E-Access Bulletin Live

A long-awaited updated version of the main international standard for making websites accessible to people with disabilities is expected to be published in December, E-Access Bulletin has learned.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C – www.w3c.org) have been in development for several years.

The first version of the WCAG guidelines now dates back around a decade, and though it has proved a vital tool for raising awareness of accessibility issues it has long been seen as over-technical, complex and unclear in many situations.

Version 2.0 is set to address many of these problems by moving away from rigid technical ‘checkpoints’ to more flexible ‘success criteria.’ Read the rest of this entry »

People with visual impairments are less likely to be employed than people with other disabilities, according to a report on the UK labour market experiences of people with sight problems prepared for the RNIB by the Institute of Employment Studies (fastlink.headstar.com/ies1).

The report was compiled through secondary analysis of the UK Labour Force Survey (LFS – fastlink.headstar.com/lfs1) over the period July 2004 to June 2007. The LFS recorded 184,000 people of working age in the UK who describe themselves as having  seeing difficulties’. Of those 108,000 are classed as disabled, 95,000 of whom have a ‘work-limiting’ disability.

The RNIB report finds people over 55 are three times more likely to have seeing difficulties as those in the 16-24 age bracket, which is a greater increase with age than with other kinds of disabilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Organisations should not use the economic downturn as a reason not to carry out work to make their websites more accessible to people with disabilities, a leading analyst said this week.

In fact there is extensive evidence that an economic downturn is a good time to increase such activity, with significant opportunities to increase market share, Ted Page of PWS web services told the Law Society of Scotland’s ‘Nothing But The Net’ conference (www.lawscot.org.uk/update/NBTN).
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With the long-awaited appearance of version 2 of the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) now expected in December, the spotlight is set to fall once more on the workings of this key international standards body.

The consortium, known as W3C, was founded in 1994 by the inventor of the web Tim Berners-Lee, who remains its director. It functions as a developer and repository of key technical standards and protocols that are needed to be shared by technology companies and users to ensure that the web remains open and universal.

With a current membership of more than 400 organisations, from large multinational technology companies to universities and charities, W3C has three main global bases: the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) at the Sophia Antipolis technology park in the South of France; Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Technology Laboratory; and Keio University in Japan.

The consortium has a core staff of around 70, with around 30 in Europe, 30 in the US and 10 Japan. But the actual headcount of those involved in its work is more than 500 if a tally is taken of everyone in the consortium’s working groups, interest groups, and the wider community.
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Mobile phones and other mobile technologies have great potential to help older people, but existing methods of evaluating older people’s access requirements for such technologies are inadequate, according to a paper presented at last week’s British HCI (human-computer interaction) 2008 conference at Liverpool John Moores University (www.hci2008.org).

The paper, by Sofianiza Malik and Alistair Edwards from the Department of Computer Science, University of York, was presented at a workshop on HCI and the older population.
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Following a two-year legal battle, US superstore chain Target has agreed to pay six million dollars to settle a class action brought against it for the inaccessibility of its website.

The company also agreed to make changes to its site to ensure it is accessible, to pay for regular independent accessibility testing of its site, and to pay the legal fees of those who brought the case, although it does not accept liability or agree that the website is inaccessible (fastlink.headstar.com/target1 ).
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A new device called STEP-HEAR (stephear.com), enabling blind and partially sighted people to navigate in public places,
is among technologies reviewed by the RNIB’s radio station Insight Radio as part of its reporting from Vision 2008 (www.vision2008.ca).

Vision 2008, held this summer in Montreal, Canada, is the world’s biggest conference on low vision.

STEP-HEAR is a relatively low cost device consisting of two parts. A base station includes a speaker and a small recording device onto which the user can record, re-record or store sounds and messages. The second part, a remote control, can be worn as a pendant, strapped to the wrist or carried in a pocket. When a blind person carrying the remote control walks within range of the base the remote vibrates, prompting the user to press a button to hear the message or sound recorded.
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By Majeed Saleh and Dan Jellinek
For years the web accessibility community has been waiting for clear legal precedent to be set enforcing the accessibility of websites for people with disabilities, but to date the wait has gone largely unrewarded.

The ruling cited most often dates back to 2000, when blind web user Bruce Maguire won 20,000 Australian Dollars from the organisers of the Sydney Olympics for failing to address the inaccessibility of the games’ website (for case details see contenu.nu/socog.html and E-Access Bulletin back issues including August 2008). But the ruling was that of an equal opportunity commission rather than a full court, and has little resonance outside that country.

Since then, a series of cases brought in the UK and elsewhere have been settled out of court with payments made to plaintiffs, often in secret. Such settlements are frustrating: for while it is understandable that complainants, many of whom are people with disabilities, are inclined to accept offers of financial compensation in return for dropping their claims, only completed court cases can set a legal precedent.
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Here’s a new development at YouTube that could prove very useful for many – if its implementation catches on.

www.youtube.com/blog?entry=mi8D3ntPgFQ

A web database helping UK education institutions to obtain learning materials from publishing houses in accessible formats has been launched by educational IT access agency TechDis.

TechDis is funded by JISC, the education sector’s Joint Information Systems Committee, to support the sector in achieving greater technology inclusion. In an audio interview or ‘podcast’ published on the JISC website, TechDis director Sal Cooke said the Publisher Lookup UK service (www.publisherlookup.org.uk) had been developed in partnership with the Publishers Association.

The website allows people to search an online database in which publishers have entered a single point of contact for library staff or other staff seeking to support students with learning difficulties to obtain alternative formats. It is thought to be the first resource of its kind in Europe, Cooke said, though a similar service already exists in the US (www.publisherlookup.org). Read the rest of this entry »