALON: Yeah, it came out in 8.60. But, we have 8.59 so we missed by that one release. MONICA OLSSON: Oh, I see. So now we're getting caught up to that feature. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yes, it would be nice to finally have that. Oh, I see I got a question from Doug. Go ahead, yeah. DOUG: Hey, Chris, I was curious about the keyboard shortcut page. One thing I've seen on a few websites, when you click on it, it'll be just a visual thing. You can't even select the text sometimes. And I suspect that's not the case here because they have the print dialog or the Print button up there. But I'm wondering if there's an ability for users to be able to then, I don't know, have it somewhere where they can be accessing that keyboard shortcut going back and forth, and having both open. You know what I mean? Where you're like, now, what was that shortcut for doing this? And so I'm just curious about the kind of usability of this. Like, if you print, is there like a save to something else, where you could save it and have it as another open tab in your browser or on your desktop and Mac or PC so you can jump back and forth between using PeopleSoft and accessing those keyboard shortcuts, because I sometimes find they're a little challenging, especially if you have a high cognitive overhead using screen readers already to know how to go back and forth between those, if that makes any sense. PADMAJA VILLALON: There is a new window we have not tested. If what you are saying, if I understand you, is that, if it can simultaneously be open along with the application that they are accessing as a separate tab, and-- DOUG: Oh, you can do it that way. You could do like the equivalent of a right click, open a new tab, kind of thing. PADMAJA VILLALON: Yeah. Christopher, if you click on the Close button there. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Oh, yeah. PADMAJA VILLALON: Yeah, and now in the action. MONICA OLSSON: I think, he just did it real fast. PADMAJA VILLALON: Yeah. New window, click on New window. And in the other window you can now get the-- DOUG: OK. PADMAJA VILLALON: Yeah. DOUG: Yeah, I'd seen it in I think either Power BI or Tableau that they have a keyboard shortcut thing but you can't even-- I don't think you can even select the text. It's more of like a visual display. And it makes it kind of tricky because they're doing their own proprietary way of accessing data within Tableau or Power BI, whichever it was. So it just seems like this would give the ability to have that open as a reference while you're going back and forth? PADMAJA VILLALON: Yes. JOSH: Yeah, great. Hey, Christopher, do you mind clicking the Print button and see what that does? So we have the option to open up as a new window, which would open it up as a new tab. And you could keep it up that way. Or you could print it, which would allow you to save it as an Adobe PDF, or print as a hard copy or any other print. I think Microsoft is one of the options if you want to turn it into a doc. So-- CHRISTOPHER SORAN: [INAUDIBLE] JOSH: Yeah, so the print opens up a lot of options. DOUG: Cool, yeah. Thanks a lot. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Yeah. Well, what's nice, too, with this, the way this pops up, you can just exit and come right back to the page. So you don't lose-- just by accessing the keyboard navigation, you don't lose the page you're on. So yeah, questions, appreciate it. Yeah, so that's all the topics we got for today. MONICA OLSSON: Yeah. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: [INAUDIBLE] for the event. MONICA OLSSON: So are there any other questions or comments from the folks that have joined us? I do want to acknowledge that I'm not sure how this happened, but we've got on the calendar two separate ctcLink open forum meeting series. There's one that Chris is the host for, and one that I'm the host for, and I'm getting emails that some people went over to the wrong link. And it's possible that Vicki and I sent out the incorrect link in our reminder. So I apologize. And the plan will be for those that are here to hear me say it. Now, you can share it with all your friends. I'm going to cancel the series that's connected to my name and will remain using the series that's with Chris listed as the meeting host originator. So next month when we send out our reminders, we'll make double sure we're sending the correct URL if that was part of the problem. But I just wanted to acknowledge that since I'm seeing a few confused emails come my way right now. With that, we will be meeting again May 13, which is it's always a Tuesday, 11:00 to noon. And then, it'll be the same URL that you used for this meeting right here. And oh, Chris, when will that overview document be available for people to find on the web site? CHRISTOPHER SORAN: Oh, I believe we're going to post it in the next week or two. MONICA OLSSON: OK. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: I don't have-- PADMAJA VILLALON: An actual overview is 23, I think, 23, 24. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: But yes, we'll be doing some demonstrations and a couple different sessions that you're welcome to attend to if you want to see all this, all the rest of the features that are coming in. And I believe that-- MONICA OLSSON: Do those sessions get advertised to the ctcLink accessibility listserv? I think they do or should. CHRISTOPHER SORAN: I think they go out to the CTC POC list and then the contact, I think, as well as a bunch of some other listservs, which would include this one. MONICA OLSSON: OK. VICKI WALTON: I just want to say that the link to join the meeting that I send out is Christopher's. MONICA OLSSON: OK. VICKI WALTON: I took the link that popped up on Zoom, not realizing it was an old one. MONICA OLSSON: Yeah, I think that's what happened for a few people too. VICKI WALTON: Yeah. MONICA OLSSON: It's OK. It'll all get fixed. VICKI WALTON: Yeah. MONICA OLSSON: All right, I think we could probably pause recording.