[gui-talk] Fwd: E-Access Bulletin: Issue 115, July 2009

[Steve Pattison]

 From:    Dan Jellinek dan at headstar.com
 To:      eaccess at headstar.com

++E-ACCESS BULLETIN
Access To Technology For All, Regardless Of Ability
- ISSUE 115, July 2009.

A Headstar Publication.
http://www.headstar.com/eab/ .

Please forward this free bulletin to others (subscription details at the
end). We conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN)
Standard:
http://www.headstar.com/ten/ .


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++Issue 115 Contents.

01: RNIB Team Welcomes Off-The-Shelf iPhone Accessibility
- Includes world's first 'gesture-based' screen-reader.

02: Deafblind Web Users Engage With Social Media
- New interface hopes to encourage a 'sensory' internet.

03: Outdated 'Legacy' Systems Hindering Accessibility
- Survey also reveals finances are slowing progress.

News in Brief: 04: Innovation Rewarded - National eWell-Being
Awards; 05: Visionary Planning - national sight strategy; 06: Digital
Opportunity - for those with a hearing impairment.

Section Two: 'The Inbox' - Readers' Forum.
07: Brick Wall - BT's inaccessible website; 08: Readers' Rights -
accessible book formats; 09: Touchstone Tours - Tactile educational
resources; 10: TV Input - Audio description request.

Section Three: Research - Accessibility.
11: 'Just The Right Thing To Do': A recent survey by Bloor Research
sought to uncover the barriers to, drivers of and suggestions for the
improvement of ICT accessibility within organisations, yielding a few
surprising results. Peter Abrahams from Bloor explains the findings
and discusses implications for future work on accessibility

[Contents ends].


++Section One: News.

+01: RNIB Team Welcomes Off-The-Shelf iPhone Accessibility.

An advanced screen-reader and other accessibility features on a new
version of Apple's iPhone represent an "extremely significant
development" for a previously inaccessible technology, according to
the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).

'Off-the-shelf' features built into the iPhone 3GS allow blind and
visually impaired users to send and receive text messages and emails,
browse the internet, play music and make and receive phone calls.

The 'VoiceOver' screen-reader on the new phone also claims to be the
world's first "gesture-based screen-reader", working with the iPhone's
touch-screen to describe or read out whatever function or piece of text
the user moves their finger over, in any of 21 different languages. This
allows users to read emails or text messages, and a 'Speak Auto-text'
function will speak out letters or words being typed on the phone,
suggesting possible corrections as it proceeds.

A further gesture-based 'rotor' system activated with a circular motion
of the fingers switches the screen-reader mode backwards and forwards
between word-by-word speech and reading out individual characters.
Additionally, a voice control function allows users to make and receive
calls, play and control music through voice commands.

The RNIB says Apple has taken "a positive step" by building-in these
features for free. "All too often, blind and partially sighted people have
to rely on third-party assistive technology software and hardware in
order to make mainstream devices such as mobile phones accessible",
said Kiran Kaja, from the RNIB's digital accessibility team. "This
involves an additional cost for the user. But with Apple providing a
free VoiceOver screen-reader on all iPhone 3GS devices, blind and
partially sighted customers can now benefit from an off-the-shelf
accessible mobile phone at the same price as their sighted
counterparts."

Other accessibility features on the 3GS include a zoom function that
can dramatically magnify the entire screen of any application; an
option to change the screen display to white on black, offering higher
contrast; easily discernible tactile buttons to perform basic phone
operations; and an option to use giant font sizes when reading emails.

While praising these features, Kaja said there were one or two areas
where further improvements could yet be made. "While the iPhone
3GS includes very good accessibility features, RNIB would like Apple
to continue to look at making the iPhone usable by those who may not
be as technically savvy. They also have a role to encourage third-party
application developers to make their applications compatible with
VoiceOver."

On its website, Apple states that it is "working with iPhone software
developers so they can make their applications VoiceOver
compatible."

And you can comment on this story now, on EAB Live:
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=306


+02: Deafblind Web Users Engage With Social Media.

Social media users are being invited to think about the internet in terms
of touch, taste and smell, to raise awareness of deafblindness and
encourage deafblind people to use social networking sites, in a project
from the deafblind charity Sense.

An online 'Sensehub' portal ( http://www.sensehub.org.uk/ ) has been
created for Sense on a pro bono basis by advertising and digital agency
RMG Connect, allowing visitors to link to sense-based channels on
sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. On the Twitter channel,
for example, visitors can view streams of Tweets which contain words
like 'touch', 'taste' and 'smell', while the Facebook link takes visitors
to a group which encourages people to tag their photos with sense-
based words, rather than just people's names.

