E-Access Bulletin Live

A new version of a survey to assess the online shopping experience of people with disabilities has launched, to find out whether businesses have improved their websites.

The first Click-Away Pound (CAP) survey launched in 2016 and uncovered a range of issues. A key finding was that 70% of people with impairments simply ‘click away’ from unusable websites when shopping online. Additionally, 80% preferred to spend their money through accessible websites rather than the cheapest.

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Video game developers have been asked to make their products more inclusive for players with disabilities by sector experts at an event in London.

In a session on ‘Accessible games’ at TechShare Pro 2018 (a wide-ranging digital accessibility conference), three speakers explained to delegates why accessibility is so important in this area and explained what changes need to be made.

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Less than one quarter of countries in a global assessment involve persons with disabilities in digital accessibility policy-making and monitoring, acting against the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a new report claims.

Developed by G3ict – the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs – the Digital Accessibility Rights Evaluation (DARE) Index measured the progress and implementation of digital accessibility for persons with disabilities in 121 countries, based on criteria set out in the CRPD. G3ict notes that the DARE Index builds on “eight years of data collection and analysis experience” from previous accessibility progress reports.

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For better or worse, the term ‘artificial intelligence’, or simply AI, still conjures up science-fiction-like images of dangerously powerful computers or malevolent robots overthrowing the human race. It still seems like something that belongs in the future, even though it’s been around for a long time and is being used by countless numbers of people on a daily basis, many without even realising.

Online retail websites, social media platforms, film and music streaming services, email filtering systems and ‘virtual assistants’ like Siri and Alexa all use AI, to name just a few uses. And as many e-Access Bulletin readers will know, those virtual assistants also have a wide range of benefits for people with disabilities. So, how can artificial intelligence be harnessed to provide as much assistance as possible for people with impairments? And how can the technology be developed in the future to be of even more use in this are?

These were two of the topics being discussed at an event in Vienna organised by the European Disability Forum (EDF), titled ‘Using artificial intelligence to enhance accessibility – opportunities and risks of emerging technologies for persons with disabilities’.

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