By frannyfrench|19 Jan 2022

Hypothesis has passed another inclusivity milepost: When used in a learning management system (LMS), our social annotation tool now meets the rigorous level of AA compliance with WCAG 2.1. Accessibility is an ongoing commitment for us, and our product team has prioritized taking the steps to make annotation easy for everyone. Our WCAG 2.1 designation comes through an external review conducted by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC), a key collaborator in helping us map and expand the accessibility of our tool so that we can help all students and instructors annotate texts in the classroom. Get our latest voluntary product accessibility template (VPAT), and read more about how we approach inclusivity.

Building off of WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1 includes 17 additional success criteria ​​to help with a range of accessibility needs for people with low vision, for people with cognitive and learning disabilities, and for accessibility on mobile devices. You can take a deep dive on the WCAG website, but some highlights include:

Schools are often required to offer fully accessible platforms, but ensuring accessibility is more than a compliance to-do list for us: Our goal always is to support the activities and contributions of users across a broad spectrum of abilities. Providing fully inclusive design not only helps people with physical, cognitive, and other disabilities, it also takes into account factors like gender, culture, and age. For example, our keyboard shortcuts for creating annotations and highlights typify the kind of functionality that makes our product more accessible to people with disabilities, and streamlines the user interface for anyone annotating with Hypothesis.

While our tool is now more accessible within the LMS, the content it’s overlaying may not be — e.g., instructor-assigned texts. Inclusivity, like annotation, is a collaborative effort, so we recommend that educators consider the accessibility of the texts they serve up for annotation, especially when it comes to full-class participation. Check out our guide to improving the accessibility of PDFs. And for more information on what inclusivity covers, watch this excellent video from the W3C.

Accessibility work on a product is never done. Our mode of operation is to incorporate inclusive design into all of our product development practices. And we will continue to collaborate with schools and annotators to test and improve how Hypothesis works with assistive technology.

If you have difficulties using Hypothesis annotation and/or use assistive technology to interact with it, we would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions about how we can improve your user experience. Please feel free to contact us. And subscribe at the bottom of this page to receive email news about Hypothesis and annotation, including any accessibility updates.

Hypothesis is a mission-driven organization dedicated to the development and spread of open, standards-based annotation technologies and practices that enable anyone to annotate anywhere on the web. Our mission is to help people reason more effectively together through a shared, collaborative discussion layer over all knowledge. Hypothesis is based in San Francisco, CA, USA, with a worldwide team.

Hypothesis develops its open-source annotation software in collaboration with many contributors. We thank our funders, partners, and entire community for working with us to advance standards-based, interoperable annotation for all.

Contacts

Media: Nate Angell, Director of Marketing
Twitter: @hypothes_is
Web: web.hypothes.is

Liquid Margins, the regular show where we gather to talk about collaborative annotation, social learning, and other ways we make knowledge together.

Install the Hypothesis LMS App in your LMS and learn more about our pilot program for educational institutions.

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