Alessandra Moscadelli, New Media Co-ordinator for Sense, said the
Sensehub was created to "promote Deafblind Awareness Week to a
young, traditionally reluctant audience, but also to draw attention to the
fact that someone who is deafblind has extreme problems accessing a
lot of the info on these websites."

As well as encouraging more deafblind communities to use social
networking and pushing developers to create more accessible
applications, Sense hopes that the Sensehub will also connect users.
"We wanted to link individual web audiences with each other - the
audience who already have experience of deafblindness to those who
are discovering it for the first time, forming a community to encourage
a sharing of content and experiences and further raising awareness",
said Moscadelli.

The Sensehub interface has proved popular so far, receiving around
2,500 hits in ten days, as well as an increase in the hub's Facebook and
Twitter channels. Though difficult to measure at such early stage,
Moscadelli estimates that when group links and numbers of 'friends'
and 'followers' on social media sites are considered, the Sensehub may
have reached up to 64,000 people.

And you can comment on this story now, on EAB Live:
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=309


+03: Outdated 'Legacy' Systems Hindering Accessibility.

A lack of accessibility in old ICT systems and lack of budget are the
two main barriers preventing organisations from making their internal
and external ICT systems more accessible for people with disabilities,
according to the results of the new survey.

These factors were each cited by 40% of respondents as 'strong' or
'very strong' barriers to implementation of accessibility in a survey
carried out by Bloor Research in conjunction with E-Access Bulletin's
publisher Headstar and Ability Magazine. The finding suggests that
providing tools for improving the accessibility of these 'legacy'
systems could be an interesting business opportunity, say the survey's
creators. Less than a quarter of respondents quoted lack of
understanding of accessibility issues as a barrier to progress.

The survey, which questioned organisations from both the public and
private sector, investigated the current and planned status of
organisations' ICT systems and identified the drivers for accessibility;
barriers to progress; and what needs to be done to remove these
barriers.

Other findings included that "meeting legal requirements" and
"enhancing corporate social responsibility" were the two main drivers
behind ICT accessibility. The survey also revealed that, in general, the
public sector is more committed to ICT accessibility than the private
sector (as noted in E-Access Bulletin's sister publication, E-
Government Bulletin:
http://www.headstar.com/egblive/?p=226 ).

NOTE: For a full report on the survey, see section three, this issue.

And you can comment on this story now, on EAB Live:
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=312


++News in Brief:

+04: Innovation Rewarded: A 'Talking bus stops' project from
Brighton and Hove City Council, in which live bus time information is
spoken to users, is the overall winner at this year's National eWell-
Being Awards hosted by the sustainability charity UK CEED. The
Royal National College for the Blind won the 'Reaching the Digitally
Excluded' category for its free 'RoboBraille' service, which
automatically translates electronic documents sent by email into
synthetic speech or Braille:
http://www.sustainitawards.co.uk/

+05: Visionary Planning: The establishment of local IT training
programmes, IT helplines and ensuring that assistive technology is
affordable are among measures proposed in the UK Vision Strategy
implementation plan for England. The plan, published in June by a
major partnership of charities, public bodies, educational bodies and
others, sets out detailed aims for improving national eye care and sight-
loss services. Further plans have been published for Northern Ireland
and Scotland:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/vision3 .

+06: Digital Opportunity: The government's new Digital Britain
strategy, aimed at boosting the UK's digital economy, is an
opportunity to address digital access for deaf and hard of hearing
people in the UK, says the Royal National Institute for Deaf People
(RNID). The report calls for an increase in broadband coverage and
access to digital technology, which could "help reduce isolation,
improve education tools and give deaf and hard of hearing people more
opportunities", said Mark Downs, Executive Director of Science and
Enterprise at RNID:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/rnid1 .

[Section One ends].


++Special Notice: Building Perfect Council Websites '09
- Accessibility On The Agenda At Headstar/Socitm Conference
http://www.headstar-events.com/councilwebsites09/ .

Accessibility of pdfs and online forms; and implementation of the new
international web access guidelines WCAG 2.0 are among workshops
on the programme at Building Perfect Council Websites '09.

The conference, now in its fifth year, is the major annual meeting for
local authority web professionals - around 300 attended last year.
Facilitators of our accessibility sessions include Ted Page of PWS, a
leading accessibility expert who has worked extensively with the BBC.

