[gui-talk] Fwd: E-Access Bulletin: Issue 109, January 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 109, January 2009.

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

Sponsored by:
Ford Motor Company
( http://www.ford.co.uk ).

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/ .


++E-Access '09: Technology For All
- Access To All Technologies By People With Disabilities
- Fifth Annual Conference And Exhibition
http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess09/

In an ageing population, and in tough economic times, ensuring all
your customers, service users and staff are included in everything you
do is more vital than ever, from your externally-facing websites to
internal IT systems.

E-Access Bulletin's fifth annual conference and exhibition on access to
technology by people with disabilities is taking place on 23rd April
2009 at Olympia Conference Centre in London. Our keynote speaker is
Bill Thompson, technology critic and broadcaster, who will explore the
day's key themes.

Other speakers include Graeme Whippy, Senior Manager, Lloyds TSB
IT Accessibility Group; Shadi Abou-Zahra, of the W3C Web
Accessibility Initiative, on the new international web access guidelines
WCAG 2.0; Julie Howell, Chair of the committee developing a new
British Standard for web accessibility BS8878; and Damon Rose,
Editor of the award-winning BCC disability website 'Ouch', on the
future of accessibility.

Places cost just £195 +VAT for public sector delegates; £295 +VAT
for private sector; and £165 + VAT for small charities and non-profits
(turnover less than £150k a year). To find out more and sign up today,
visit:
http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess09/

[Special notice ends].


++Issue 109 Contents.

+1: Visual Memory Is Key To Use Of Graphic Interfaces
- Phase 1 findings from survey of blind programmers.

02: Tech Industry Slams 'Fragmented' EU Inclusion Policy
- Warning of 'massive failure' by member states.

03: Sign Language Videos And Virtual Tours Win Cultural Awards
British Library among Jodi Mattes prizewinners.

News in Brief: 04: Driving Innovation - computer exam system; 05:
Future Build - ICT access in schools; 06: Language Access - web
speech translation.

Section Two: 'The Inbox' - Readers' Forum.
07: Double Opt-In - Captcha alternative; 08: Style Problems? -
possible glitch with browser tool.

Section Three: Special Report - Access To The Web.
09: Quality, Not Quantity: The Dutch government's IT agency has
developed a set of principles whereby web-based information can be
viewed on as many devices as possible, boosting accessibility and
helping ensure it will be future-proofed against changes in technology.
Dan Jellinek reports on this and other key European web access case
studies, including the French Railway's ticketing site.

[Contents ends].


++Section One: News.


+01: Visual Memory Is Key To Use Of Graphic Interfaces.

New research has found it is easier for blind computer programmers to
use and develop graphical user interfaces (GUIs) when they have
previously been sighted and retain some visual memory. This memory
helps programmers to visually represent GUIs, even if the interfaces
themselves were designed after they had lost their sight, it found.

The research, termed the 'Combine project' (
http://fastlink.headstar.com/hayhoe1 ),
was conducted by Dr. Simon Hayhoe, editor of the 'Eco' collaborative
website on blindness and the arts.

GUIs are rapidly replacing older text-based mainframe systems. These
text-based systems were preferred by programmers who had no visual
memory and so had never experienced GUIs.

Hayhoe told delegates at last week's BETT 09 educational technology
conference in London that social and cultural factors have also
influenced opinion on blind people, often causing them to be
underestimated and limiting educational opportunities. There are also
generational and educational factors in how blind people work with
new technologies. "We can't think of blindness as just a perceptive
problem", he said.

The ongoing research project surveyed a group of computer
programmers registered as blind; those born blind; those with
assimilated blindness (someone who went blind during the period of 4-
18-years-old); and those with visual memory (people going blind in
adulthood).

Participants were asked whether they used text-based programming
environments or GUIs, and for the latter, how these were represented
or imagined by the individual, for example with the use of visual
metaphors to navigate the system.

The work could help inform future interface design, Hayhoe said.
Areas he hopes to address in a second phase of the study include the
motivations of blind students who become programmers, and whether
it is common for programmers with visual memory to reject the use of
Braille. This last point arises after the case studies of those with 
visual
memory showed that they preferred to use suitably adapted mainstream
methods to understand programming languages.


