Showing papers on "Web accessibility published in 2001"
TL;DR: This Working Draft of version 2.0 of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines focuses on checkpoints and attempts to apply checkpoints to a wider range of technologies and to use wording that may be understood by a more varied audience.
1,258 citations
Patent•
IBM1
TL;DR: In this article, a web accessibility service apparatus and method is proposed to provide accessibility tools to disabled users on a per-use basis, where the revenue may be obtained from content suppliers as consideration to the accessibility tool provider for providing another customer that otherwise may not have had access to their content.
Abstract: A web accessibility service apparatus and method is provided. The web accessibility service apparatus and method provides accessibility tools to disabled users on a per-use basis. The provider of the accessibility tool is paid for each use of the accessibility tool to access content on the data network. The revenue may be obtained from content suppliers as consideration to the accessibility tool provider for providing another customer that otherwise may not have had access to their content. In this way, the accessibility tool is provided to the user at no cost, yet the provider of the accessibility tool is compensated for each use of their accessibility tool.
155 citations
TL;DR: This study looks at the universities that, according to US News & World Report, have the nation’s 24 most highly ranked schools of library and information science (SLIS), and finds low Web page accessibility at the nation's leading library schools gives cause for concern.
Abstract: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates that library programs and services must be accessible to people with disabilities. In an era in which much information resides in digitalized form on the WWW, the ADA’s mandate must be interpreted as applying not only to physical space but also to cyberspace. Just as in the physical world, proper design is a crucial issue. Only accessibly designed Web pages ensure that all people, including those with print disabilities, have access to Web‐based information. Previous studies indicate that a large proportion of campus and university library Web pages are not accessible. This study looks at the universities that, according to US News & World Report, have the nation’s 24 most highly ranked schools of library and information science (SLIS). The findings give cause for concern. It is reasonable to assume that low Web page accessibility at the nation’s leading library schools reflects a lack of awareness about this issue among the leaders and trainers in the library profession.
108 citations
Book•
28 Jun 2001
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the development of Ergonomics Standards for Accessibility in the Design Process, and the ISO Approach to the Development of Er gonomics standards for accessibility.
Abstract: Part I: Introduction 1. Why Inclusive Design Guidelines? Part II: General Issues in the Design Process 2. Training, Verification and Evaluation of Guidelines 3. Accessibility and Usability Requirements for ITCs for Disabled and Elderly People: A Functional Classification Approach 4. On the Validity of Design Guidelines and the Role of Standardisation 5. Markets and Regulations Part III: Tools for Accessing and Using Guidelines 6. Managing Accessibilty Guidelines During User Interface Design 7. Managing HCI Guidelines with Hypertext on the WWW 8. Bobby: A Validation Tool for Disability Access on the WWW Part 4: Existing Guidelines 9. Nordic Guidlines for Computer Accessibility 10. Guidelines for Web Accessibility 11. Userfit: User Centred Design in Assistive Technology 12. The ISO Approach to the Development of Ergonomics Standards for Accessibility Part 5: Guidelines for Specific Application Areas 13. Guidelines for Telecommunications 14. Public Access Terminals 15. Accessible Systems for Transport 16. Guidelines for the Development of Home Automation Products 17. User Friendly Software for Computer-Based Instruction and Learning Materials Part 6: The Future 18. Telecommunications- Accessibility and Future Directions
102 citations
TL;DR: An overview of the topic of Web access for people with disabilities is presented and the four basic disabilities are described and the benefits of making sites accessible, as well as the reasons that more sites are not accessible.
Abstract: The article presents an overview of the topic of Web access for people with disabilities. First, we describe the four basic disabilities and explain the benefits of making sites accessible, as well as the reasons that more sites are not accessible. We review the relevant laws regarding Web access, and then discuss efforts being made by vendors and professional organizations, especially Microsoft and the World Wide Web Consortium, to encourage accessibility. Finally, we describe major resources that Web developers might consult to assist them in making their sites accessible to people with disabilities.
82 citations
TL;DR: Continuing innovations in pedagogical uses of the Web are consistent with the discipline’s long-standing commitment to the expansion of literacy and the importance of the 1999 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as a tool for instructors seeking to make their Web documents accessible to learners and colleagues who have disabilities.
