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ACCESSIBLE (224145) 3rd

Periodic Report

CERTH/ITI - 1 - April, 2012

PROJECT PERIODIC REPORT Publishable summary

Grant Agreement number: 224145

Project acronym: ACCESSIBLE

Project title: Accessibility Assessment Simulation Environment for New Applications Design and Development

Funding Scheme: Collaborative Project

Date of latest version of Annex I against which the assessment will be made: 26/01/2012

Periodic report: 1st □ 2nd □ 3rd �

Period covered: from 01/09/2010 to 29/02/2012

Name, title and organisation of the scientific representative of the project's coordinator1:

Dr. Dimitrios Tzovaras,

Centre for Research and Technology Hellas / Informatics and Telematics Institute (CERTH/ITI)

Tel: +30-2311-257777

Fax: +30-2310-474128

E-mail: [email protected]

Project website2 address: http://www.accessible-project.eu/

1 Usually the contact person of the coordinator as specified in Art. 8.1. of the grant agreement

2 The home page of the website should contain the generic European flag and the FP7 logo which are

available in electronic format at the Europa website (logo of the European flag:


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Table of Contents

1. PUBLISHABLE SUMMARY.............................................................................................3

1.1 PROJECT DATA ..................................................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 PROJECT OBJECTIVES.......................................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 SUMMARY OF WORK PERFORMED AND ACHIEVEMENTS..................................................................................... 5 1.4 EXPECTED RESULTS............................................................................................................................................. 7 1.5 POTENTIAL IMPACT AND USE .............................................................................................................................. 8 1.6 PROJECT LOGICAL FRAMEWORK ....................................................................................................................... 10

http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/emblem/index_en.htm ; logo of the 7th

FP: http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7/index_en.cfm?pg=logos). The area of activity of the project should

also be mentioned.


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1. Publishable summary

1.1 Project data The following table summarises the project data:

Project

acronym ACCESSIBLE

Contract

Number 224145

Date of start 01 September 2008 Duration 42 months

Coordinator

details Name: Dr. Dimitrios Tzovaras

Organisation: Centre for Research and Technology Hellas/ Institute of Informatics and Telematcs (CERTH/ITI)

Address: 6th Km. Charilaou-Thermi Rd. P.O. Box 361, 57001 Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece

Tel: + 30 2311 257777 Fax: +30 2310 474128

E-mail: Dimitrios.Tzovaras @iti.gr

Participant name Short name Country

Centre for Research and Technology Hellas / Informatics and Telematics Institute and Hellenic Institute of Transport

CERTH Greece

Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Institute of Computer Science

FORTH- ICS Greece

Oracle Czech s.r.o.3 OCS Czech Republic

University of Stuttgart, Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management

USTUTT Germany

ALCATEL-LUCENT DEUTSCHLAND AG4

ALDAG Germany

Fundação da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa

FFCUL Portugal

Softeco Sismat SpA SOFTECO Italy

Netscouts gGmbH NETSCOUTS Germany

Marie Curie Association MCA Bulgaria

CONCEPT SWISS5 CS Switzerland

SOLINET GmbH6 SOLINET Germany

Czeck Technical University CVUT Czech Republic

Consortium

Fundación Vodafone España FVE Spain

3 Due to the reorganisation of Oracle activities worldwide after the acquisition of Sun by Oracle,

Oracle partner has decided to withdraw from some of the tasks originally planned and transfer the

responsibility for the developments in these tasks to new partners FVE and CVUT who joined the

project consortium by M25. 4 ALDAG has decided to terminate its participation in the project (date exit project M4) due to

restructuring procedures within their Nuremberg location (where their testbed team which was

involved in ACCESSIBLE was located). 5 CS beneficiary has decided to terminate its participation (date exit project:M14) in the project due to

the ongoing health problems of the CEO of the company (Dr. Alexander Bullinger). 6 SOLINET has decided to terminate its participation (after M40) in the project due to its liquidation

and eventual resolution in fiscal year 2012


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Web site http://www.accessible-project.eu/

1.2 Project objectives

Designing for people with disabilities is becoming an important topic today. This idea is strongly supported by the fact that an increasing number of countries are legislating towards promoting and enforcing the rights of people with disabilities. Consequently, accessibility is one more aspect that has to be taken into account in the development of software applications, especially in user interfaces design and development.

