Roberto Torena CristobalCommunity Facilitator

eAccessibility practice, policy, monitoring and impact

16th June 2010

• What does eAccessibility mean?

• Background

• Objective

• Scope

• Challenge and required improvements• Performance• Accessibility and usability• Functionalities of the community tools

• Opportunities of the eAccessibility community • Policy• Monitoring and impact• Practice

Contents

What does eAccessibility mean?

• 2007. Start of INREDIS research project. Led by Technosite, with a duration of 4 years and a budget of €23.6M, it carries out research in the field of accessible and interoperable technologies (http://www.inredis.es/).

• 2009. INREDIS scientific director launches the INREDIS community in ePractice.

• 2010. The INREDIS community turns into the “eAccessibility practice, policy, monitoring and impact” community.

• Openness to members beyond INREDIS consortium• Augmentation of the scope to cover new topics (e.g. policies, impact measurement, etc.)

Background

• “eAccessibility means overcoming the technical barriers and difficulties that people with disabilities, including many elderly people, experience when trying to participate on equal terms in the information society.” (*)

• Beyond the focus on people with disabilities, eAccessibility is about good interfaces that make possible for all people, regardless of their abilities, to use and take advantage of technology.

• This community seeks to become a forum for exchanging knowledge and experiences on all aspect relating to eAccessibility.

(*) quoted from the Communications "Towards an Accessible Information Society", COM(2008) 804

Objective

• Its scope is the eAccessibility field, notably:

• Policy. Initiatives from public authorities, such as legislation, standards or subsidy schemes.

• Monitoring and impact. Indicators, surveys, analysis of impact, business models, etc.

• Practice. Relevant experiences not falling under any of the two previous categories, projects, technological solutions, trends, etc.

Scope

Acknowledgements:

Challenge and required improvements

• The major challenge for the community is a low activity of the community members, thus leading to a loss of interest and consequently loss of members.

• In addition to the dinamisation activities of the community facilitators, some improvements in the epractice portals are required in:

• Performance• Accessibility and usability• Functionalities of the community tools

Challenge and required improvements (1/4)

• Increase speed dramatically. It may be the most important point in order to avoid discouraging the participation.

• Information sometimes disappears. E.g. The page "learn more about this community" in the e-accessibility community.

Challenge and required improvements (2/4). Performance

• Main accessibility barriers:• Validation errors• Inaccessible frames• Device dependence• Text alternatives for images• Section headings• Absolute units of measure in CSS• Links not meaningful out of context• Inaccessible edit controls• Poor contrast

• Effects of poor accessibility• Loss of credibility• Reduced participation• Message not communicated clearly

Challenge and required improvements (3/4). Accessibility and usability

• Community blogs with the same functionalities that the central blog (real editing facilities, creating lists, real hyperlinks, adding images, etc.)

• Otherwise adding blog posts to the general blog more attractive than adding blog posts to a community

• Add an existing post from the portal blog to your community blog. (Available on release 3?)

• Editing facilities available in all description creation pages (e.g. community description pages, shared resources, etc.).

• Facilitate the information retrieval, e.g. by a list of most popular tags when creating a post, filtering by multiple tags, a complete list of available tags, etc.

Challenge and required improvements (4/4). Functionalities of the community tools

• The improvement in the portal performance, accessibility and usability, and in the communities’ functionalities will lead to:

• An increment in the activity of the community members

• An increment in the interest of the portal to potential new members

• An improvement in the awareness of the portal among key stakeholders

• Turn epractice into a reference portal in eAccessibility in Europe

Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (1/4)

• Diffusion of best practices in policy initiatives and instruments to advance accessibility to ICTs

• Dissemination of EC initiatives (e.g. Mandate 376 on public procurement policy and practice for accessible ICT products and services)

• Discussion of the policy differences in: time scales, web sites addressed, legal and non-legal intervention approaches, monitoring, administrative ruling, certification schemes, court cases, etc.

• Dissemination and discussion of relevant studies, e.g.:• Study on Monitoring eAccessibility (http://www.eaccessibility-monitoring.eu/)

Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (2/4). Policy

• Discussion of key issues:• Accessibility evaluation and conformance assessment of WCAG 2.0• Benchmarking methodologies• Pros and cons of third party certification vs. self declaration

• Raising awareness of the business case for eAccessibility

• Discussion on the impact of the eAccessibility at micro and macroeconomic level.

• Dissemination and discussion of relevant studies, e.g.:• Study on Monitoring eAccessibility• Study on economic assessment for improving eAccessibility services and products (http://www.eaccessibility-impacts.eu/)• Study on internal market for Inclusive and assistive ICT

Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (3/4). Monitoring and impact

• Diffusion and discussion of technological trends and best practices to design with accessibility criteria:

• Emerging Web 2.0 services • Content Management Systems (CMS) and Authoring Tools• Digital TV and interactive TV• Total Conversation solutions • Fixed and Mobile telephony • Self-service terminals (including, ATMs, information kiosks, ticketing and vending machines)• Assistive Technologies HW&SW• Etc.

• Dissemination and discussion of relevant projects, e.g.:• REACH 112 (http://www.reach112.eu/)• AEGIS (http://www.aegis-project.eu/)• ACCESSIBLE (http://www.accessible-eu.org/)

Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (4/4). Practice

Join us!!!! http://www.epractice.eu/community/eaccessibility

Thanks for your attention

Roberto Torena Cristóbal

rtorena@technosite.es