43 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper seeks to address issues facing visually impaired users of the World-Wide-Web by extending current guidelines and design methods to include the real-world mobility concepts of orientation, memory, environment, preview and the purpose of the task at hand.
Abstract: The ‘Towel’ project seeks to find solutions to problems encountered by visually impaired users when travelling in the World-Wide-Web (Web) by leveraging solutions found in real-world mobility. Visually impaired users find mobility on the Web particularly difficult because of the reliance of hypermedia on visual layout. Hypertext design and usability guidelines have traditionally concentrated upon navigation to facilitate this mobility; consequently other aspects of travel are neglected. This paper seeks to address these issues by extending current guidelines and design methods to include the real-world mobility concepts of orientation, memory, environment, preview and the purpose of the task at hand.
39 citations
TL;DR: The study found some difficulties in the use of the Guidelines that were similar to those identified by previous research and there were unexpected results regarding the accessbility of certain HTML elements.
Abstract: This study evaluates the Web Content Accessibility (WCA) guidelines, developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The first aim of this study was to investigate whether the Guidelines can be used effectively by Web page authors. To this end students of HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) used the Guidelines to adapt Web pages. The second aim of the study was to examine whether pages developed using the Guidelines are accessible to visually impaired people. In order to achieve this visually impaired Web users assessed the accessibility of the pages developed by the Web page authors. The study found some difficulties in the use of the Guidelines that were similar to those identified by previous research. There were unexpected results regarding the accessbility of certain HTML elements.
30 citations
10 Nov 2001
TL;DR: The role that plain language can play in supporting accessibility, particularly where textual content must be translated into sign language or speech, is described, where plain language is clear and simple language which is both readable and understandable by the audience for which it is intended.
Abstract: Within the endeavour of work to increase the accessibility of Web pages, little attention has been paid to the contribution that simplifying the textual content could make. Furthermore, attention needs to be given to alternative renderings of Web page content as the Web becomes more graphically and aurally orientated. This paper describes the role that plain language can play in supporting accessibility, particularly where textual content must be translated into sign language or speech, where plain language is clear and simple language which is both readable and understandable by the audience for which it is intended. It concludes that the use of plain language in Web sites can aid accessibility for many categories of user including those with hearing or visual disabilities, or both as is the case with the deaf-blind population, but also for the population as a whole.
27 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the physical barriers that limit access to postsecondary training and education for members of special populations at community colleges and propose a solution to these barriers through the use of technology.
Abstract: Community colleges frequently are the points of access to postsecondary training and education for members of special populations. Physical barriers are obvious problems that limit access for indiv...
26 citations
10 Nov 2001
TL;DR: KAI (Accessibility Kit for the Internet) considers both the user and the designer, and classifies the different components of a published Web page and presents them to the user according to his/her needs, which improves their accessibility.
Abstract: Currently, the vast majority of content published on the Internet is inaccessible to visually impaired users. However, designers have guidelines that guarantee the accessibility of pages as well as software tools to facilitate this task. It is necessary to consider the user's perspective too, allowing him/her to participate in the restructuring or presentation process of content. There are few software tools which are able to do this. KAI (Accessibility Kit for the Internet) considers both the user and the designer. It classifies the different components of a published Web page and presents them to the user according to his/her needs. At the same time, it improves their accessibility. KAI is based on a new language, BML (Blind Markup Language) that helps authors develop better structured pages. It provides two levels of independence: original Web code and user platform. KAI includes a mixed audio/touch browser that enables selective reading of contents.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The passage of the American with Disabilities Act in 1990 has had a major impact on the physical infrastructure of college campuses in the US, but the growing ADA impact on educational applications of technology, particularly in the use of the Web, is less well-known.