Moreover, the development of accessible software requires specialized knowledge and significant effort from developers. With the additional encumbrance of taking into account different kinds of accessibility requirements, guidelines and best practices, and different implementation technologies (which by themselves might pose severe problems of delivering accessible applications), developers are faced with a daunting task. Therefore, the highly specialised skills required for developing accessible software sets aside most developers. To mitigate these challenges, developers can be guided during the development process in the creation of accessible ICT. To do this, developers need to have a conceptual framework in which to situate disabled-related guidelines, which they often do not have due to lack of experience with the needs of people with disabilities and the access technologies they use. The ACCESSIBLE project will try to implement specific methodologies and tools for ensuring accessibility for designers and software developers.

The main idea of the ACCESSIBLE project is to contribute towards better accessibility for all. It will be achieved by increasing the use of accessibility standards and by the development of an integrated assessment and simulation environment. This environment will include a suite of accessibility analysing tools as well as developer-aid tools to assess efficiently, easily and rapidly the accessibility and viability of software applications for all user groups.

By promoting accessibility, the ACCESSIBLE project will

• Provide developers and designers a framework for gaining insight into the accessible software development process - the right disability and accessibility information, standard, tool or methodology.

• Provide a “harmonised methodology” between different standard developing organisations, end user groups, expert groups, decision makers and policy makers.

ACCESSIBLE’s objectives can be summarized as follows:

• Main Objective 1 (MO1) - Development of an Assessment Simulation Module

for supporting the assessment of Web, Mobile and Mobile Web applications: To research and develop an Assessment Simulation module by collating and merging different methodological tools, checking the coherence with the W3C/WAI ARIA and other standardisation works in order to fully support and incorporate accessibility approaches for the design and development of accessible new applications. This module is going to support the overall analysis and verification accessibility procedure of Web services and applications, mobile applications (including Java ME native applications) as well as standard description languages (such as UML, SDL, etc.) even if mix of them (e.g. Java Swing applications, etc.). It will be integrated with appropriate open source assessment tools that will be modified and further developed within ACCESSIBLE project, including a Web services assessment tool based on refurbishing a Web services assessment tool (ASK-IT alignment tool) provided by CERTH/ITI, a web checking accessibility for web applications provided by NETSCOUTS, as well as OCS’s a11y Netbeans accessibility tool and JAAPI for checking Java enabled mobile and desktop applications and Java Swing applications. Finaly a description languages assessment tool (based on SAFIRE professional tool) provided by SOLINET.


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� Main Objective 2 (MO2) - To research and develop for the first time reliable and harmonised methodological approaches and tools for large-scale assessment accessibility of applications and services. A Harmonised Accessibility Methodological framework (HAM) will be implemented which can be incorporated to a multilayer ontological framework.

� Secondary Objective 1 (SO1) - To implement a developer/designer-aid module in order to involve appropriate accessibility standards and methodologies within the overall lifecycle of software development processes and to integrate some of them in well known IDE environments (e.g. NetBeans, Eclispse).

Sub-goals of ACCESSIBLE

� SG1: Raise the awareness of software developers to accessibility problems on their products.

� SG2: Tracing the development of the accessibility in software applications.

� SG3: Better understand why some software products are accessible while others are not

Finally, a clustering between ACCESSIBLE and the IP project AEGIS (FP7-ICT-2007-2) has been performed. ÆGIS aims, through user research and prototype development with current and next-generation ICT, to develop and validate the necessary infrastructure and accessibility frameworks needed for deeply embedding accessibility into the desktop, cell phone, PDA, and rich Internet applications; with a focus on the needs of users with mild, severe or complex disabilities served via assistive technologies; and to propose these results to the appropriate standards organizations for adoption, as well as to make them available through open source as much as possible

1.3 Summary of work performed and achievements

During the last reporting period (18 months) ACCESSIBLE has performed substantial progress strictly following what is mentioned in the Description of Work. Very briefly the developments can be summarized but are not limited to the following points:

• The administrative and technical progress as well as key results of the ACCESSIBLE project was successfully presented during the 2nd annual and the 3rd annual review meetings on 22 November, 2010 and on 7th of December 2011, in Brussels, Belgium. The overall assessment was that ACCESSIBLE has achieved most its objectives and technical goals for the period with relatively minor deviations.

