Jupyter Blog - Isabela Presedo-Floyd

Jupyter Accessibility Workshops Wrap Up

2022-04-09T04:48:00+00:00

All good things must come to an end, and Jupyter accessibility workshops are no exception. While I may be sad that this series is over, there are many, many things to celebrate and more to look forward to! Let’s break it up into what we did, what we’ve learned, and what we’re going to do in the future.

A quick recap: Jupyter accessibility workshops were a series of events where we connected Jovyans, accessibility experts, and the wider open-source ecosystem for learning and practice in improving accessibility across Jupyter projects. For more specifics on the events individually, visit the January and March event announcements.

What we did

We gathered, we learned, we contributed fixes, all with a dose of laughter. Across three events, our attendees were small in number but mighty, greeting our corner of the internet with

1 fantastic captioner
2 expert accessibility talks from Frank Elavsky and Eric Bailey
3 Saturdays
4 first-time contributors to Jupyter projects
5 Jupyter projects discussed to better understand how we can support the ecosystem’s accessibility needs as a whole
6 hours of events
25 participants, with several friendly faces appearing for more than one event
88 image descriptions written (contributed between Juptyer documentation and Jupyter.org)
~1000 smiles

What a busy season!

We kicked off the events with the knowledge of Frank Elavsky. This included an energetic discussion around the ways that data visualization is already an accessibility accommodation, how to prioritize user feedback and needs, and how to repurpose or reconfigure what we already have to something accessible.

For the second event, our community contributed accessibility fixes to Jupyter projects in the form of image descriptions. This event not only introduces these descriptions — usually alt text — but gives participants a chance to try it out for themselves. Practice always leads to more questions and great conversations, like how to handle long documentation diagrams or when the documentation might benefit from removing an image.

We regrouped in March to learn from Eric Bailey’s vast accessibility experience and to better understand the discussion from a wider perspective. He gave us wonderful examples of accessibility efforts from history, as well as inspiration for how to continue our community’s efforts.

You can find all event resources by date at the following links:

What we learned

With such a rich mix of people and the spotlight on some wonderful speakers, these workshops were privy to discussions at the intersection of digital accessibility and open source. Here are the biggest themes that emerged across all the events.

Guidelines are the floor. not the ceiling. Creating a pleasant accessible experience will require more than sticking to guidelines.
Do it, don’t just read about it. Once we started trying to describe Jupyter images, the best questions and discussions appeared.
It’s all about context. What an image is communicates is determined by what is around it; use this to write good descriptions.
Don’t be afraid mistakes. Because accessibility still isn’t the norm in many open source spaces, expect to be trying, failing, and iterating.
Listen to community members first! If they say communicate accessibility failures that are blocking them, prioritize those efforts when you can.

What’s next

Accessibility in Jupyter spaces is far from over, and we’d love to have you find your new favorite place on the internet here. Just as Jupyter is not a single project, accessibility goes beyond what we covered in the workshops.

We started somewhere designed to be approachable for people of all experience levels, but the next major steps include prioritizing the feedback of disabled people in Jupyter, solving existing issues across projects, and creating methods for sustainable accessibility within our community. These problems won’t be solved with Jupyter knowledge alone, accessibility experience alone, code sorcery alone, documentation brilliance alone, or any other single skill set alone. But they can be solved together. Bring your skills with you, and we can find a place for you here!

If you’d like to get more involved with accessibility efforts, feel free to join our community via

• The jupyter/accessibility GitHub repository, a place for gathering cross-project on GitHub.

• Jupyter’s Discourse section for accessibility, a place for gathering cross-project separate from Jupyter codebases.

• Fortnightly JupyterLab accessibility meetings (found on the community calendar).

• For JupyterLab efforts, visit the JupyterLab accessibility GitHub project, where issues and pull requests for are listed.

• Open a GitHub issue to propose an accessibility change (please check if a similar issue already exists and add a comment to that one if possible).

Join us for the Jupyter Accessibility Workshops (Part 2)

2022-03-04T15:55:00+00:00

I’m happy to announce the next pair of Jupyter accessibility workshops happening this March! As a part of the third community workshop cycle, these workshops are designed to increase accessibility knowledge within the ecosystem and make Jupyter projects more usable for disabled people.

With community feedback as the inspiration, the following two events will open up discussions around general accessibility foundations and evaluating software with manual testing. If learning, contributing, and making connections in accessibility spaces sounds interesting to you, please join us. No previous experience needed.

What was part 1?

If you noticed the “Part 2” in the title, you might want to visit the blog post announcing the last two workshops for more context.

We also have resources from the last two events available!

What’s up next?

Part 2: March 12 and 19

On March 12, we’ll be joined by Eric Bailey as he introduces us to accessibility and inclusive design strategies. This event will provide some much-needed foundation and common language for our community as we continue to make accessibility a collective priority. People have often asked me how to get started in considering accessibility in their day-to-day work, so we are extremely fortunate to learn from one of the best!

On March 19, it’s sprint time. For this event, we’ll be focused on learning how to manually audit software for accessibility. This skill is great no matter what you spend your time on, whether testing your own work, reviewing someone else’s, or understanding expected accessibility experiences. We’ll practice testing methods as a group before contributing our review to projects across the Jupyter ecosystem. Don’t be intimidated, though, all are welcome at this event; no prior Git or GitHub knowledge is necessary!