+02: Tech Industry Slams 'Fragmented' EU Inclusion Policy.

The lack of a coherent approach to boosting technology accessibility
across European nations has been attacked by a leading technology
industry spokesman.

Mark McGann, Director General of the European Information,
Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry
Association (EICTA), told the recent European Commission Vienna
conference on digital inclusion that the lack of a cohesive approach in
this field has been "a massive failure".

He said the situation with accessibility was similar to that found with
the switchover to digital television, which has happened in a
fragmented fashion across Europe. "Too often we don't have one
Europe, a single market. We have been advocating a single European
approach to switchover for years."

Governments need to set a regulatory framework for accessibility,
McGann said, but "we don't want 27 policies" - policies should be
unified and co-ordinated at a European level.

Both the unified and national policies should focus on the goals of
accessibility, not the specific means of attaining them, he said. "We do
not recommend that individual governments go into technologies or try
to choose a technological winner, that would fail. [But] now more than
ever, governments have an obligation to show leadership in this
domain."

On the other hand, there were positive signs, McGann said. With
digital TV, for example, once the policy side becomes more co-
ordinated, the technology itself "will be much more accessible than
analogue ever was."


+03: Sign Language Videos And Virtual Tours Win Cultural Awards.

The National Trust, the British Museum and the V&A are among the
recipients of last month's annual Jodi awards for excellence in
accessible cultural websites and digital media (
http://fastlink.headstar.com/jodi2 ).

The British Museum won the Excellence in Web Accessibility Award
for its BSL Schools Web Project (
http://fastlink.headstar.com/bm1 ). The museum worked with the Frank
Barnes Primary School for deaf children in London to produce videos
for some of the exhibits in British Sign Language (BSL).

The Excellence in Accessible Digital Media Award was scooped up by
the National Trust for a series of accessible virtual tours. Some 14
tours are currently active and a further eight are still in development 
by
the Trust's partner in the project Corvidae (
http://corvidae.co.uk/panoramas/ ).

The Victoria and Albert museum picked up the Excellence for People
with a Learning Disability Award for a series of art-based educational
workshops for people with learning difficulties which is now in its
third year. The project is called Outside Pathways (
http://www.outsideinpathways.org.uk/ ).



++News in Brief:

+04: Driving Innovation: An accessible examination system to allow
disabled people to study for basic computer user qualifications,
including the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL), has been
developed by the British Computer Society. The Multi Accessible Test
System allows candidates to sit the ECDL with a text-only option or
with video clips showing sign language interpretation or synthetic
narration accompaniment:
http://fastlink.headstar.com/bcs4

+05: Future Build: Local IT accessibility and special educational needs
experts and professionals must be allowed to be involved closely with
local council's projects to build new schools under the government's
Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, the charity
AbilityNet has warned. In a statement released at this month's
education technology conference BETT 09, AbiltyNet said BSF was a
wonderful opportunity, but it also presented "huge potential pitfalls" 
if
the needs of pupils with disabilities and SEN are overlooked in the
planning stages of school building projects:
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/edu_bsf .

+06: Language Access: A new version of the 'Talklets' talking web
page system from Textic includes real-time spoken translation of
English text into French, Spanish, German, Polish or Chinese. The
system - which embeds code into participating websites to access
software on the company's servers - uses the Google translation
feature to create a written translation and then converts this into
speech. Word and pdf documents can also be translated into foreign
speech, and further languages are promised in 'the near future':
http://www.textic.com .

[Section One ends].


++Sponsored Notice: Fortune Cookie
- Web Sites That Really Work.

Fortune Cookie's dedicated web accessibility team makes sure that
everyone finds the web sites we design easy to use. As well as being
accessible, Fortune Cookie sites are beautiful and deliver stunning
return-on-investment. They're award-winning too. In 2007, our work
was nominated for major web design awards 11 times.

Legal & General, Kuoni, Diabetes UK, FT Business - just some of the
big name brands on Fortune Cookie's client list.