• Finalization and submission to the EC the Periodic reports 2 and 3 through the NEF system as well as draft versions of the Final report and Final dissemination and Use plan

• The 3rd and 4th requests for amendment were submitted and accepted. Thus, new DoW versions have been released during the period

• Two improved/updated versions of the ACCESSIBLE Pilot Applications specifications (D2.3) have been prepared according to the 2nd and 3rd review comments.

• Improved versions of the ACCESSIBLE standalone modules (Web application assessment tool, Web services assessment, Mobile Web and SDL assessment tools, developer and designer aid module) have been released.

• Improved versions of the rules inference engine and the rules graphical editor have been released (resubmission of the deliverable D4.2. “A software package containing a set of modelling tools, rules inference engine, and the rules graphical editor”).


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• Continuation on the improvement of the EARL based reporting tool and participation in the EARL WAI working group organized by W3C. Also the EARL D5.4 deliverable was reviewed by W3C expert Shadi Abou-Zahra.

• Two improved versions of the deliverable D4.3 “A set of guidelines for the validation and integration of the implemented tools and methodologies” have been prepared according to the 2nd review and 3rd review comments

• Refinements to the ACCESSIBLE domain ontologies (introduction of ARIA and updating of Personas)

• Specific actions were carried towards improving the development of the main user interface features provided by the ACCESSIBLE portal aiming at completing the infrastructure that allows the integration of the new components that were developed by the project (ARIA assessment module). Also one more server was set up in order to improve the performance of the portal’s functionalities.

• Integration of the ACCESSIBLE portal with the web services of the assessment tools, the ACCESSIBLE ontologies and the improved inference engine.

• A Mobile Simulator tool for Java ME applications have been released and relevant actions were examined for its integration to Eclipse IDE

• Specific actions were carried towards the definition of the pilot infrastructure (T7.2 work) which is really critical for the ACCESSIBLE pilot phases and was included as annex in the D6.1b deliverable

• Improving the development of the main user interface features provided by the ACCESSIBLE portal aiming at completing the infrastructure that allows the integration of the new components that will developed by the project (ARIA assessment module).

• Preparation and delivery of the deliverables D5.5.a “ACCESSIBLE prototype (first version)” for Month 34 and D5.5b “ACCESSIBLE prototype (final version)” for Month 39

• Preparation and delivery of the deliverable D6.1b “Pilot plans (final version)” for Month 34 as well as an improved version was resubmitted according to the 3rd review comments

• An improved version of the D8.1f deliverable was also resubmitted according to the 3rd review comments

• Preparation and delivery of the deliverable D7.1 “pilot results” for describing the results of the pilot phases

• An updated draft of the market analysis was prepared according to the scope of each ACCESSIBLE product. Also preliminary business plans and CEA/CBA for each product were issued during the current reporting period

• An improved version of the deliverable D8.2 was resubmitted including also appropriate letters and individual exploitation plans for all the ACCESSIBLE partcipants

• Dissemination of the project concept and developments with a variety of means:

o All the deliverables that were accepted by the reviewers have been made public and were uploaded in the ACCESSIBLE project Web site.


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o Stable versions of the tools have been published in Open Source communities (as defined in A24 of the action plan ) in order to be as open as possible. For that reason a specific sourceforge account for the ACCESSIBLE project has been created and can be accessed though the following link http://accessibleproj.sourceforge.net/. All the implemented tools have been included in this sourceforge account in order to be as open as possible for most of worldwide developers and designers.

o Publication of the ACCESSIBLE ontology improvements into the project web site (ACCESSIBLE Ontology can be found at http://160.40.50.89/Accessible_Ontology)

o Dissemination of project results and the DIAS simulator in the ICT event 2010 in Brussels, in the 2nd AEGIS conference and in the presidential Danish meeting in Denmark, March 2012.

o Publication of project results in well known conferences and workshops.

o Improve the accessibility of the developed project website. More details about the accessibility were included in the Periodic Report 3.

o Update the project web site in order to inform the general public and all potential stakeholders about the ACCESSIBLE project results and including also detailed descriptions of the tools, manuals, videos, strengths and weaknesses.