A partnership between E-Government Bulletin and the Socitm Insight
Programme, this unique event draws on the collected wisdom of ten
years of Socitm's annual 'Better Connected' review of all UK council
websites. Have a look at our website today to see the latest programme
details, and book your place:
http://www.headstar-events.com/councilwebsites09/

[Special notice ends].


++Section Two: 'The Inbox'

- Readers' Forum.

Please email all contributions or responses to:
inbox at headstar.com .

+07: Brick Wall: David Bates, a reader from Dudley in the West
Midlands, UK, writes in to describe a frustrating experience he had
recently in trying to access information on the website of a major
company; British Telecom.

"Although I am now blind and use a JAWS screen-reader, I foolishly
decided to access a short business article from a BT Business
Newsletter," he writes. "The website pages were not accessible, so I
moved to BT.com in order to report this problem.

"I imagine that there is an accessibility page somewhere which can be
found by sighted people, but I couldn't find it because general
accessibility was so poor. I then decided to enter my question in the
help section, but asking a computer why it is not accessible seems to
confuse it, and it asked for the question to be rephrased, several times.
I was no match for the computer at this game, so I clicked on an email
link which would allow me to send a message, or to unsubscribe.
Apparently, the receiving computer does not read messages, so it was
pleased to tell me that I would be unsubscribed.

"Not to be defeated, I then phoned 150, and after ten minutes of
trawling through all of the options, I decided to take the deluxe
experience of waiting to speak to a Real Person (apparently, BT have
several of these).

"The lady was very helpful but she couldn't find anything about
accessibility or give me a number for the people who operate the
website. She then looked on BT.com but could find no helpline other
than Emma, the computer who had failed to understand me an hour
earlier.

"I presume that the BT web designers occasionally interrogate their
website with a software programme, which awards them with the
required number of Brownie points, which of course makes everything
OK.

"And I suppose web designers want to create cool, exciting sites, and
do not want to be hassled by blind people who are so inconsiderate as
to try to run businesses, or to access websites - and then expect them to
be accessible? Or am I misjudging British Telecom?"

[Responses or further comments please to inbox at headstar.com ].


+08: Readers' Rights: Denise Dwyer, Access to Publishing
Development Officer with RNIB, writes in to alert readers to a
fascinating article on accessible book formats and access to publishing
- the subject of much recent debate in this column - on the publishing
news website BookBrunch. The piece laments a lack of progress in this
field, and says everyone would benefit from book formats being more
accessible.

Denise says the RNIB hopes to post a response to the piece shortly. To
read the article, see:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/book1


+09: Touchstone Tours: Margot Whitfield of the Royal Ontario
Museum in Canada writes in to say: "I have been trying to benchmark
other institutions for tactile tours, particularly on the process for
extending tactile collections in museums and on educational resources
to accompany tactile tours.

"Basically, I just wanted to know if anyone has information or a good
process at their organisation for extending their tactile collection (i.e.
whether it is through some kind of special relationship with
conservation, museum volunteers or curatorial).

"Also, I would like to know if any museum has a really nice package
of tactile tours with special educational material."

[Responses please to inbox at headstar.com].


+10: TV Input: Flávia Oliveira Machado, a masters degree student
from Brazil, writes in to ask for input with her dissertation about audio
description in Brazilian digital television.

If anyone has information on current research into use of audio
description or works in this field and would be willing to get in touch
with Flávia, please let us know.

[Responses please to inbox at headstar.com].

[Section Two ends].


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++Section Three: Research
- Accessibility.

11: 'Just The Right Thing To Do'
by Peter Abrahams

In the past year or two it has been possible to detect heightened
awareness of the need for accessibility of ICT products and services.
This has partly been brought about by court cases such as that filed
against Target.com in the US, where the National Federation of the
Blind claimed that the company's website was inaccessible and
violated disability legislation (
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=206 ).

Other factors increasing awareness of accessibility issues include new
standards such as the updated Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
2.0; increased pressure from governments to make e-government
services accessible to all; and the ongoing ratification of the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (
http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml ).

These drivers are complemented by the realisation that in the sluggish
depths of the current economic slowdown, organisations need to reach
out to as wide a customer base as possible. Two ways of doing this are
to improve your brand image by being seen to take your social
responsibilities seriously; and to make your products and services
reach out to a wider audience by including the specific needs of groups
such as the young, the old, the underprivileged, those with disabilities,
and the cash-rich but time-poor.