Every business can benefit from making its web site more accessible.
If you'd like to know what accessibility can do for your business, talk
to Fortune Cookie.

Visit our web site at:
http://www.fortunecookie.co.uk

Julie Howell is our Director of Accessibility. Email Julie at:
Julie.Howell at fortunecookie.co.uk .

[Sponsored Notice ends].


++Sponsored Notice: Adept Transcription
- Alternative Formats At Affordable Prices.

When you want alternative formats for disabled colleagues, customers
and staff, call Adept.

Formats we produce include audio, audio description, Braille, BSL,
Easy Read, e-docs for websites, large print, Makaton, Moon and sub-
titles, at prices from a penny a word.

Whether handling a newsletter, training DVD, equality scheme, public
service leaflet, contract or consultation, we provide:
- One-stop shop for all formats
- Products quality-checked by users
- Corporate presentation including your house style
- Fast turnaround of one document or thousands
- Multi-format discounts
- Accessible packaging

Contact us at:
Tel: 0208 133 5418 (precede with 18001 for typetalk)
Email transcription at adept-uk.org

[Sponsored Notice ends]


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

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

+07: DOUBLE OPT-IN: Tedd Sperling, a freelance programmer based
in the US and frequent correspondent to E-Access Bulletin on the
inaccessibility of most 'CAPTCHA' tools (the distorted visual or audio
codes users of some websites must decode to register).

Further to the report in our November issue of a talk given by Robin
Christopherson of AbilityNet, referring to problems with registering on
the Google website, Tedd writes: "As you may remember, I've given
the CAPTCHA 'need' quite a bit of thought and investigation over the
years. I've written all sorts of CAPTCHAs, including an audio one.

"However, my current solution is simply an automated double-opt-in
method for anyone wanting to post a comment, as can be demonstrated
here:
http://sperling.com/four-things-clients-should-know.php .

"I don't think this method is too much to ask of users and I don't think
it is inaccessible. Additionally, this method throws the burden of
banning posters onto my shoulders and not on the user by making them
pass a CAPTCHA test.

"A double opt-in list is simply an email confirmation process that must
be completed before allowing a person to post to a site. If a person
wants to make a comment, they first submit their email address to the
form at the bottom of any article. The form then records the email
address given in a database; and emails a 'token' (a unique string of
numbers and letters) to the user as part of a link.

If the user clicks the link they are taken back to the web site and 
their
email address is confirmed. After that, whenever they want to post,
they can do so without hindrance.

If a spammer wants to post something, then they don't normally go
through the confirmation process. However, if they do and I don't like
the post, then I simply ban the IP [internet address]. Thus far, it's
worked for me."

[Further comments please to inbox at headstar.com].


+08: STYLE PROBLEMS? Diana Monahan of Moor End Technology
College, Huddersfield, writes in to describe a problem she has
encountered in attempting to use a website offering free accessible web
browser style sheets to download, that has been mentioned in the past
in E-Access Bulletin.

"This may not be in your remit, but perhaps through the bulletin we
can find a solution or an alternative," writes Diana. "In the past I 
have
used the website
http://www.oneformat.com/
to decide which style sheet to use with my visually impaired pupils. I
went to the site recently and was told by the school software that
"Virus/spyware Troj/Comic-Fam has been detected in [the site]".

"Is there any way of getting the problem sorted as this was a very
useful website and I don't know of an alternative?"

We have tried to contact the site's owner, but so far without success. 
If
he or any reader is able to advise whether this is a problem with the 
site
or might rather be a problem with Diana's local computer, their
responses would be most welcome, to:
inbox at headstar.com .


[Section Two ends].


++Special Notice: Opportunities and risks of open source software in
the public sector.
-A Headstar Training/Positive Internet Masterclass
Thursday 05 February 2009, Central London
http://www.headstar-training.com/Open/

Free and open source software have revolutionised ICT. In the public
sector, an increasing number of bodies are making use of these
technologies.

Cost is the main driver, since open source software has few of the costs
and licensing restrictions of traditional software. However, the area is
complex, and the savings analysis - taking into account training, full
cost of ownership, and other issues - can lead to confusion.

