Need for Web Accessibility in Developing Countries

Yahoo! Initiatives

By Srinivasu Chakravarthula

Accessibility Manager

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Internet and its usage

Applications

Users:Student, parent, teacher, professionals, government, senior citizens… and everyone!

Education Research Business TravelShop Entertainment Social Networking Music Matrimony

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Users of internet also

includes people with

special needs

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Statistics…

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Some facts…

• As per WHO, there are about 600 million people with disabilities across the world

• In India alone, there are about 70 million• There is a rapid development in the area of assistive

technology industry!

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Disability and types of disabilities

• Unable to perform a particular task

• It can be a temporary or permanent

• Can occur either by birth or by accident

• Situational Disability– Oops! My mouse

stopped working – Text is too small on this

webpage

• Functional Disability– Visually impaired– Mobility impaired– Hard of hearing– Learning disability– Autism, CP

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How People with Disabilities Use Computer

• Screen readers• Screen magnifiers• On-screen keyboard• Track ball• Switch• Ergonomic Keyboard• Refreshable Braille Display

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Web is more useful

to people with

disabilities

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Deepa Narasimhan, Graphic Designer, EMC

As far as I use the On screen

keyboard, its easy on all website.

Maybe we need a better voice

recognition software which can

use on computers for typing &

browsing websites. Which would

help people with sever

conditions, as few people with no

hands (amputees) will find this

great way to browse the internet.

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Case studies continued… Artur Ortega

The internet allows me as a blind personto get access to services and information without any help by anyone whichwouldn't be even be possible or very difficult in a physical world. The internetcreates new opportunities and creates a full new independency for persons with disabilities. I really miss the approach of a great part of the private sector to embrace accessibility. Only some very innovativecompanies like Yahoo! are taking the first steps to even make web 2.0 applications accessible and breaking into new dimensions of accessibility. I would love if more and more companies would follow this great example.

Yahoo! Initiatives

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Why Yahoo! cares for accessibility?

• Yahoo! is a global web company• Around 600 million users visit

Yahoo!• Approximately 200 million world

wide and 76 million from India visit our properties related to Emerging Markets.

Yahoo!’s presence include

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Our mindset…

We think for all!

We sensitize our teams

We train our teams in the area of assistive technology and accessibility

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Accessibility Lab

Accessibility Labs at Sunnyvale and Bangalore are equipped with different assistive technologies such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, Track ball, Refreshable Braille Display, Big Twist Switch, Voice Recognition software etc.

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Our Team

Alan Brightman, Sandeep Datar, Victor Tsaran, Srinivasu Chakravarthula and Artur Ortega

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Accessibility Task Force and SIG

• Core Accessibility team• Accessibility Task Force includes members from

– User Experience Design– Quality Engineering– Front End Engineering– SE & O– Learning and Development

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Accessibility is considered right at the

design stage

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Inclusive

Product

Good Design

Content Strategy SEO

Accessibility

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What we do?

• Conduct user studies• Involve people with disabilities in our accessibility testing• Develop Accessibility Guidelines and Checklists for Yahoo!• Evangelize about accessibility in and outside Yahoo!• Run a public mailing list (coming soon)

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• With full effort to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

• Use of ARIA for dynamic modules like Yahoo! Search• Closed captioning for videos• YUI components that are accessible, like ARIA enabled Drop

down menus etc. • Audio CAPTCHA in Yahoo! Groups

We Design…

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Accessibility Testing - Automated

• Internal Automation Open Source Tool Yselinium to test for high level accessibility issues

• WAVE – http://wave.webaim.org/toolbar• Firefox Accessibility extension• Add-ons of Mozilla Firefox

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=accessibility&cat=all

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Manual Testing

• Screen Readers– NVDA – http://www.nvda-project.org– JAWS for Windows – http://www.freedomscientific.com

• Screen Magnifiers– ZoomText Xtra – http://www.aisquared.com– Dolphin Supernova – http://www.yourdolphin.com

• Alternate Input devices – – Track ball and switch – http://www.ablenetinc.com

• Dragon Naturally Speaking – http://www.nuance.com

• Talks – a screen reader for mobile S60 phones – http://www.nuance.com/talks/

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Outreach…

• Present in Accessibility

Workshops around the country

• Part of awareness

programs for other

organizations• Evangelize through

Hack days

Thank You