By Stefan Wajda on 2019-02-01 01:45 in Joomla Accessibility and Usability Team

January was a very intensive period of work in JAT.

1. Evaluation of JAT

At the first meeting (Monday, January 7) we evaluated the activity of JAT from May 30, 2018. We have diagnosed several internal and external reasons for a difficult situation we were. We decided to solve them systematically and reactivate JAT.

We agreed that if the increase of the intensity and effectiveness of our Team won’t be significant, the achievement of our main goal that Joomla 4 will be fully accessible is at risk.

We have therefore decided that we must:

  • work on improving of current team members organization,
  • recruit new volunteers for the team,
  • involve the community in accessibility issues,
  • change the way we manage the team.

2. JAT Membership organization

We have written a detailed report on the activity of volunteers in JAT. There were 31 people on the list of JAT members and contributors. But only 14 people contacted the team in the last 6 months. Only 5 people did some tasks.

That is why we asked those who did not participate in the team to declare whether they would like to contribute.

We sent emails to 16 people. We waited one week for their decision.

As a result, we have established a new list of JAT members and contributors. Only 15 people are left on this list. We decided that every 3 months we will evaluate the activity of members and  contributors.

3. Our action plan

Next week we discussed our action plan. Proposals were presented by Stefan Wajda.

The main assumption is that we need the plan of tasks that we are able to carry out. It must be a plan built by team members and contributors. Because the team can only do what its members and contributors want to do. The work of the JAT must be based on the work of leadership team and subteams and their members.

Within the next month, each subteam will establish its own action plan and start working. Each subteam must have a specific plan - the list of "to do" tasks.

Until the subteams leaders are selected, the work of the subteams will be coordinated by the Team Leader and the Assistant Team Leader.

We gave up the weekly meetings of the whole team. This is a waste of time.

Instead of the whole team weekly meetings we will organize meetings of JAT leadership. The agenda of the JAT leadership meetings will be announced in near future. Anyone who wants to can participate in the meeting.

We want to discuss the tasks and work of the team mainly in writing meetings. We will use 3 channels:

  • our channels on GLIP,
  • our document repository on Google docs,
  • our GITHUB repository.

The measure of our activity should be:

  • test reports,
  • number of reported and implemented PR,
  • number of accessibility problems reported,
  • number of tips or tutorials written for webmasters and programmers,
  • specific activities to promote accessibility.

4. Team Leader selection and the action plan approval

From 23rd to 28th January a vote was held on the selection of a new team leader and the team's work plan approval.

15 members were entitled to vote - all active members and contributors as well as all those who confirmed their willingness to participate in JAT.

All 15 votes were cast for the election of Stefan Wajda as the team leader. New JAT action plan was approved by 14 people.

5. JAT leadership tasks

In the near future team leader and assistant team leader will focus on:

  • JAT membership organization,
  • subteams workflow reorganization,
  • conducting interviews with people who are not part of the team but are involved in Joomla accessibility improvement.

6. Tasks of the team for next month

Our plan for upcoming month:

  • prepare a list of known and unresolved accessibility issues in Joomla 4
  • start regular Joomla backend accessibility tests,
  • we will develop two tutorials: 1) How to create an accessible template and 2) How to test the accessibility of an extensions,
  • we will prepare a plan of promotional activities.