1. Roberto Torena Cristobal Community Facilitator eAccessibility practice, policy, monitoring and impact 16 th June 2010

2. What does eAccessibility mean? Background Objective Scope Challenge and required improvements Performance Accessibility and usability Functionalities of the community tools Opportunities of the eAccessibility community Policy Monitoring and impact Practice Contents

3. What does eAccessibility mean?

4. 2007. Start of INREDIS research project. Led by Technosite, with a duration of 4 years and a budget of 23.6M, it carries out research in the field of accessible and interoperable technologies (http://www.inredis.es/).http://www.inredis.es/ 2009. INREDIS scientific director launches the INREDIS community in ePractice. 2010. The INREDIS community turns into the eAccessibility practice, policy, monitoring and impact community. Openness to members beyond INREDIS consortium Augmentation of the scope to cover new topics (e.g. policies, impact measurement, etc.) Background

5. eAccessibility means overcoming the technical barriers and difficulties that people with disabilities, including many elderly people, experience when trying to participate on equal terms in the information society. (*) Beyond the focus on people with disabilities, eAccessibility is about good interfaces that make possible for all people, regardless of their abilities, to use and take advantage of technology. This community seeks to become a forum for exchanging knowledge and experiences on all aspect relating to eAccessibility. (*) quoted from the Communications "Towards an Accessible Information Society", COM(2008) 804 Objective

6. Its scope is the eAccessibility field, notably: Policy. Initiatives from public authorities, such as legislation, standards or subsidy schemes. Monitoring and impact. Indicators, surveys, analysis of impact, business models, etc. Practice. Relevant experiences not falling under any of the two previous categories, projects, technological solutions, trends, etc. Scope

7. Acknowledgements: Challenge and required improvements

8. The major challenge for the community is a low activity of the community members, thus leading to a loss of interest and consequently loss of members. In addition to the dinamisation activities of the community facilitators, some improvements in the epractice portals are required in: Performance Accessibility and usability Functionalities of the community tools Challenge and required improvements (1/4)

9. Increase speed dramatically. It may be the most important point in order to avoid discouraging the participation. Information sometimes disappears. E.g. The page "learn more about this community" in the e-accessibility community. Challenge and required improvements (2/4). Performance

10. Main accessibility barriers: Validation errors Inaccessible frames Device dependence Text alternatives for images Section headings Absolute units of measure in CSS Links not meaningful out of context Inaccessible edit controls Poor contrast Effects of poor accessibility Loss of credibility Reduced participation Message not communicated clearly Challenge and required improvements (3/4). Accessibility and usability

11. Community blogs with the same functionalities that the central blog (real editing facilities, creating lists, real hyperlinks, adding images, etc.) Otherwise adding blog posts to the general blog more attractive than adding blog posts to a community Add an existing post from the portal blog to your community blog. (Available on release 3?) Editing facilities available in all description creation pages (e.g. community description pages, shared resources, etc.). Facilitate the information retrieval, e.g. by a list of most popular tags when creating a post, filtering by multiple tags, a complete list of available tags, etc. Challenge and required improvements (4/4). Functionalities of the community tools

12. The improvement in the portal performance, accessibility and usability, and in the communities functionalities will lead to: An increment in the activity of the community members An increment in the interest of the portal to potential new members An improvement in the awareness of the portal among key stakeholders Turn epractice into a reference portal in eAccessibility in Europe Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (1/4)

13. Diffusion of best practices in policy initiatives and instruments to advance accessibility to ICTs Dissemination of EC initiatives (e.g. Mandate 376 on public procurement policy and practice for accessible ICT products and services) Discussion of the policy differences in: time scales, web sites addressed, legal and non-legal intervention approaches, monitoring, administrative ruling, certification schemes, court cases, etc. Dissemination and discussion of relevant studies, e.g.: Study on Monitoring eAccessibility (http://www.eaccessibility- monitoring.eu/)http://www.eaccessibility- monitoring.eu/ Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (2/4). Policy

14. Discussion of key issues: Accessibility evaluation and conformance assessment of WCAG 2.0 Benchmarking methodologies Pros and cons of third party certification vs. self declaration Raising awareness of the business case for eAccessibility Discussion on the impact of the eAccessibility at micro and macroeconomic level. Dissemination and discussion of relevant studies, e.g.: Study on Monitoring eAccessibility Study on economic assessment for improving eAccessibility services and products (http://www.eaccessibility-impacts.eu/)http://www.eaccessibility-impacts.eu/ Study on internal market for Inclusive and assistive ICT Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (3/4). Monitoring and impact

15. Diffusion and discussion of technological trends and best practices to design with accessibility criteria: Emerging Web 2.0 services Content Management Systems (CMS) and Authoring Tools Digital TV and interactive TV Total Conversation solutions Fixed and Mobile telephony Self-service terminals (including, ATMs, information kiosks, ticketing and vending machines) Assistive Technologies HW&SW Etc. Dissemination and discussion of relevant projects, e.g.: REACH 112 (http://www.reach112.eu/)http://www.reach112.eu/ AEGIS (http://www.aegis-project.eu/)http://www.aegis-project.eu/ ACCESSIBLE (http://www.accessible-eu.org/)http://www.accessible-eu.org/ Opportunities of the eAccessibility community (4/4). Practice

16. Join us!!!! http://www.epractice.eu/community/eaccessibility http://www.epractice.eu/community/eaccessibility

17. Thanks for your attention Roberto Torena Cristóbal rtorena@technosite.es