Our masterclass can help. In our unique open source software overview
training course aimed at the public sector, Nick Mailer unpicks the
major controversies and myths surrounding free and open source
software.

Nick will illustrate how you can leverage this software into your ICT
environment, and move on safely to larger scale deployments. He
shows how best to get support, advice and maintenance, and how best
to secure your investment. To book a place visit:
http://www.headstar-training.com/Open/ .

[Special notice 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].


++Section Three: Special Report
- Access To The Web.

+09: Quality, Not Quantity.
- by Dan Jellinek.

Voluntary guidelines on web accessibility are all very well, but there 
is
nothing like a law for ensuring everyone falls into line. Such was the
message to emerge from last month's European Commission
conference on digital inclusion held in Vienna.

Alexander Fase, Web Guidelines Project Manager at the Dutch
government ICT agency ICTU, told delegates that his organisation had
developed a non-technical, 'quality' approach to accessibility standards
which focused on ensuring all information could be accessed through
any channel, now and in the future.

Such an approach was vital in an ageing society, he said: it was
estimated for example that the number of people in Holland aged over
55 would double by 2030, and the number of people with some level of
impaired vision would double by 2020.

"Old-school websites are only re-usable in a limited way - they are
technologically complicated, and you had to redesign for a new
corporate identity," Fase said. By contrast, the quality approach tries 
to
ensure information will be available in the future, regardless of the
emergence of new browsers and access devices. The approach is based
around 125 quality requirements including keeping structure and
design as separate as possible; and building websites according to the
principle of 'layered design' (see
http://www.webguidelines.nl ).
His unit is also working on a business case for accessibility, to be
published in 2009, Fase said.

One of the most powerful statistics offered by Fase was that of the
increase in accessibility of central government websites in Holland
since it became a legal requirement. "Now web guidelines are
mandatory, the score on accessibility is 10 times better than average,"
he said.

Matt May, Accessibility Engineer with Adobe Systems, agreed that the
increasing use of multiple channels and devices to access web content
meant that the basic requirements of what has been seen as
accessibility for people with sensory impairments or disabilities are
actually important for everybody.

"I'm using a small notebook with a limited display so adjustment of
text size is a universal issue now."

It is also vital to realise that most people creating web pages do not
actually use HTML, but rather intermediary 'authoring tools' such as
Dreamweaver or Microsoft Word; programming tools; database-
backed tools; or user-generated content, May said. "Today, many
people are creating web content but may have never seen the code," he
said.

This means that the World Wide Web Consortium's 'ATAG'
guidelines on the accessibility of web authoring tools are just as
important as the consortium's better-known web content accessibility
guidelines, (WCAG) he said. "As an industry, standards are very
important to us, because we can take them to our developers."

One case study of a major European retail website which was given an
accessibility overhaul found that even the largest and busiest sites can
be improved without major disruption.

Voyages-SNCF, the ticket purchasing website of the French national
railway, is the leading online retailer in France, turning over 1.86
billion euros of revenue in 2007 from some 700,000 daily users.

Christelle Lortet, e-Accessibility Project Officer at Voyages-SNCF,
told the conference that accessibility had been a goal for the site for
several years, with improvements made steadily as parts of the site
entered their natural upgrade cycle. The organisation also funded
accessibility training for everyone involved, including web developers,
graphic designers and Lortet herself, as project manager.

There were three main reasons for the move: "It was our desire, and
the law, and a competitive advantage."

Lortet had a powerful message for those who think that making a
website accessible means that one has to change its look and feel to
something less sophisticated: on two slides, she showed what the
Voyages-SNCF website looked like before its accessibility overhaul,
and what it looked like afterwards. The two pages looked almost
identical, with some small colour changes to improve contrast: the
huge majority of changes are hidden in the code, she said. "This should
convince any CEO who thinks that accessibility would force a
company to change the design of its web page," she said.

[Section Three 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
Reporters: Tristan Parker, Majeed Saleh,
Editorial advisor - Kevin Carey

ISSN 1476-6337 .

[Issue 109 ends.]

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