1. Accessibility to ICTs and Standards for Persons with Disabilities
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities Havana, Cuba  8 – 9 February 2011
Accessibility to ICTs and Standards for Persons with Disabilities
Andrea Saks, Convener
ITU-T Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility & Human Factors (JCA-AHF)
Cynthia Waddell, Juris Doctor and Executive Director
International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet (ICDRI)

2. UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Adopted by the UN General Assembly 13 December 2006
Entered into force 3 May 2008
Signed by 147 States Parties and ratified by 98 (as of January 2011)
Contains many accessible ICT provisions throughout the treaty
Article 9 refers to accessibility and ICT’s

3. What is Universal Design
UNCRPD Definition: The design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. It does not apply to assistive devices for particular groups of persons with disabilities where this is needed.
9(2)(h) “to promote the design, development, production and distribution of accessible ICTs and systems at an early stage, so that these technologies and systems become accessible at minimum cost.”

4. Who does the technical work? ITU-T Study Groups & Questions
ITU-T Study Group 2 Operational aspects of service provision and telecommunications management
Question 4/2 Human factors related issues for improvement of the quality of life through international telecommunications
Question 4/2 studies the needs of children, persons with age-related disabilities, and persons who may or may not have a disability 4

5. Who does the technical work? ITU-T Study Groups & Questions
Multimedia coding, systems and applications
Lead study group on Accessibility
Question 26/16 addresses Accessibility to Multimedia Systems and Services for persons with disabilities
It assists standards writers to include accessibility features in their standards
It encourages standards writers to use Universal Design from the beginning of the standards process
It reviews other standards developed in other study groups to see if additional accessibility work is needed 5

6. ITU-T Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility and Human Factors (JCA-AHF)
Coordinates the work between Question 4 and Question 26
Helps the rest of ITU, including ITU-R and ITU-D, on accessibility and human factors
Invites organizations and individuals with experience in accessibility and human factors and persons with disabilities to attend its meetings and to share best practices
Meets twice a year and is open for outside participation
For more information:
Resolution 70 also formed the JCA-AHF.
Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility and Human Factors (JCA-AHF) coordinates related standardization activities and act as a single point of contact within ITU on accessibility matters standards, good practices and technical references on digital accessibility.

7. Examples of ITU Standards in Use in the World Today for Persons with Disabilities
A new resolution sets out ways for ITU to mainstream people with disabilities in all its work. Entitled “Telecommunication/information and communication technology accessibility for persons with disabilities, including age-related disabilities”, the resolution recognizes a number of international agreements.
Within ITU, it may be possible to expand the fellowship programme to enable delegates with disabilities to participate in the work of the Union.
Another useful step will be to identify, document and disseminate examples of best practices among ITU Member States and Sector Members.
Member States and Sector Members can help by developing guidelines to enhance the accessibility, compatibility and usability of telecommunication/ICT services, products and terminals. They can also introduce telecommunication/ICT services that are appropriate for people with disabilities, both in terms of technology and cost. 7 7

8. ITU-T V.18: ITU’s First Accessibility Standard for Deaf Telecommunications
Consented in 1995 and unified 5 different types of text telephones so that they would work back to back
Text Telephones:
Convert typed characters into tones that are sent through the telephone lines so that deaf people can read them in real time
Used with a "relay" service enabling deaf people to communicate with hearing people (an operator reads what a deaf person types and types back to the deaf person what a hearing person says) 8 8

9. ITU-T E.161: The Tactile Identifier
To help people who are blind & visually impaired to use the telephone keypad
The “Bump” on key “5” is the tactile identifier

10. ITU-T F.703 ”Total Conversation”
Puts user in the center of the communication society
Is an audiovisual conversation service providing real-time transfer of video, text and voice between users
Users with Total Conversation Real-time text Devices
Text, Sign & Captioned Relay Services
Emergency services Outreach 112 , 911,... 10

11. How a deaf-blind person uses multimedia communication
Example: A deaf-blind woman in a Total Conversation call, producing sign-language and receiving text by using assistive technology/Refreshable Braille Display
We have done this by teaming up with G3ict to develop an online toolkit for policy makers on e-Accessibility
In addition, we are implementing projects in developing countries to establish community ICT centres equipped with assistive technologies so that persons with disabilities can partake in ICT literacy training as well as ICT-enabled job training.
We run capacity building workshops and explore these issues through ITU-D Study Group Question 20/1
Finally, we are currently developing a module in our Connect a School, Connect a Community toolkit that will identify best practices in incorporating ICTs in the education of children and providing vocational and educational training to adult persons with disabilities. We hope to publish that in the 4th quarter of 2010.

