Accessibility in Digital Libraries

Andrew KirkpatrickCPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible MediaOctober 15, 2003

An Argument for Accessibility

>Assertion #1: Everyone needs access to your content.

“Now that a large number of Americans

regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activites, people who lack access to those tools are at a growing disadvantage”

- From “Falling through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion (US Dept. of Commerce report).

An Argument for Accessibility

>Assertion #1: Everyone needs access to your content.> Information and services via the Web have

transformed our lives.> For people with disabilities, the Web can

provide greater independence.• Accessing educational content• Locating health information• Entertainment

An Argument for Accessibility

>Assertion #2: Broaden your audience and increase efficiency.> An estimated 52.6 million people (about 1 in

5) of all Americans have a disability that substantially limits a major life activity

• 12 million blind or visually impaired (4%)• 28 million Deaf or hard-of-hearing (10%)• 12 million other disabilities (6%)

An Argument for Accessibility

>Assertion #2: Broaden your market and increase efficiency.> Accessibly designed sites are more easily

used by cell phones, handheld computers, and by people using assistive technologies.

> Accessibly designed sites are more machine-readable.

An Argument for Accessibility

>Assertion #3: You may have to do it.> Section 504, Section 508 regulations> Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)> State regulations> Other countries (Canada, Australia, United

Kingdom…) have laws governing Web accessibility.

Legislation>Section 504

> Applies to student complaints. > "Reasonable accommodation"

>Section 508> Standards related to Web, software, and

other electronics and information technologies

>Americans with Disabilities Act> Title II – "…services, programs, and

activities provided…by State and local governments"

> Title III – "Places of public accommodation"

Access NSDL Project

>Provides the NSDL community with recommendations, tools and resources to guide the development of a universally designed infrastructure and accessible services and content.

>Collaboration between WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) and the Internet Scout Project.

NSDL Accessibility Guidelines

>Original plan was to establish a set of guidelines just for NSDL content.

>Given the variety of well-recognized guidelines already available, recommendations will be made on the use of existing guidelines instead.

Accessibility Guidelines

>W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)> WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)> UAAG (User Agent Accessibility Guidelines)

>Section 508 Standards>NCAM

> IMS Guidelines for accessible learning> Making Educational Software and Web Sites

Accessible

Integrated Accessibility Evaluation Tool>AccessNSDL is working with developers

from Watchfire (Bobby) and UsableNet (Lift).

>Collection developers will be able to use Bobby and/or Lift to evaluate their sites for accessibility compliance.

>IAET will harvest XML output from the evaluation tools, and direct collections developers to appropriate accessibly resources.

Integrated Accessibility Evaluation Tool

>Access NSDL is collecting information about the informational needs and development tools of collection developers in order to provide the most useful set of resources possible.

Integrated Accessibility Evaluation Tool

Access NDSL Resource Directory

NCAM's Rich Media Accessibility site

NCAM's Software and Web Guidelines

References>accessnsdl.org>ncam.wgbh.org

>Guidelines> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/ > http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/ > http://www.section508.gov> http://ncam.wgbh.org/cdrom/guideline > http://ncam.wgbh.org/salt/guidelines

Contact> Andrew Kirkpatrick

> Project Manager, Access to Rich Media ProjectCPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media125 Western AvenueBoston, MA 02134

> 617.300.4420> andrew_kirkpatrick@wgbh.org> http://ncam.wgbh.org/richmedia