Summarizing, during the third period, ACCESSIBLE has set a solid ground based on the improvement of the ACCESSIBLE assessment and simulation tools, and the ACCESSIBLE portal implementation according to the results of the project pilot phase. It is expected that these developments will enable a constructive and fruitful continuation of the ACCESSIBLE project outcomes that will utilize all this information so as to develop the integrated and final ACCESSIBLE assessment and simulation framework.

1.4 Expected results ACCESSIBLE expected main results are:

� A user-centred presentation portal, directed toward specific users (developers, programmers, designers, testers), with the objective providing access to ACCESSIBLE tools and methodologies, as well as the possibility to verify online the accessibility of their products through a variety of tools and innovative technologies

� Assessment Simulation modules in order to support the overall analysis and verification in terms of accessibility for Web, Mobile Web and mobile applications, Web services and Description languages. The module will be composed of appropriate accessibility assessment tools that will be developed within the ACCESSIBLE project in order to support the accessibility testing.

� Accessibility guidelines definition for Web services, Mobile Web and Description languages

� A complete multilayer ontological framework for the incorporation of the defined Harmonised Accessibility Methodological framework (HAM). Each ontology will define taxonomies to characterise standards, disabilities, personas, and other relevant characteristics, and correlate them with devices specifications (features and limitations), and application semantics.

� A set of rules, built upon the ontology vocabularies, in order to describe the different accessibility checks of different application domains.


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� To present the accessibility evaluation results through the implementation of an EARL-based reporting module in order to export results in a form helpful to potential receivers of test results, including designers, developers and business stakeholders.

� An open source developer/designer-aid module which can support users to facilitate the design and development of accessible software applications. The module will be based on modification and/or integration of Oracle’s relevant architectures and technologies such as the NetBeans IDE.

� The final ACCESSIBLE prototype that will integrate all aforementioned modules and will provide means for overall accessibility assessment of software applications.

� Integration and installation of the ACCESSIBLE tools in several well-defined scenarios and in real conditions.

� Validation of the developed ACCESSIBLE tools through extensive tests, which are performed in real conditions and outside the lab environment.

� Prototype tests and full demonstrations, in order to evaluate the proposed tools and methodologies by using specific pilot applications such as:

• a) Accessibility assessment of Web applications and Web services,

• b) Accessibility assessment of mobile applications

• c) Accessibility assessment of infomobility services and

• d) Accessibility assessment of standard description languages (e.g SDL, etc.)

1.5 Potential impact and use

This section presents in short the expected ACCESSIBLE impacts. The proposed project entails very important innovations in accessibility that are expected to potentially bring a great impact in the field of accessibility assessment means and applications. The research on completely novel concepts in accessibility of Web services and description languages, as well as the introduction of a harmonized methodology that can support developers and designers to have a conceptual framework in which to situate disabled-related guidelines, which they often do not have due to lack of experience with people with disabilities and their requirements. ACCESSIBLE will enhance the accessibility knowledge of developers and designers who in many cases they are not aware of the importance or need for accessibility as many of them do not have the necessary knowledge or skills for building accessible products.

ACCESSIBLE will empower research community on effective usage of accessibility standards and technologies helping to create and improve software products accessibility. This consideration will unquestionably improve quality, accessibility and usability of software applications. The ACCESSIBLE system will support the software development of future applications that will be more accessible and designed for all. This project will help to overcome the fragmented approaches that are currently taking place in accessibility issues. By empowering software developers, and organisations with accessibility assessment systems and ubiquitous and personalised design and developer’s aid tools, the competitiveness of Europe’s software, services will be increased in this emerging market.

The expected main technological and research impact results in the ACCESSIBLE project are organised around the following main directions:

Personalisation: ACCESSIBLE will tailor access to accessibility harmonized methodologies and information for users or groups of software developers based on appropriate accessible criteria, methodologies, accessibility assessment and authoring tools, while assuring a basic level of easy and effective access to digital resources concerning accessibility knowledge. Based on the existing lack of appropriate methodologies for the verification of accessibility for Mobile applications, web services, standard description languages (e.g. SDL), ACCESSIBLE will provide developers and designers with an “harmonised methodology framework” (HAM) for introducing and “wrapping” accessibility into the software development process of different application domains.