12. Video/Text Relay Services
Operator translating
sign language, voice, text
3-party
Signing user
Talking, Voice and Text 12 12

13. ITU-T Y.1901: Making IPTV accessible
Audio description describing to the blind the visual action on the screen
Captions enabling people with hearing loss to understand the dialogue
Supplementary video to display sign language interpretation
Many other tools such as the ability of the user to record accessibility features

14. Sign language and lip-reading via video
ITU-T Supplement 1 to H-series consented in 1999
Establishes a minimum of 25 frames per second to be usable for sign language and lip-reading in real-time

15. Captioning Real-time transcript of speakers on screen
Mandatory for hearing impaired participants
Useful for persons whose native language is not being spoken
Captioning service can be provided on site or remotely
Allows remote participation as captioning can be viewed on an URL on the web

16. The latest ITU Accessibility Landmark PP10 Resolution 175
The first ITU Plenipotentiary Resolution on Accessibility is consented in Guadalajara, Mexico October 2010:
“Telecommunication/information and communication technology accessibility for persons with disabilities, including age-related disabilities”
A new resolution sets out ways for ITU to mainstream people with disabilities in all its work. Entitled “Telecommunication/information and communication technology accessibility for persons with disabilities, including age-related disabilities”, the resolution recognizes a number of international agreements.
Within ITU, it may be possible to expand the fellowship programme to enable delegates with disabilities to participate in the work of the Union.
Another useful step will be to identify, document and disseminate examples of best practices among ITU Member States and Sector Members.
Member States and Sector Members can help by developing guidelines to enhance the accessibility, compatibility and usability of telecommunication/ICT services, products and terminals. They can also introduce telecommunication/ICT services that are appropriate for people with disabilities, both in terms of technology and cost. 16 16

17. Conclusions
International Standards are important for accessibility because without them we do not have Interoperability
Standards are not enough because without Implementation by Industry, we do not have Accessibility
Without Universal Design being used from the very beginning of the standard making process, Accessibility implementation becomes expensive with retro refitting
ITU-T has opened opportunities for academia, research bodies and persons with disabilities to participate in the accessibility standards work 17

18. Thanks for your attention
Additional information slides are attached; For more information on ITU Accessibility see: 18

19. Additional Information19

20. ITU Accessibility Events in 2010
Joint WIPO-ITU Accessibility Workshop Geneva, Switzerland, February 2010
ITU workshop on Accessibility to ICTs Expo-10, Shanghai, China, 23 July 2010
DCAD workshop on “From Athens to Vilnius: beyond the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities” IGF, Vilnius, Lithuania, 14 – 17 September 2010
DCAD - EBU workshop on “Can mobile ‘Apps’ create a new golden age of Accessibility?”, IGF, Vilnius, Lithuania, 14 – 17 September 2010
World Standard Cooperation (ITU, ISO, IEC) Workshop on Accessibility and the contribution of international standards, Geneva, Switzerland, 3 – 5 November 2010
Joint ITU-EBU Workshop “Media access to all”, Geneva, Switzerland, 23 – 24 November 2010 20

21. ITU-T’s Accessibility Landmarks
First international standards body to address accessibility issues - in 1991
1994 the international text telephone standard, Recommendation ITU-T V.18, was published
A major landmark tying together text telephone protocols allowing different - previously incompatible – text phones in different countries to communicate
World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly 2008 (WTSA-08): first ITU Resolution addressing accessibility
World Telecommunication Development Conference 2010 (WTDC-10): Resolution
14 October 2010: World Standards Day: “Standards make the world accessible for all”
First Plenipotentiary Accessibility Resolution PP Resolution 175 21 21

22. Some ITU-T Standards on Accessibility
ITU-T V.18 for text telephony
ITU-T T.140 as the general presentation protocol for text conversation,
ITU-T T.134 for text conversation in the ITU-T T.120 data conferencing environment,
Annex G to ITU-T H.323 for text conversation in ITU-T H.323 packet multimedia environment.
Annex L to ITU-T H.324 for text conversation in low bit-rate multimedia applications
ITU-T F.703 – Multimedia conversation service description. Includes definitions of the accessible conversational services
H-series Supplement 1 – Application profile – Sign language and lip reading real time conversation using low bit rate video communication
ITU-T F.790 – Telecommunications accessibility guidelines for older persons and persons with disabilities
ITU-T Y.1901, Requirements for the support of IPTV services
Technical Paper: Telecommunications Accessibility Checklist 22 22