The Accessibility Drive and Little Forest Workshops

As part of the University of Edinburgh’s broader accessibility drive, the WAC team annually run workshops in coordination with our web governance software provider, Little Forest, to support web developers and managers in utilising Little Forest tools effectively to identify areas of governance and accessibility to improve upon. In doing so, we have identified several key competencies- automated accessibility report interpretation, alt text development, and Microsoft Suite content accessibility, among others- needed to develop communities of practice that holistically support accessibility across the University.

Our workshops have led to demonstrably higher levels of Little Forest and accessibility engagement from the University of Edinburgh’s web community, with workshop attendees among our most engaged users. Further, our team has noticed clear network effects as a product of workshop attendance — future attendees and Little Forest users are often recommended to our workshops by past attendees. To that end, and upon request from past attendees, we are excited to announce the continuation of our series of accessibility workshops including several new classes that cover emerging accessibility issues. For Little Forest account requests, governance support, and workshop bookings, please contact Astoria DeTuncq at astoria.detuncq@ed.ac.uk. All workshop events can be found in the Events Booking service.

Little Forest accessibility workshops:
Microsoft Suite Content: 22 Feb, 2023 at 10AM
Alt Text: 25 Jan, 2023 at 10AM
Colour Contrast: 1 Feb, 2023 at 10AM

Our First Workshop: Interpreting Little Forest Accessibility Reports

The first workshop in our series, Interpreting Little Forest Accessibility Reports, was a great success for our team. In this workshop, we explained the purpose of Little Forest within our web community and guided users through the platform’s functionality and tools. In the latter half of the workshop, we analysed a Little Forest accessibility report step-by-step, interpreting feedback into actionable steps for users. Attendance exceeded expectations by over 18% with excellent engagement throughout the workshop by attendees, positive feedback on the course content, and over 10 new Little Forest accounts created for first-time users. Below, we have attached a video recording of the workshop and will continue to do so for future workshops.