To find these events in your timezone, please visit the Jupyter community calendar.

Who can attend these events?

As with the last two, Jupyter accessibility workshops are open to everyone! These events are also entirely remote, so all you need is to be online. Each event is stand-alone, so you can sign up to attend one or all depending on your availability and interest.

Ideally, these events will be attended by a mix of

Jupyter contributors to provide specific insight about the community and projects
People with accessibility skills to advise on the knowledge areas the Jupyter community currently lacks
Newcomers willing to learn and give us feedback on how to make these learning curves better for everyone

Please consider attending if any of these descriptions sound like you!

You can sign up for a Jupyter accessibility workshop individually. You are welcome to attend both events, though you will need to sign up on both forms. Please note that attendance is limited to about 40 attendees per event to make sure we can provide a quality experience with a small event team. (But don’t despair! Recordings of speaking events and notes for all events will be available to all afterwards.)

Where can I get more information?

These events are planned publicly on GitHub; you can explore the accessibility workshop planning repository for more information.

Thanks!

Once again, these events would not be possible without a number of people across the Jupyter community. My thanks wouldn’t be complete without acknowledgement for all Jovyans who have already joined in accessibility efforts, like our wonderful attendees from the last two events whose spirit keeps me inspired every day!

Of course, many thanks to the Jupyter Community Building Committee for supporting funded community events and being a constant presence throughout all our planning adventures. And thank you to the original team that proposed these workshops and made them possible.

Join us for the Jupyter Accessibility Workshops (Part 1)

2022-01-06T18:30:00+00:00

At long last, Jupyter accessibility workshops are here! This is a series of Jupyter community workshops aimed at increasing accessibility awareness within the ecosystem and making Jupyter projects more usable for disabled people.

The goal is to make existing accessibility efforts more prominent across the many Jupyter projects. Much of what we discuss will relate to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and how to apply them in open source, scientific spaces where this work has historically been neglected.

These workshops are a series of events proposed for and supported by the third community workshop cycle.

What are these events?

These workshops are a series of four virtual events alternating between learning from experts and contributing to projects.

They’ve been designed by listening to community requests and combining event types to include people of different skills and across communities. In total, they combine Jupyter experts and accessibility experts, learning and action, and working with old friends and making new connections.

Part 1: January 15 and 22

On January 15 we’ll be hearing from Frank Elavsky about how to build inclusive data representations. You can learn more about this work at Chartability, a framework for creating enjoyable and accessible data visualization experiences. I’ve heard so many questions from the community about how to author more accessible content in notebooks and otherwise, so I’m personally thrilled to announce this speaker. (Check the event time in your timezone.)

On January 22 we’ll host a sprint to learn how to write image descriptions and practice by contributing as a team to Jupyter documentation. Image descriptions, usually alt text, are a great place to make use of different skills and learn from one another. Whether you’re a Jupyter community member who wants to learn about accessibility, an accessibility expert who wants to learn about Jupyter, or someone new to both, all are welcome at this event. No prior git or GitHub knowledge necessary! (Check the event time in your timezone.)

Part 2: March

Two more events — a speaker and sprint event — are scheduled in March 2022. Mark your calendars and get excited for more details after the first two events.

Who can attend these events?

Jupyter accessibility workshops are open to everyone! These events are also entirely remote, so all you need is to be online. Each event is stand-alone, so you can sign up to attend one or all depending on your availability and interest.

Ideally, these events will be attended by a mix of

Jupyter contributors to provide specific insight about the community and projects
People with accessibility skills to advise on the knowledge areas the Jupyter community currently lacks
Newcomers willing to learn and give us feedback on how to make these learning curves better for everyone

Please consider attending if any of these descriptions sound like you!

Some events may be more useful to you if you already have certain skills, so be sure to review the sign up forms per-event for specific details.

You can sign up for a Jupyter accessibility workshop per-event. Please note that attendance is limited to about 40 attendees per event to make sure we can provide a quality experience with a small event team. (But don’t despair! Recordings of speaking events and notes for all events will be available to all post-event.)

Where can I get more information?

These events are planned in public on GitHub; you can explore the accessibility workshop planning repository for more information.

You can also read the agendas for the first two events:

Thanks

I want to take a moment to thank some of the many people that have helped make these events happen.

First off, thanks to the Jupyter Community Building Committee for encouraging and supporting the logistics of this and other community workshops. Thank you to the original team that proposed an accessibility workshop for their hard work and help in keeping the proposal going. And, of course, thanks to everyone in the Jupyter ecosystem who have already been committed to accessibility efforts. None of this would be possible alone.

Jupyter Blog - Isabela Presedo-Floyd

Jupyter Accessibility Workshops Wrap Up

What we did

What we learned

What’s next

Join us for the Jupyter Accessibility Workshops (Part 2)

What was part 1?

What’s up next?

Part 2: March 12 and 19

Who can attend these events?

How do I sign up?

Where can I get more information?

Thanks!

Join us for the Jupyter Accessibility Workshops (Part 1)

What are these events?

Part 1: January 15 and 22

Part 2: March

Who can attend these events?

How do I sign up?

Where can I get more information?

Thanks