What is Accessibility

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Excellence through Accessibility Award
Dónal Rice ICT Accessibility Coordinator National
Disability Authority Ireland drice_at_nda.ie http//w
ww.nda.ie http//accessit.nda.ie
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National Disability Authority

• National Disability Authority
• Mission
• Promote and help secure the rights of people with
  disabilities
• Shape public policy and legislation
• Encourage accessibility of public services
• Approach
• To assist the Minister in the co-ordination and
  development of policy
• To undertake and commission relevant research
• To advise the Minister on standards
• To monitor the implementation of standards and
  codes of practice
• To recognise the good standards and quality with
  an awards system

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Current Irish Legislation the stick

• Employment Equality Act (1998)
• employment of persons with disabilities
• provision of accessible technologies to employee
• Equality Act (2004)
• reasonable accommdation gt undue hardship
• Equal Status Act (2000)
• categorises discrimination under 9 grounds, one
  of which is disability
• reasonable accomodation? case law
• Disabilities Act (2005)
• public services providers obligation to ensure
  information delivered electronically is
  accessible to people with vision impairments who
  have access to assistive technologies

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The difficulties

• Legal motivation remember the Big Stick

• This often leads to rubber stamping

simply ticking the boxes at the minimum level
to be safe
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So what is wrong with that

• Unfortunately

Just ticking the boxes leads to just the bare
minimumor unfortunately very often below that
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Encouragement - PPF

• Programme for Prosperity and Fairness - 2000
• 19 Each Government Department will ensure that
  reasonable steps are taken to make its services
  and those of agencies under its remit accessible
  to people with disabilities. To facilitate
  effective action and acceptable standards in this
  regard, the NDA will issue guidelines in
  accordance with international norms and will
  award an accessibility symbol to compliant public
  offices. Government Departments and agencies will
  take all reasonable action to qualify within five
  years.
•  
• 20 Adequate resources will be provided to the NDA
  and the Department of JELR to monitor, guide and
  audit progress towards the achievement of this
  commitment.

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Guidelines

• NDA launched the NDA IT Accessibility Guidelines
  v1.1 in 2002
• Goal of NDA IT Accessibility guidelines
• - motivate users
• - provides guidance
• - easy to use
• Technology types
• - Web
• - Public Access Teminals (e.g. ATMs,
  Information kiosks)
• - Telecommunication Devices
• - Application Software

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Excellence Through Accessibility Award

• Launch date 5 October 2005 President
  McAleese
• Committed to Accessibility
• Quality in Accessibility
• Excellence in Accessibility

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Excellence through Accessibility Award

• Main accessibility initiative in ireland
• Programme for Prosperity and Fairness 2000 - a
  commitment
• Partnership between NDA and Dept of Justice
• An awards process for Government Departments and
  their agencies
• does not apply to private sector
• 14 accessibility guidelines and a detailed
  assessment tool
• Built Environment
• Quality Customer Services
• ICT
• provision of information
• Public Access Terminal eg kiosk
• Webistes and other HTML content
• Consultation process, Pilot Study, Peer Review
• In partnership with Dept of Justice

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EtA - Aims and Objectives

• To objectively examine and encourage the
  accessibility of services provided by Government
  Departments and Agencies to people with
  disabilities.
• To allow public services explore disability in an
  equality context and the impact of society in
  creating an inclusive environment
• To provide a flexible framework for public
  services so they can proactively promote
  disability equality through their functions.

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EtA - How it works

• Structure of Tool
• 14 Guidelines
• Built Environment
• Quality Customer Services
• ICT
• 41 Criteria
• Assessment Tool - 90 Performance Indicators
• Getting started
• Briefing Meeting
• NDA Support
• Application Form
• Built Environment Audit
• Essential documentation inc Access Handbook

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EtA - How it works

• Site Visit
• Role of assessor
• 3 methods documentation, observation and
  interviews
• with staff
• Confidentiality
• Scoring
• 3 equal sections
• Scoring of 0 3
• Minimum of 1 must be scored on all performance
  indicators
• Approvals Board
• Assessors submit report
• Register applicant as Committed/Quality or
  Excellence through Accessibility
• Registration for three years
• Appeals Process
• Symbol

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EtA - How it works

• Quality Customer Services
• Commitment
• Equality
• Human Resource Management
• Procurement
• Customer Service
• Building Environment
• External environment
• Vertical and horizontal circulation
• Facilities
• Interior design
• Evacuation

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EtA - How it works

• Services delivered via ICT
• Communication Strategy
• Public Computers, Kiosks and Other Public Access
  Terminals (PATs)
• Web Accessibility

15
Communication Strategy
DRAFT

• The organisations communication strategy is
  designed, as far as
• practicable, to accommodate people with
  disabilities.
•  Criteria to be met
• The organisation has documented procedures for
  implementing its communication policy with people
  with disabilities 
• Public information is available on request, in an
  accessible form which may include
• Audio Tape
• Braille
• Electronic Format HTML, Plain Text
• Large Print
• High Contrast Print
• Easy-to-Read
• Sign language interpreters and/or Real Time
  Captioning when possible are provided at public
  consultations following a request beforehand to
  the organisation from an attendee who requires
  this service.

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Public Computers, Kiosks and other Public Access
Terminals (PATs)
DRAFT

• The organisation is committed to achieving
  conformance with relevant NDA IT Accessibility
  Guidelines for all computers, kiosks and other
  Public Access Terminals used by the public.
• Criteria to be met
• All public computers, kiosks and other public
  access terminals conform to each of the priority
  1 NDA IT Accessibility Guidelines for Public
  Access Terminals
• Any application software contained in the User
  Interface of the PAT should conform to each of
  the priority 1 NDA IT Accessibility Guidelines
  for Application Software
• Any HTML content contained in the User Interface
  of the PAT should achieve conformance with level
  Double-A with Web Accessibility Initiatives
  (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  1.0
• Organisations which have not complied with all
  Priority 1 NDA IT Accessibility Guidelines v1.1
  for Public Access Terminals are committed to
  auditing and improving the accessibility of the
  Public Access Terminals
• Where such facilities cannot be provided because
  of space, cost restrictions, etc, assistance is
  available on request to access the public
  information/service required.

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Web Accessibility
DRAFT

•  The organisation is committed to achieving
  conformance level Double-A with the Web
  Accessibility Initiatives (WAI) Web Content
  Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0.
•  Criteria to be met
•  All the organisations HTML-based information
  and services including public websites,
  HTML-based email and newsletters achieve
  conformance level Double-A with WAI WCAG 1.0
•  Organisations, which have not achieved
  conformance level Double-A with WAI WCAG 1.0, are
  committed to auditing and improving the
  accessibility of their websites
• For each of the organisations websites, the
  organisation has a web accessibility statement in
  place which shows the organisations commitment
  to reaching and maintaining conformance level
  Double-A with WAI WCAG 1.0
•  New content published to the site achieves
  conformance level Double-A with WAI WCAG 1.0.

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Questions
Dónal Rice ICT Accessibility Coordinator National
Disability Authority Ireland drice_at_nda.ie http//w
ww.nda.ie http//accessit.nda.ie