[nfb-talk] Fw: E-Access Bulletin: October 2006

[Christopher McMillan]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dan Jellinek" <dan at headstar.com>
To: <eaccess at headstar.com>
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 11:10 AM
Subject: E-Access Bulletin: October 2006


++E-ACCESS BULLETIN
- ISSUE 82, OCTOBER 2006.

Technology news for people with vision impairment
( http://www.headstar.com/eab/ ).
Sponsored by:
RNIB
( http://www.rnib.org.uk )
BT Age and Disability Unit
( http://www.btplc.com/age_disability/ )
Ford Motor Company
( http://www.ford.co.uk )

NOTE: 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/ .


++Issue 82 Contents.

++Section One: News.

01: Blended Broadband Services Could 'Transform Lives'
- accessibility expert maps out future possibilities.

02: US Court Sends Message Of Hope To Blind Americans
- anti-discrimination law applies to retail websites.

03: Expert Software Will Analyse User Needs
- EU funding for inclusive technology project.

04: All UK Retail Websites Fail Basic Accessibility Standard
- survey finds poor performance among market leaders.

News in Brief: 05: Talking Mobile - phone screen reader released; 06:
Game On - accessible games maker launched; 07: Multimedia
Initiative - guidance for web developers launched.

Section Two: 'The Inbox' - Readers' Forum.
08: Open Response - Linux screen reader feedback; 09: E-Forums
Continued - online groups discussed; 10: Reader Feedback - screen
reader request answered.

Section Three: Conference Report - e-Access'06.
11: Time to Rock The Boat: At E-Access Bulletin's recent annual
conference e-Access'06, BBC age and disability correspondent Peter
White called for disabled and older people to work together in the
battle for accessibility. Mel Poluck was there.

Section Four: Focus - Website Accessibility.
12: Better Than A Manual: A blind screen reader user and resident of
Dudley in the UK contacted his local council's web team after finding
the content of Dudley's website hard to access. The subsequent
exchange of emails shows that these problems can be overcome with
benefits for all members of the community.

[Contents ends].


++Sponsored Notice: BT Internet Rangers
- How young people can help bridge the digital divide.

BT Internet Rangers is an initiative celebrating the role young people
play in helping their elders get online. The initiative was launched in
2003 after research revealed nearly a third of parents and grandparents
had been taught or encouraged to use the internet by a young person.

The search is on to find the BT Internet Ranger of the year 2006. Open
to anyone under the age of 16, young people can enter themselves or
be nominated by someone they've helped.

There are 11 laptop computers up for grabs - the winner will also win
a family trip to Cornwall and a VIP tour of the world's fastest internet
café at the BT Satellite Earth Station in Goonhilly.
http://www.btinternetrangers.co.uk .

[Sponsored Notice ends]


Section One: News.


+01: Blended Broadband Services Could 'Transform Lives'.

Access to simultaneous, multi-channel services over the internet is set
to transform the way disabled people use online services, according to
a new report launched at the e-Access'06 conference
( http:///www.headstar.com/eaccess06 ).

"Blended transactions" will in future be the "most remarkable
manifestation of the use of broadband for disabled people," said the
report's author Kevin Carey at the annual conference on access to
technologies by people with a disability.

So-called "blended" or "hybrid" applications have the potential to
deliver help to the user simultaneously through more than one channel,
minimizing the barriers that disabilities often present said Carey, who
is director of digital inclusion charity HumanITy and vice-chair of the
RNIB.

For example, if confronted with an online form a user could contact a
human advisor by activating an on-screen link to call for assistance.
Using internet telephony based services - or voice over IP (VoIP) - he
or she could talk to the advisor while filling out an online form, for
example, and both parties would have access to the form.

Carey suggested this hybrid model could also combat the social
exclusion experienced by older and disabled people. "An always-on
broadband community network" could be used for "virtual
communities of support" he said, as well as reduce feelings of
isolation.

To fund this blended approach to broadband services, the public sector
should collaborate with charities and the private sector to work out a
distribution model whereby the public sector would pay a basic
subscription to a supplier, suggested Carey. "Individuals could then top
up with special services such as mobile wireless. This would save a
huge cost in over-engineered hardware, installation, maintenance and
upgrading," he said.


NOTE: For more on this, see Kevin Carey's recently published report
'Broadband and Disability'
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/bt3 ),
published by HumanITy and sponsored by BT in association with
Ability magazine and E-Access Bulletin.


+02: US Court Sends Message Of Hope To Blind Americans.

A landmark ruling in a US federal court has established that US anti-
discrimination law applies to online services provided by retailers,
opening the way for vision impaired citizens to take legal action
against the owners of inaccessible websites.

