Elena Jitaru1, Ioana Moisil2, Adiana Alexandru1, Ovidiu Bica1

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Public Websites accessibility in Romania.
Present situation and expectations

• Elena Jitaru1, Ioana Moisil2, Adiana Alexandru1,
  Ovidiu Bica1
•  
• 1ICI National Institute for RD in Informatics,
  Bucharest, Romania 
• 2 ULBS Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu,
  Romania

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Abstract

• The paper reports the first results of a
  Romanian research project PRO-INCLUSIV - Methods
  and tools to create multimodal interfaces for the
  development of inclusive information systems,
  with high degree of accessibility.
•  
• One of the objectives of the project was to
  evaluate public sites for accessibility.
•  
• We are presenting the results of this evaluation
  concerning public Web sites in Romania (central
  and local public administration Web sites).

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Internet in Romania

• Web is becoming an important part of many
  peoples life,
• being a key source for information, education,
• employment and civic participation.
• Internet penetration in Romania is explosive
• 980 Internet Service Providers
• In 2005 a number of 1,8 million access places
• - dial-up access being in regress
• - Broadband access
• 41 of the total
• a rate of 96 increase over 2004
• Rate of spread of Internet in 2005 28.
• Rate of spread of Internet in 2006 39.

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e-Government Applications

• The population has shown a great interest in
  e-Government
• applications
• In 2004
• 19,8 of the population accessed the Internet in
  order to interact with public authorities and to
  obtain information
• 15,8 of the citizens used internet for
  downloading forms and 8.9 for sending filled
  forms the number reduced is due to the small
  number of available applications.
• (Source ANRC, MCTI)

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e-Government Applications

• The Romanian government has realized the
  importance of information and communication
  technology (ICT) to improve the delivery of
  information and services to citizens and
  business. That is, they have started to embrace
  the World Wide Web for delivering information and
  services to all citizens and residents.
• www.e-guvernare.ro
• a portal organized as an unique access point to
  services and information of the central and local
  public administration
• the overall interaction with the administration
  will be more efficient and comfortable, while
  reducing costs for both public and private
  entities and increasing the public trust in the
  administration
• functions
• informing the civil society regarding the
  legislation and regulations related to the
  interaction with the public administration
• it is the "unique" point for downloading the
  forms and instructions of filling them in
• the electronic space for the PC based filling in
  of the electronic forms.

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Accessibility

• Internet offers independence and freedom.
• The Web offers
• to people with disabilities many new
  opportunities
• - an easy way for accessing information
• - making purchases (e-commerce) and businesses
  (e-business)
• - communicating with the world
• - entertainment
• that does not depend on the responsiveness of
  other people.
• However, while the Web is an exciting
  technological tool, it does require innovative
  design to make it accessible to everyone,
  including people with disabilities.
• Accessibility is viewed as the global requirement
  for access to information, communication and
  social interaction of individuals with different
  abilities, requirements and preferences, in a
  variety of contexts of use (Stephanidis
  Emiliani).
• In an accessible Web the focus is on people with
  disabilities, but others benefit because
  designing for functional limitations overlaps
  with designing for situational limitations.

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i2010

• The i2010 A European Information Society for
  growth and employment initiative presents a new
  strategic framework and broad policy orientations
  to promote an open and competitive digital
  economy, emphasising Information and
  Communication Technologies (ICT) as a driver of
  inclusion and quality of life.
• One of the core objectives to achieve an
  Information Society that is inclusive provides
  high quality public services and promotes quality
  of life.
• At the same time, the lack of equal opportunities
  to access ICT can lead to exclusion.

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Romanian Strategy for the New Economy and the
Implementation of the Information Society

• The strategy is developed by the Romanian
  Ministry of Communications and Information
  Technology.
• There are several actions in order to enable
  access for all to Information Society specific
  services
• Special measures to adopt the standards for
  accessibility of information technology products
  (Design for all), in particular to improve the
  employability and social inclusion of people with
  special needs
• Review relevant legislation and standards to
  ensure conformity with the principle of
  accessibility
• Adoption of the Web Accessibility Initiative
  (WAI) guidelines for public websites
• Ensure the establishment and network connection
  of national Design-for-all centers of
  excellence.

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Romanian Research Activities

• One of the fields of the recent Excellence
  research project, launched by the Romanian
  Ministry of Education and Research, is ICT
  meeting societal challenges aiming
• to improve equal participation in the information
  society
• to prevent digital divides
• to promote assistive technology
• to promote design-for-all principles.

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National Authority

• Romanian National Authority for Persons with
  Handicap (ANPH)
• a specialized body of the central public
  administration and legal authority, subordinated
  to the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and
  Family
• coordination, at national level, the activities
  for the protection and promotion of the rights of
  the persons with handicap
• develop policies, strategies and standards to
• ensure the follow-up of the application of
  national and international regulations in the
  field
• monitor and supervise all protection and
  promotion activities related to persons with
  special needs.

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Legislation

• The article 70 of the Law concerning the
  protection and the promotion of the rights of the
  persons with handicap developed by ANPH and
  adopted by the Romanian Government requires that
  until December 31, 2007 public administrations
  act in order to provide the access of the persons
  with visual and mental disabilities to public web
  sites and to improve their access to electronic
  documents.

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Materials and methods (1)

• We have analyzed the degree of accessibility of
  public sites evaluating their compliance to W3C
  (World Wide Web Consortium) guidelines.
• We acquired a list of public sites from the
  Romanian Government portal (www.guv.ro) and from
  the Romanian information portal
  www.einformatii.ro.

