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[EP-tech] Accessibility on EPrints

Hi all,

Prior to Christmas, I started working on improving accessibility with
EPrints.  Primarily, I have focussed around testing a vanilla install of
EPrints 3.4 using the Chrome plugin of the web accessibility evaluation
tool (WAVE) [1].  I have been looking to take a two step approach to this:

1. Making changes to all public-facing pages, so that WAVE does not
report any problems with them or at least only reports issues that can
be considered acceptable (e.g. links to PDF documents for items in the
archive).

2. Evaluating non-public administration pages to determine how many
problems they have with a view to resolving them.

So far many of the issues I have encountered have been due to
inappropriate use of HTML table elements and lack of linking up labels
with form elements.  These have generally been straightforward to
resolve, so I would hope to be able to address many of those still
present within the non-public administration pages before EPrints 3.4.2
is released later this year.  However, the stated aim as shown in the
current EPrints Accessibility roadmap [2], is that public-facing pages
are a priority for 3.4.2 and that non-public administration pages will
be addressed primarily in 3.4.3 with the aim to release this version of
EPrints in late 2020.

I have produced a comprehensive report testing (as best as I can) all
different types of pages within a vanilla install of EPrints using the
standard testdata dataset [3].  For public-facing pages where issues
have been detected, I have added comments to explain these.  All these
issues have been due either to having links to PDFs, which is
unavoidable and essential based on the purpose of EPrints or repeated
use of the same alt text for images, due to the test data using the same
filename for every document.  For the non-public administration pages
where significant numbers of problems have been detected I have provided
explanations.  Where there are fewer problems these can generally be
attributed to issues I have already described (inappropriate use of HTML
tables, lack of form element to label linking, links to PDFs, repeated
alt texts, etc.).

As well as producing the report and roadmap, I have produced a default
accessibility statement page for EPrints [4].  Like the report, this is
based on a vanilla install of EPrints from a recent GitHub commit [5].
This statement is based on the UK Government sample statement [6].

https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faccessibility.eprints-hosting.org%2F&amp;data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd4a1085db1114c8d1a7408d79045e294%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&amp;sdata=EoGmiLaCYdFO0Xxd8sL9W0MjOTasxj%2FWDVooAwB3QRY%3D&amp;reserved=0 is an instance of EPrints
based on this recent GitHub commit.  It allows user sign up and provides
standard user accounts.  My intention in this process has been to not
significantly change the visual appearance compared to existing vanilla
instances of EPrints 3.4.  The main thing you might notice is the larger
fonts for page headings and some sub-headings.

Regards

David Newman

[1] https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwave.webaim.org%2Fextension%2F&amp;data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd4a1085db1114c8d1a7408d79045e294%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&amp;sdata=bQreMRp4qVHBQ8FsVljtLXWi7%2BYYQuMJNq7%2BnxyOcDE%3D&amp;reserved=0

[2] https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faccessibility.eprints-hosting.org%2Faccessibility%2Froadmap.html&amp;data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd4a1085db1114c8d1a7408d79045e294%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&amp;sdata=kYOkfQwbKo%2B1NdLeFikCZKkTjUzAb8jgh9DPxFFSxPs%3D&amp;reserved=0

[3] https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faccessibility.eprints-hosting.org%2Faccessibility%2Freport.html&amp;data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd4a1085db1114c8d1a7408d79045e294%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&amp;sdata=xlE7lOSI3nhrJZXSQS58TKD%2B1viudkC42nTxYyJ9hEM%3D&amp;reserved=0

[4] https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faccessibility.eprints-hosting.org%2Faccessibility%2F&amp;data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd4a1085db1114c8d1a7408d79045e294%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&amp;sdata=tY7odRSiUWh6M8wk98zf%2BIoHDvHdhExfUlG9JHkdoUI%3D&amp;reserved=0

[5]
https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Feprints%2Feprints3.4%2Ftree%2Fc0b073f86b9b2bf8abbd49000e5428ab2d4b4acf&amp;data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd4a1085db1114c8d1a7408d79045e294%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&amp;sdata=K8Tc9UKwEkgVqYLXy542nScjE4XCSCnhZV7XSM32XcE%3D&amp;reserved=0

[6]
https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fpublications%2Fsample-accessibility-statement%2Fsample-accessibility-statement-for-a-fictional-public-sector-website&amp;data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd4a1085db1114c8d1a7408d79045e294%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&amp;sdata=MdUtUZbCCgiIz6nv8j7Is0jh37I%2Fv76aFPy86SVTsXk%3D&amp;reserved=0