At a hearing in California, federal district court Judge Marilyn Hall
Patel rejected a claim by the retailer Target that anti-discrimination law
such as Americans with Disability Act (ADA), does not apply to online
services. The case against Target, which operates 1,300 stores in 47
states, was filed as a class action lawsuit on behalf of all vision
impaired citizens unable to access the Target website
( http://fastlink.headstar.com/ada2 ).

"The message that this case sends to blind people in the US is that
gratuitous technological barriers to their participation in the
mainstream of American life will not be tolerated," said Daniel
Goldstein, of Brown, Goldstein and Levy LLP, acting for the National
Federation of the Blind, and a blind college student Bruce "BJ" Sexton.

It is alleged that Target's website prevents blind customers from
browsing and purchasing products online, and accessing corporate
information such as employment opportunities, investor news, and
company policies. "The ruling by the court in the Target case is the
first federal court ruling to hold that a commercial retailer's website is
subject to the ADA," Goldstein told E-Access Bulletin.

"The significance for other retailers using websites to supplement their
commercial activity is that they need to make their websites accessible
to the blind," he said. "The parties will now engage in what is called
discovery - the securing of information from one's adversary on
matters relevant to the prosecution and defense of the case," said
Goldstein.


+03: Expert Software Will Analyse User Needs.

An EU-funded project is underway to develop "intelligent" software
that automatically learns how a particular user accesses web-based
services, and offers to adjust the user interface when appropriate.

The three year DIADEM project, co-ordinated by Brunel University in
the UK, will see software developed in Norway and Italy and piloted at
the city councils of Turin in Italy and Sheffield in the UK.

DIADEM is based on widely used 'expert systems' technology. It will
monitor input from users, build a profile of the services they are likely
to need, and offer to adjust the interface according to their preferences.

"DIADEM will work in the background until the pattern of key strokes
[or use of the mouse] suggests the user is having difficulties," Tony
Elliman, project leader at Brunel University, told E-Access Bulletin.
"By matching the pattern to general information about the task and the
type of problems that can arise, it will then be able to offer appropriate
help."

Assistance could come in the form of completing the information in a
form's field or "box," rephrasing a question, or modifying the order in
which questions on the form are answered and speech output may be
included to assist users with a vision impairment.

Funded with three million pounds from the EU's e-inclusion project
( http://www.einclusion-eu.org/ ),
other project participants are: the Norwegian National Computer
Centre, Norsk Regnesentral, an independent, non-profit foundation that
carries out research and development projects; IT supplier MORE in
Norway; and state owned IT services for the Piemonte region,
CSI-Piemonte, in Italy.

Sheffield will address issues surrounding use of the technology in
public places such as libraries, while in Oslo, Norway, technology
company and consultancy Bluegarden will develop its use in the
workplace, conducting user testing with around 40 employees of the
national postal service.



+04: All UK Retail Websites Fail Basic Accessibility Standard.

The UK's top online shopping sites all fail to meet basic web
accessibility guidelines, a survey of the top 30 retail websites has
found.

According to research by web usability consultancy Nomensa, not one
of the homepages reviewed reached achieved 'level A' compliance -
the minimum level of accessibility - according to the World Wide Web
Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). And all
but one of the 30 websites reviewed used graphical text and 28 sites
did not provide appropriate text descriptions for images, 'alt tags,' to
show vision impaired visitors what is on screen.

Pop-up windows, inaccessible to screen reader and screen magnifier
users were found on 25 of the websites. And just three of the sites
surveyed were found to have made an effort to improve the
accessibility of their websites: John Lewis, Marks and Spencer and
Tesco.

The websites under scrutiny included: online book and music shop
Amazon, mobile phone company Carphone Warehouse, computer
company Dell, retail giant Marks and Spencer, and supermarket Tesco.

The study was carried out by web usability company Nomensa, which
said businesses risk alienating over than 10 million disabled people in
the UK by designing websites with low accessibility. The report said:
"Almost without exception, online retailers are not taking web
accessibility, customer experience or profitability seriously."


++News in Brief:

+05: Talking Mobile: The first screen reader for smart phones powered
by the Windows Mobile platform has been released, enabling users to
manage call lists; send and receive SMS and email; record voice notes;
and share data with other devices such as mobile phones, Personal
Digital Assistants (PDAs) and laptops. Mobile Speak SmartPhone is
developed by Spanish company Code Factory:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/smart10 .