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Materials and methods (2)

• We made an automated evaluation of the Web sites,
  ignoring the subset of Web accessibility
  checkpoints demanding manual checking.
• We used web accessibility desktop testing tools
• Watchfire Bobby 5.0  
• Hera, developed by the Sidar Foundation

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Materials and methods (3)

• We selected only the site home pages, the first
  page being the most visited and reflecting the
  overall accessibility of the Web site.
• The most frequent accessibility errors found by
  Bobby and Hera tools in the Romanian public sites
  were
• Provide alternative text for all images
• Provide alternative content for each OBJECT
• Provide alternative text for all images map
  hot-spot (AREAs)
• Give each frame a title
• Use relative sizing and positioning, rather than
  absolute
• Use a public text identifier in a DOCTYPE
  statement
• Make sure event handlers do not require use of a
  mouse
• Do not use the same link phrase more than once
  when the links point to different URLs
• Provide a NOFRAMES section when using FRAMEs
• Include a document TITLE
• Identify the language of the text
• Provide a summary for tables
• Separate adjacent links with more than
  whitespace.

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Results (1)

• None of the web sites we looked at are completely
  accessible to persons with
• disabilities.
• LEVEL 1 ERRORS
• Only 8 of the 125 analyzed home pages comply
  with minimum (level 1) web
• accessibility standards.
• The most common error (90 sites had this error
  and one site had 144 instances of this error on
  its home page) was the lack of alternative text
  (ALT text) for non-text elements images. image
  hotspots, applets. This presents a potentially
  serious obstacle for a user with a significant
  visual disability, and is very important for
  users with speaking browsers or with images
  switched off.
• Another priority 1 ignored is the lack of title
  for each frame (30 of analyzed sites)
• The users with disabilities cannot directly
  perceive the visual layout or configuration of
  frames
• The title provides orientating information about
  the organization of the page and helps the user
  to navigate through it
• Fortunately, the Romanian designers dont use
  generally frames, but those who utilize frame
  dont provide titles to the frames.

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Results (2)
Public Romanian Websites Level 1 (A) Compliance
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Results (3)

• LEVEL 2 ERRORS
• Level 2 errors were found in all of home pages.
• The top priority 2 error is the lack of use of
  relative sizing and positioning rather than
  absolute (92 of sites). Since users with
  intermediate visual disability may need to change
  font-size on a page, the text on a page should
  not be fixed, but must be able to adjust to the
  viewing device used.
• The second prevalent priority 2 error was use a
  public text identifier in a DOCTYPE statement
  (87 of sites).
• Many pages failed to ensure that event handlers
  are device-independent. 
• 10 of pages used the same link phrase to point
  to different URLs.
• LEVEL 3 ERRORS
• The most common Level 3 error was the failure to
  provide a summary describing the tables
  structure and purpose. This error was present in
  40 of the investigated sites.

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Results (4)

• We evaluated also the interest of stakeholders in
  
• inclusive ICTs by means of a questionnaire
• 1. web designers
• do know the priorities concerning accessibility
• minimize the importance of accessibility
•  2. managers lack knowledge about accessibility
• 3. most of development specifications did not
  address accessibility aspects
• 4. users-group were elitist and did not include
  people with disabilities.

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Future developments (1)

• The new project of our team, PRO-INCLUSIV -
  Methods and tools to create multimodal interfaces
  for the development of inclusive information
  systems, with high degree of accessibility, will
  try to correct the observed pitfalls by creating
  a core task force for the development of
  inclusive information systems, serving as a basis
  for a future network of excellence at national
  level that will address two great challenges of
  the information society
• Social and economic integration of people with
  (different degrees) of visual impairment by the
  development of multimodal interfaces and
  implementation in information systems
• Improvement of interactive systems design
  practice through the promotion and development of
  user centered design methods, under the
  universal design or design-for-all paradigms,
  with the purpose to render the information
  technology usable for as many people as possible
  and with reduced costs.

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Future developments (2)

• The design-for-all approach is addressing a broad
  spectrum of users, including elderly, disabled
  people, people with low educational level, as
  well as people that are not able to make use of
  their abilities due to a particular context of
  use limitations of the activity, special
  situations, social and physical environment, and
  equipments.
• We intend to start an interdisciplinary
  collaboration along the information technology
  lifecycle analysis, design, implementation and
  evaluation.
• PRO-INCLUSIV will create a forum of collaboration
  and debate for all actors involved in the
  prevention of the digital divide different
  categories of users, professionals in information
  technology, psychology, special psycho-pedagogy,
  associations, nongovernmental organizations, and
  institutions of the central and local public
  administration.

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Conclusions

• 1. Romanian public Websites behind with regards
  to accessibility for persons with disabilities
  due to
• lack of information and training for technical
  resources
• lack of commitment and leadership at the
  political level.
• 2. The results of our study demonstrated the need
  to increase the awareness of Web accessibility
  among the designers of Web sites and at the level
  of managers.
• 3. Only the checkpoints of Web accessibility that
  can be examinated automatically by Bobby program
  were analyzed.
• 4. Only 8 of the tested Web sites passed the
  WCAG guideline priority 1 checkpoints, even
  though
• the most violated checkpoints have technically
  uncomplicated solutions, if designers pay
  attention to them (for example to provide a text
  equivalent for every non-text element).
• Web accessibility, if ever considered, is often
  an afterthought once the Web content design is
  finished.
• 5.Cost for accessibility are low when attention
  is paid since the early design phases, while they
  are higher after the completion of the work.

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Thank you!