User-centred accessibility supported by distributed, cumulative authoring

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User-centred accessibility supported by
distributed, cumulative authoring

• Liddy Nevile, La Trobe University, 2005

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Preview

• Mismatch of needs and opportunities
• Just-in-case solutions
• Just-in-time solutions
• Greater dependence on the technology
• Better and easier recognition of needs

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Inaccessibility

• Not
• who has what facilities
• intellectual property rights
• who has intellectual or physical abilities
• But what the technology is not doing to help
  humans have satisfactory experiences

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Context difficulties
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Location-based difficulties
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Language difficulties
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Mobility difficulties
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Structural difficulties
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Style difficulties

• lthIgtThis is the headinglt/h1gtlth2gtIntroductio
  nlt/h2gtltpgtA little bit of text lt/pgtltulgtltligtBrea
  kfastlt/ligtltligtLunchlt/ligtltligtDinnerlt/ligtlt/ulgt
  .

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Style difficulties

• lthIgtThis is the headinglt/h1gtlth2gtIntroductio
  nlt/h2gtltpgtA little bit of text lt/pgtltulgtltligtBrea
  kfastlt/ligtltligtLunchlt/ligtltligtDinnerlt/ligtlt/ulgt
  .

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Symbolic language difficulties
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Symbolic language difficulties
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Symbolic language difficulties
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Accessibility - W3C

• "The power of the Web is in its universality.
  Access by everyone regardless of disability is an
  essential aspect. Tim
  Berners-Lee

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European Commission

• disability is not entirely an attribute of an
  individual, but rather a complex social and
  environmental construct largely imposed by
  societal attitudes and the limitations of the
  human-made environment. World
  Health Organisation

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Why worry about accessibility?

• How many people are affected?
• What is the cost of not including people with
  disabilities?
• What is the cost of including them?
• Who else will benefit?

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Quantifying Disabilities

• Three problems
• reluctance, for good reason, to label others as
  having a disability
• reluctance to self-identify, and
• ignorance of many that they have a disability in
  some given situation.

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The Microsoft Study

• Working people between 18 and 64.

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The Microsoft Study

• Disability types.

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The Microsoft Study

• Overall conclusion

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Savings -The positive case

• Fairfax Ltd is a major publisher
• Changed from HTML to XHTML / CSS
• Easy, smooth transition and roll-out
• Savings of more than 1,000,000 AUD per year in
  transmission costs alone.

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Technical solutions

• W3C WAI was set up to help solve the problem.
  WAI produces
• WCAG, ATAG and UAAG
• as specifications, techniques, technical notes,
  conformance tests, etc

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Eg Scalar Vector Graphics
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Accessibility definitions

• Universal design of resources
• Eg a video
• With closed captions
• Written transcript
• Signing
• Braille,

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Universal Accessibility

• Universal design means getting all the bits right
  when the resource is authored
• And the test is conformance of the resource with
  the W3C WAI WCAG

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BUT ..

• Even though the W3C WAI specifications are the
  best and necessary for accessibility,
• Testing for conformance with them is not a
  fail-safe way to guarantee accessibility for a
  user.

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WCAG limitations

• WCAG is a set of specifications
• Cannot be a definitive list
• Cannot exceed the technology in results
• And has priorities - whats easy vs the more
  people the better vs perfection for a few

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WCAG limitations

• Formal Investigation The Web Access and
  Inclusion for Disabled People for DRC (UK)
  tested 1000 Web sites in 2004
• Pages failed with only one fault
• Often pages that pass are not good for some users
  and
• Many would fail usability tests

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WCAG limitations

• Compliance is increasingly difficult without
  tools and the tools often are not ATAG compliant
• Expertise is usually distributed in time and
  space and so resources are too
• Individual users needs not considered

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WCAG limitations

• WCAG is excellent as a set of specifications ..
• ATAG will make a huge difference
• UAAG could make a huge difference ..

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but
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User-centred accessibility

• Start with user requirements
• Cant see screen
• Cant see colours
• Cant read text
• Cant hear
• Cant control cursor
• Cant type
• etc

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Accessibility definitions

• Matching users information and service needs
  with their needs and preferences in terms of
  intellectual and sensory engagement with, and
  control of, resources containing that information
  or service
• regardless of culture, language or disabilities

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User-centred accessibility

• Document user requirements as metadata in three
  classes
• Control
• Display (presentation modality etc)
• Content
• Simple ----gt complex descriptions
• Allow for multiple profiles, changes in profiles,
  and different contexts

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User-centred accessibility

• Search using user profile
• Evaluate components for match
• Search again for better components
• (Or create matching components)
• Assemble and present resource to user

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User-centred accessibility

• User needs are recognised
• Other needs are irrelevant
• Components can be distributed
• Effort and expertise is distributed
• Final evaluation is user-based

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User-centred accessibility

• It requires
• Accessible components
• Evaluation and results as metadata
• User and Resource profiles (metadata)
• Smart servers or Web services

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Resource accessibility

• Must be achieved just-in-time if not achieved
  just-in-case
• Must be described in metadata
• Must be trust-worthy
• Must match criteria for users needs and
  preferences

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Resource accessibility

• See, hear,touch basic modalities - often easily
  described
• Transformable text that can be represented in
  other modalities and styles not so easily
  judged and described . and partly depends on
  human judgment so expertise and reliability is
  relevant

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Resource accessibility

• Primary object
• Alternative object
• Supplementary object
• Equivalent alternative object

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AccessForAll Metadata

• User
• AccLIP - needs and preferences
• Resource
• AccMD - characteristics for AccLIP
• A statement of media/modality types hasImage,
  hasText, hasVideo, hasAudio
• An EARL statement a URI
• http//jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1024.pdf
• http//jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1025.pdf
• http//jtc1sc36.org/doc/36N1026.pdf

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AccessForAll Metadata

• Developed by IMS Global Learning Consortium and
  Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and others
• Adopted by AGLS (Australia)
• Recommended specification for IMS
• New element for DCMES
• Aopted by ISO JTC1 SC36 for education
• Considered by USB Working Group
• And others

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AccessForAll Metadata

• Implemented by
• Web-4-All (Industry Canada)
• The Inclusive Learning Exchange (TILE)
• Giunti - European educational content developers,
  SAKAI and others..

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AccessForAll Metadata

• Extensions and future work
• INCITS V2 with the universal remote console
• AnnoSource with annotations to original resources
• SWAP with alternative content
• Etc.

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So whose problem is accessibility?

• Access and Equity experts
• Content developers
• Content publishers
• Library staff
• IT managers
• Decision makers

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• Thank you.