+06: Game On: A prototype of a tool allowing vision-impaired people
to create their own computer game is to go live in February 2007.
'Audio game maker' has been created by the Bartiméus Accessibility
foundation in the Netherlands:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/game1 .

+07: Multimedia Initiative: The first draft of guidance for website
developers to create accessible multimedia content using has been
released by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The Accessible Rich Internet
Application suite will help developers make rich, dynamic web content
accessible to people with disabilities:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/wai1 .


[Section One ends].


++Special Notice: Voice Over IP (VoIP) In The Public Sector
- 24 October 2006
- Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), London
http://www.headstar-events.com/voip06/ .

Within five to 10 years, analysts predict that traditional voice
telecommunications will be a thing of the past. Increasingly, voice
calls are already being carried using internet technologies and cost
savings, productivity gains, and specialist new services such as
teleconferencing are all there to be exploited.

For the second year, E-Government Bulletin is hosting a seminar for
all public sector bodies and their private sector partners who are keen
to find out more and understand how they can exploit the new VoIP
technologies to the full.

For more information and to register, see:
http://www.headstar-events.com/voip06/ .

[Special Notice ends].


++Special Notice: Matthew Taylor Is Keynote At 'e-Democracy '06.'
- 16 November 2006
- CBI Conference Centre, Centre Point, London.

Matthew Taylor, chief adviser on political strategy in the Prime
Minister's Strategy Unit, is now confirmed as our keynote speaker at
e-Democracy '06, the UK's largest ever dedicated e-democracy
conference and exhibition.

Topics covered include e-voting; the role of the internet in political
campaigning in the UK, US and worldwide; citizen-representative
dialogue using new technologies; grassroots movements and the net;
webcasting meetings; online policy consultation; and much more.

Other speakers include Mary Reid, former Chair, Local E-Democracy
National Project; Tom Steinberg, Director, MySociety; and Liz
Barclay, Presenter, You and Yours, BBC Radio 4. For more
information and to register see:
http://www.headstar-events.com/edemocracy06/ .

[Special Notice ends]


++Section Two: 'The Inbox'
- Readers' Forum.

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

+08: Open Response: Tim Pennick of Suffolk in the UK responds to
DPM Weerakkody's request in the September issue on Linux open
source screen readers: "A good place to start looking is the website of
the Blinux project:
http://leb.net/blinux/ ,
though I'm not sure if this is still being kept up-to-date.

And Steve Cutway, Information Access Specialist in the IT Services
department of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada also responds "I
am aware of two open source projects currently under way: the
Speakup project:
http://linux-speakup.org/
and the Orca GNOME Live! project:
http://live.gnome.org/Orca .
[Responses to inbox at headstar.com] .


+09: E-Forums Continued: Steve Cutway also contributes to the
discussion on accessible online forums in the June, July and August
issues of the bulletin: "I agree with the writer [Deborah Hart from
Women in London group Microyster] who suggested a Mailman
approach [is] more practical. They can generate an impossible amount
of email but given the challenges many blind and vision impaired
computer users face accessing too many websites, email discussion
groups may still be a better bet.

"I am totally blind and have been involved with access technology for
more than 30 years and I still prefer email correspondence even if it
isn't instant! A very good free Mailman service in North America is
Freelists."
( http://www.freelists.org ).

On a different subject, Steve asks: "Are the Dr Who accessible DVDs
available yet commercially? The BBC has a store in Toronto and I'll go
and buy the complete set when they are."
[Responses to inbox at headstar.com] .


+10: Reader Feedback: In response to Don Wessels from South Africa
who requested information on Thunder screen reader in the September
issue, Roger Wilson-Hinds, director of Screenreader.net who
developed Thunder writes: "We have been using Thunder here since
the beginning of the year and it is especially good and easy with
WebbIE, its own text browser. Since the launch, we have received
messages from all over the world from pleased customers so we can
advise Don and others to try Thunder first before paying out on more
costly alternatives. It's totally free for personal home use. We welcome
feedback."
[Responses to inbox at headstar.com] .


[Inbox ends]


++Section Three - Conference Report
- e-Access'06.

+11: Time To Rock The Boat
by Mel Poluck.

With a meagre five per cent of books published in the UK available in
formats accessible to people with vision impairments, it's no wonder
BBC age and disability correspondent Peter White was in combative
mood at last month's 'e-Access'06' event, the annual conference
organised by E-Access Bulletin.
( http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess06/ ).

"We're talking about equality and natural justice that people have the
same access to information as everyone else," White told the audience.
"We need to make people understand how important this is: I'm not
convinced agents, booksellers and publishers have got the message.
Maybe the time has come for rocking the boat," said White.