In this light, accessibility is one significant part of a larger drive that
comes under the title of inclusivity or design for all. If ICT systems are
going to be available to the widest possible audience, then this must
include making them accessible to people with disabilities.

It is also the case that the process of designing for people with
disabilities will highlight requirements that will help a much wider
audience. For example, ease of navigation of a web site is essential to a
person using a screen-reader or a dictation system, but the extra care
put into the structure of the site to benefit this group will benefit other
groups such as those who have not used computers before or those who
have time pressures.

With all these factors in mind, Bloor Research's Accessibility Practice,
in conjunction with E-Access Bulletin's publisher Headstar and Ability
Magazine, have just completed a survey of attitudes to ICT
accessibility.

The survey investigated the current and planned status of
organisations' ICT systems and identified the drivers for accessibility;
the barriers that were slowing down the implementation of accessible
systems; and the actions that need to be taken by the industry to
remove these barriers.

The survey, which questioned organisations from both the public and
private sector, shows that the level of commitment to accessibility
across organisations varies dramatically, with the bottom fifth of
respondents showing little interest in or future plans for accessibility.
In general, the public sector was found to be more committed to
accessibility and had plans to improve further. This is not surprising, as
'Section 508' accessibility legislation in the US and the Disability
Equality Duty in the UK are aimed at the public sector's procurement
of ICT. Furthermore, the public sector has a general duty to serve all
the population and to be inclusive, whereas the private sector does not
see accessibility as a duty.

Survey respondents were asked to state what they saw as the major
drivers for accessibility within their organisations. Meeting legal
requirements and enhancing corporate social responsibility were both
rated strong or very strong drivers by 70% of the respondents, whereas
only about 15% rated increased revenue or reduced cost as a driver.
This suggests that further research is needed into the creation of
business cases for accessibility.

The survey also asked for other suggestions for reasons or factors that
might encourage accessibility. Among common themes emerging from
this included that: "It is just the right thing to do", and that
organisations should "lead by example". However, more pragmatic
reasons also appeared, such as "makes test automation easier", and
"improves search engine optimisation".

The survey then asked about barriers to implementation of
accessibility. In response to this, 'legacy systems not being accessible'
and 'lack of budget' were each cited by 40% of respondents as strong
or very strong barriers. This suggests that providing tools for
improving the accessibility of legacy systems could be an interesting
business opportunity. Surprisingly, less than a quarter quoted lack of
understanding or inadequacy of tools as a barrier.

Finally, the survey asked an open question: "Suggest one improvement
to accessibility support"; a question also asked at Headstar's recent e-
Access 09 conference (
http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess09/ ).
Both conference and survey prompted many interesting suggestions,
with one of the main themes being a need to increase awareness of the
issues, barriers and benefits of accessibility across all the stakeholders
(which includes users, procuring departments, and IT at all levels
within an organisation). A quoted example of this problem involved a
government department which was promoting accessible ICT to local
businesses, while at the same time another department was promoting a
non-accessible solution to the same businesses.

Other suggestions for accessibility support included better testing tools
which are easier to use, and products that were accessible out-of-the-
box.

The full results of the survey will be published on the Bloor website (
http://www.bloorresearch.com/ )
in early July.

And you can comment on this story now, on EAB Live:
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=315

[Section Three ends].


++Special Notice: Fortune Cookie
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Visit our web site at:
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Julie Howell is our Director of Accessibility. Email Julie at:
Julie.Howell at fortunecookie.co.uk .

[Special notice ends]


++End Notes.

+How to Receive the Bulletin.

To subscribe to this free monthly bulletin, email
eab-subs at headstar.com
with 'subscribe eab' in the subject header. You can list other email
addresses to subscribe in the body of the message. Please encourage all
your colleagues to sign up! To unsubscribe at any time, put
'unsubscribe eab' in the subject header.

Please send comments on coverage or leads to Dan Jellinek at:
dan at headstar.com .

Copyright 2009 Headstar Ltd http://www.headstar.com .
The Bulletin may be reproduced as long as all parts including this
copyright notice are included, and as long as people are always
encouraged to subscribe with us individually by email. Please also
inform the editor when you are reproducing our content. Sections of
the bulletin may be quoted as long as they are clearly sourced as 'taken
from e-access bulletin, a free monthly email newsletter', and our web
site address:
http://www.headstar.com/eab
is also cited.

+Personnel:
Editor - Dan Jellinek.
Reporter: Tristan Parker.
Editorial advisor - Kevin Carey.

ISSN 1476-6337.

[Issue 115 ends.]

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963