Abstract: The passage of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 has had a major impact on the physical infrastructure of college campuses in the US. Less well-known is the growing ADA impact on educational applications of technology, particularly in the use of the Web. Parallel to the beginnings of ADA-inspired awareness of this issue has come the approval by the Federal Office of Management and Budget on December 21, 2000, of Section 508 (of the Rehabilitation Act) accessibility standards. Government agencies will have six months from this date to make their Web sites accessible to users with disabilities. After that date, federal agencies -- and presumably non-compliant institutions receiving federal funds -- will be subject to law suits. Many regions in the US have instituted accessibility guidelines as well. This is not just a US issue; there are a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, and Japan, which have recently issued policies relating to Web accessibility. But legality aside, it makes good sense to make instructional technology as accessible as possible. There are emerging standards for achieving this goal. Interestingly, new Web delivery options can benefit from following the same guidelines. Why should language teachers be concerned with accessibility? Can't the small number of users with special needs be accommodated individually? In response, one could ask, why worry about the limited number of Internet users who don't know English? Just as we should be concerned with monolingualism on the Web and the social-economic "digital divide," so too should we be concerned about problematic access to learning materials on the part of even a small numbers of students. In fact, the number is probably larger than one might assume. In the US there are different estimates on the number of students with disabilities -- one recent analysis gives a count of 8%. Using the classroom retrofitting analogy, it's not a question of building new, separate classrooms, but of changing classroom configurations to accommodate all users. It turns out that the mainstreaming approach ends up benefiting all users. The Web Accessibility Initiative What makes Web pages inaccessible? That all depends on the nature of the disability. Visually impaired users might need a much larger font, or a sharp contrast between background and foreground color. Color-blind users need to have color-transmitted information translated into distinguishable shades of gray or delineated in some other way. Blind users may be accessing Web pages using a screen reader, which uses speech synthesis to read the pages and may be confused by improperly coded pages. Physically impaired users might have difficulty in typing key combinations. Other users might need to navigate with a non-traditional input device. The W3C, the standards-setting body for the World Wide Web, has addressed these issues through its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), which issued a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (version 1.0) in May, 1999. They were followed in 2000 by WAI guidelines for user agents and authoring tools. The WAI Content Guidelines include a list of checkpoints for evaluating Web pages for their degree of accessibility to people with physical, visual, hearing and cognitive/neurological disabilities. Each checkpoint is assigned one of three priority levels. Priority One are checkpoints which must be met to prevent lack of access for some groups of users. Compliance to Priority One checkpoints is known as "Single-A" conformance. Priority Two ("Double-A" conformance) are checkpoints which should be met to prevent difficulties in access for some users, and Priority Three ("Triple-A" conformance) are checkpoints which authors may satisfy to ensure good access for all users. The fact that there are three ordered levels of conformance allows Web site developers to focus first on eliminating the most serious barriers to accessibility. …
01 Oct 2001
TL;DR: The accessibility approval was found to correlate significantly with overall usability ratings for all groups, except the commercial web site group, and the usability and accessibility of governmental, organizational, educational and commercial aging/health-related web sites were compared.
Abstract: This study is aimed at answering whether aging/health-related web sites of different domain extensions (i.e. .com, .edu, .gov and .org) differ in their accessibility and usability, and whether these two measures are correlated. The usability and accessibility of governmental, organizational, educational and commercial aging/health-related web sites were compared using two automatic evaluation tools: Bobby and LIFT. The governmental web site group has the highest compliance with Web site Content Accessibility Guide although only 52% got an approved status. The accessibility approval was found to correlate significantly with overall usability ratings for all groups, except the commercial web site group.
24 Oct 2001
TL;DR: Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1998 requires that all electronic information used by federal agencies be accessible to people with vision, hearing, and mobility impairments.
Abstract: Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1998 requires that all electronic information used by federal agencies be accessible to people with vision, hearing, and mobility impairments. Section 508 only applies to federal agencies at this time. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the W3C defines three levels of priority for Web accessibility. Some of the Section 508 requirements are based on Priority I of the WAI. However, WAI recommendations are entirely voluntary. Even though there is no mandate to impose these requirements on commercial software or web pages, most of these requirements are not difficult to meet. If you are involved in the design and development and documentation of software applications, or Web pages, you should know how to apply accessibility features to your applications.
TL;DR: The Internet and the World Wide Web are growing at unprecedented rates. More and more teachers are authoring school or classroom web pages as discussed by the authors, and such pages have particular potential for use in rural are...
Abstract: The Internet and the World Wide Web are growing at unprecedented rates. More and more teachers are authoring school or classroom web pages. Such pages have particular potential for use in rural are...
Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: This project uses a proxy server to transcode web pages according to userspecified preferences and capabilities, and discusses a research project designed to make the web more usable by elderly citizens.