Of the few books accessible to vision-impaired readers, those
published in electronic formats are much more convenient to carry
around than printed formats such as Braille, for example. "I thought it
was going to be impossible, to pluck a book off the shelf and read it
like other people," said White, describing holidays when he and his
wife would argue over suitcase space because his Braille books took up
so much room.

While there is an ever-expanding range of media on which to listen to
accessible books - MP3 player; podcast and CD - it remains the case
that 95 per cent of titles published in the UK are not accessible,
blocking out a massive chunk of reading material on the market. "We
need the same choice as everyone else," he said. "[That's] one thing to
give absolute priority to," White said.

The decision to develop accessible products or features of products,
may boil down to the perception of the disability market, White told
the audience. For example, manufacturers are happy to add text or
camera facilities to mobile phones and leave it to the consumer
whether or not they are used, said White. But, as soon as the
"disability" label is associated with a product or feature at the
conceptual or market research stage, manufacturers think of this as a
"minority market" and are put off, he said.

In convincing the manufacturers, publishers and those who ultimately
decide on of the importance of accessibility, the numbers game is
crucial, he told delegates. "You need to convince people you're a big
and powerful lobby." Higher figures give you "political capital," he
said.

But there is a fine line to walk between arguing this case and leaving
manufacturers feeling misled. An example is the accessible talking
radio from Pure. "[Pure] were disappointed with the results," White
told delegates. "Take-up was astonishing in terms of numbers but not
astonishing in terms of numbers you need to make a profit," he said.
"They felt misled."

But the answer to the fight for accessibility may lie in manufacturers
tapping in to the burgeoning proportion of older people in the UK
population. "The older generation boom" - that's where the market is,"
White said. Now, technology companies need to be investing in the
"grey pound," said White.

So, apart from convincing the private sector of the "natural justice" in
designing products and services for people with disabilities, now is the
time to forge alliances with other groups in society. "You need to
convince people you are a big and powerful lobby," White said. "It's in
our interest as a community, older people and non-working disabled
people to get on the digital bandwagon," said White. And in turn this
could prove to be a sure-fire way to win the "numbers game," he said.

[Section three ends].


++Section Four - Focus
- Website Accessibility.

+12: Better Than A Manual

A blind, elderly resident of Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council
(DMBC) in the UK found difficulties with navigating his council's
website using the JAWS screen reader. The following is the ensuing
email exchange between the resident, David Bates, and the council
web team. This extract shows that although accessing public services
online can be a problem for some users, these problems can be
overcome with benefits for all members of the community.

>From David Bates, sent 25 July 2006:

Hi, I spoke to you about blind residents accessing the Dudley website
with a screen reader. After a few hours I could eventually find most of
the departments, but this is very laborious as many of the same links
have to be listened to over and over again on each page. This is
accentuated by the length and complexity of the site.

Remember that the blind reader won't know which page he is on
without keying in the required keystrokes to read out the page title, and
the similarity of each page beginning is very confusing to listen to, and
closing an opened page requires several keystrokes to operate the Back
button.

Listening to the Home page with up to 117 lines is a tedious task, with
subsequent links and subject pages repeating the same list - could this
format perhaps be [made] more logical and simpler to understand? If
you try out your computer using JAWS, with the monitor turned off,
I'm sure that you will find this suggested navigation format easier and
quicker to use.

>From Stuart Orford, Web Developer DMBC, sent July 26, 2006:

David, thanks for the feedback: it's good to get a real user's perspective
rather than working from what the various accessibility and usability
organisations say we should do. I've thought about setting up a quick
fix that should help in using the site. The idea to use a 'skip navigation'
or 'header' [link] has been considered before in the past but
unfortunately not implemented. However, since your email I've had a
look at our main style template on the test system and put in a few
tweaks which I'd like to run past you first.

I've added a 'skip to content' link at the very top of the page which will
always be the first link on every page of the site. If selected, this link
would bypass the header area and the navigation menu, linking you to
the title of the page content itself.

At the end of the 'contents,' I've added two links. The first one is a
duplicate of the 'skip to content' which would take you back the start
of the page content, missing the header and navigation menu. The
second would be a 'skip to menu' [link] which would drop you at
the top of the main navigation.