Abstract: With elderly citizens becoming an increasingly large proportion of the population in many countries, social as well as economic considerations suggest that they must be considered in the development of current and future technologies. This paper addresses issues of Internet access, and discusses a research project designed to make the web more usable by elderly citizens. This project uses a proxy server to transcode web pages according to userspecified preferences and capabilities. Users access web pages as usual, with no specialized hardware required.
Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 2001TL;DR: The Secretariado Nacional para a Reabilitacao e Integracao das Pessoas com Deficiencia - Programa CITE IV.
Abstract: Secretariado Nacional para a Reabilitacao e Integracao das Pessoas com Deficiencia - Programa CITE IV.
22 May 2001
TL;DR: This article describes the work that has been done in Portugal with regard to the Information Society and citizens with special needs as a result of legislation, policies, participation in international initiatives, and the implementation of a plan of action.
Abstract: This article describes the work that has been done in Portugal with regard to the Information Society and citizens with special needs (i.e. citizens with disabilities, the elderly and the long-term bed-ridden) as a result of legislation (government resolutions), Ministry of Science and Technology policies (creating a special unit), participation in international initiatives (on-line discussion forum on the eEurope document), and the implementation of a plan of action, the basic goals of which were to provide accessibility to the Information Society for these citizens: access to the Internet, adapting or creating accessibility to initiatives being implemented as part of the Information Society to make them as inclusive as possible, and providing these citizens with infrastructures, equipment and training in new technologies. It is essential to look to the future in terms of full use of all the potential of the new technologies, when it comes to both products and services.
TL;DR: This article describes some general accessibility guidelines to follow when creating Web pages and discusses the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), called the Web Accessibility Initiatives (WAI).
Abstract: Library Web developers can improve their Web pages and work towards accessibility by all user groups. This article describes some general accessibility guidelines to follow when creating Web pages. It discusses the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), called the Web Accessibility Initiatives (WAI). This article focuses attention on the accessibility of Web pages to users with visual impairments, auditory impairments, and mobility impairments. Accessibility guidelines for these user groups are suggested. Another important aspect of creating accessible Web pages is to test the pages during and after development. Online products that test accessibility are discussed as well as additional test methods, such as user input.
31 Mar 2001
TL;DR: The role of children as expert evaluators in the assessment of accessibility and usability of a number of websites primarily aimed at children and how children's awareness of accessibility issues can be raised through such a process is discussed.
Abstract: This paper discusses the role of children as expert evaluators in the assessment of accessibility and usability of a number of websites primarily aimed at children. It also discusses how children's awareness of accessibility issues can be raised through such a process.
Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 2001
Journal Article•
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: The paper discusses recent web Accessibility Audits produced by the authors – audits that have the dual aims of raising accessibility levels of the subject sites and the general awareness of accessible design principles.
Abstract: The paper discusses recent web Accessibility Audits produced by the authors [8] – audits that have the dual aims of raising accessibility levels of the subject sites and the general awareness of accessible design principles. The presentation of the information has been shaped by the desire that it should be digestible by both technical and administrative/managerial audiences. It is hoped that the process will help to raise awareness of accessible web design issues and hence help to raise the general level of accessibility of web based information.
TL;DR: Current tools, standards and guidelines in accessibility such as WAI, RNIB Digital Access Campaign, Information Age Government Champions guidelines, Bobby validator, Access Adobe and the Macromedia Dreamweaver Accessibility Extension are reviewed.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine the existing tools and guidance available to museums, archives and libraries, and then to consider new technologies such as accessible Portable Document Format files and additional modules for existing web development software. The article reviews current tools, standards and guidelines in accessibility such as WAI, RNIB Digital Access Campaign, Information Age Government Champions guidelines, Bobby validator, Access Adobe and the Macromedia Dreamweaver Accessibility Extension. Two Case Studies concerning accessibility are included.
Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 2001
01 Jan 2001
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper performed association rule mining and sequence pattern mining against the access log which was accumulated at NTT Software Mobile Info Search portal site and achieved substantial speed up through parallel SQL execution.
Abstract: Web mining can be classified into two categories, Web access log mining and Web structure mining. We performed association rule mining and sequence pattern mining against the access log which was accumulated at NTT Software Mobile Info Search portal site. Detail web log mining process and the rules we derived are reported in this paper. The parallel association rule mining is explored on large scale PC cluster system. Parallelism is key to improve the performance. We achieved substantial speed up through parallel SQL execution.