>From David Bates, sent 30 July 2006:

Hi. Your suggestion for skip links sounds very helpful, also the careful
wording of such links would be of immense help to less computer
literate users. I imagine council websites are intended to appeal to a
wider spectrum of users than almost any other sites, and this
requirement must make their formatting very difficult.
Old people like me tend to think of a website as being like a printed
catalogue, where you look down the contents page, find your subject,
and turn to the page indicated. Finding that this page is then a copy of
the one which has just been read is very confusing. A blind user might
then press the required keystrokes to read out the title of the page, or
perhaps the 'back' keystroke to close that page and start over again. The
skip links that you suggest would remove this confusion.
If the screen controls such as text size have to be at the top of each new
page, the skip link could land the cursor below these controls to read
out a duplicate of the page link title. Or the cursor could land on
[wording such as:] 'the above controls are to help make the screen
more readable,' immediately above the title line, which could also
contain the relevant phone number.
This layout would also make perfect sense to sighted users providing
that the focus line for the cursor was somewhere on the opening screen
of the new page.
As blind users rely on the synthetic voice to read out the screen text
line by line, and to also speak each key as it is pressed this is much
slower than for a sighted person, [so] extra links make the task much
longer. The 'welcome' page took me 7 minutes to listen to and
contained a selection of screen controls, some difficult to understand.
Alternatively I could tab through the headings in about 3 minutes and
miss out some important items such as the council phone number. This
format is probably very interesting for those surfing the website for
entertainment, but frustrating for those looking for a specific page.
Each link could lead to a detailed subject menu which would keep the
user in their chosen section and moving onwards to their target subject
with fewer irrelevant links to read on the way.

>From Stuart Orford, sent 09 August 2006:

David, I've amended the Dudley site to now include the various 'skip
to links.' The first link on the page is now a 'go to content' which will
drop you at the page title and ignore all the headers and the menu. At
the end of the page content there are two links: 'go to menu' and 'go to
homepage.' The first will take you back the menu and the second
will reload the Dudley site at the homepage again.

It's not possible to add another link at the end to jump back to the start
of the page content. The reason is that I'd have to have the link titled
'go to content' because of W3C accessibility guidelines
( http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ ),
as we cannot have a links on a web page that go to the same page with
different link text.

We have been thinking about the header area and have made a note of
your suggestions but nothing is decided yet as we need to consult with
our Marketing team. The menu navigation system is somewhat lengthy
but was set up based on a national list of service areas. The thought
behind this was that if all councils adopted it then if you go to another
local authority site the menu list should be the same and save
confusion. This will most likely change in the future as further
guidance is published.
Finally, David Bates told E-Access Bulletin: "Ideally every website
designer should have access to a computer with a screen reader, on
which they should have to demonstrate their website using sound only,
and with the monitor switched off. The missing picture would be worth
a thousand words!"
NOTE: If readers have experiences of particularly good - or bad -
exchanges with online service providers, please let us know. We may
publish a representative sample in future editions of the bulletin. Email
the editor on inbox at headstar.com .
 [Section Four ends].


++Special Notice: Web Accessibility Forum.

Accessify Forum is a discussion forum devoted to all topics relating to
web accessibility. Topics cover everything from 'Beginners' and 'Site
building and testing' through to projects such as the new accessibility
testing tool WaiZilla and the accessibility of the open source forum
software itself.

All you need to register is a working email address, so come along and
join in the fun at:
http://www.accessifyforum.com .

[Special notice ends].


++Special Notice: Braille Translations.

Braille Translations provides a fast, cost-effective, high quality service
of translating any document into Braille. We are able to provide Braille
menus, public leaflets and business cards in Braille and help make you
compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act. We can translate
from large print, audio tape or audio CD.

We can also help with premises accessibility including Braille Tactile
Signs for toilets and other doors.

All work is proof-read before dispatch and we are able to provide an
express 24-hour service. Please call our offices for an immediate
quotation or for further information on Freephone number 08000 190
946; Mobile: 07903 996533; email ghow at brailletranslations.co.uk or
see:
http://www.brailletranslations.co.uk .


++End Notes.

+How to Receive the Bulletin.

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You can list other email addresses to subscribe in the body of the
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Please send comments on coverage or leads to Dan Jellinek at:
dan at headstar.com .

Copyright 2006 Headstar Ltd http://www.headstar.com .
The Bulletin may be reproduced as long as all parts including this
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+Personnel:
Editor - Dan Jellinek
Deputy editor - Derek Parkinson
Senior reporter - Mel Poluck
Technical advisor - Nick Apostolidis
Editorial advisor - Kevin Carey.

ISSN 1476-6337 .

[Issue ends.]



Sincerely,

Christopher McMillan
Rehabilitation Engineer
http://christophermmcmillan.spaces.live.com
chrismcmillan at earthlink.net
203 404 7275   Work Number
203 286 2156   Fax Number
Chrismcmillan   Skype Username
chrismcmillan at earthlink.net Windows Messenger Username