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Aggregation: Many developers and, more surprisingly, designers, are not aware of the importance or need for accessibility. Consequently, many software products are being built in blissful ignorance, about accessibility issues. In addition, in many cases they don’t have appropriate accessibility mechanisms in order to solve foreseen problems on their products Developers need to have appropriate tools and methodologies in order to trace the status of accessibility during each stage of the overall software development process. ACCESSIBLE will allow for combining and/or integrating various accessibility information or technologies from different source bodies by allowing the developers and designers to access them efficiently, and provide them with support for the design and development of accessible applications and services.

Collaboration: ACCESSIBLE will facilitate the community of concurring developers to share experience, knowledge, and introducing accessibility within the software development process. Thus, it will act as real driver of developing accessible applications and testing the accessibility terms of services and applications.

Presentation: adaptive and user-centred user interface environment, well-conceived designer aid and assessment simulation applications; by reducing technology complexity and facilitate use of harmonized accessible methodologies and standards. Thus, ACCESSIBLE will support developers with a common assessment simulation module for checking the status of accessibility into their software applications. In addition to this, ACCESSIBLE will provide designers / developers / testers with a developer/ designer-aid tool in order to drive the design for people with disabilities and to develop accessible software applications for them.

ACCESSIBLE Socio-economic impact

The benefits that appropriate organizations (Service providers, SMEs,) will derive from ACCESSIBLE project by incorporating accessibility technologies (tools, standards, methodologies), can be summarised as:

� Social: all organisations have corporate social responsibilities; supporting the requirements of disabled customers and staff is one of the key responsibilities. This is implemented through systems being inclusive.

� Financial: increased revenue will emerge from a broader client base, not just people with disabilities but also ethically driven consumers and the mildly challenged. Reduced cost will emerge from increased productivity of staff, both disabled and able. Finally, cost of sales will be reduced by automated accessible customer support.

� Legal: there is a legal requirement to avoid discrimination against the disabled by developing accessible systems. Such discrimination may be identified as the lack of provision of appropriate ICT solutions.

� In fact, ACCESSIBLE based on inclusive ICT leads to a number of significant benefits that have a direct commercial impact, significantly prolonging independent living, and increasing active participation in the economy and the society.

In particular, ACCESSIBLE will:

• Provide companies and SMEs, which develop software application (Web and mobile applications, Web services, SDL) with appropriate supporting tools for the overall accessibility assessment procedure.

• To improve the accessibility of future ICT products and services and Expand potential market share


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• Facilitate the accessibility case by giving several opportunities to enterprises, companies and strengthening the accessibility and usability procedures of the software development processes

• ACCESSIBLE tools will be valuable for the EC mandate for e-Accessibility in public procurements

1.6 Project Logical framework

Objectives

(matching

the call) in

decreasing

priority order

Societal or technological issues

(targeted by the innovation components of the project)

Expected impacts

(matching the work-

programme and

further detailed in

Section 3.1 of the DoW)

Means to sustain the

expected impact (further

detailed in the

dissemination and use

plan in section 3.2 of the DoW)

Main Objective 1 (MO1)

- Lack of methodologies for the verification of accessibility for Web applications, web services, standard description languages (e.g. UML, SDL, etc) as well as mobile applications (including JavaFX Script applications) - Increasing demand for accessible software products that can support combinations of more than one disabilities simultaneously - ICT has emerged over the latest years, and the importance of accessibility has only begun to be appreciated in the last two or three years - Difficulties exist in current evaluation mechanisms for the selection between various proposals in public procurements

- To provide companies and SMEs, which develop mobile and/or desktop applications, with appropriate supporting tools for accessibility assessment

- To support different categories of people with disabilities in a unified way

-To improve the accessibility and usability of future ICT products and services

- ACCESSIBLE tools will be valuable for the EC mandate for e-Accessibility in public procurements

- The dissemination exploitation of Accessibility assessment tools - User’s acceptance of ACCESSIBLE results and products - Number of publications, number of workshops organized by the consortium and audience size, number of conferences attended, number of leaflets and newsletters, website, size of user forum - ACCESSIBLE final business plan and market analysis - the setting up of 1-2 spin-offs in order to exploit ACCESSIBLE results

Main Objective 2 (MO2)

- Missing framework for developers for gaining insight into the accessible software development process. Also, the implemented standards and best practices around accessibility are somewhat confusing and incomplete - Developers need to have a conceptual framework in which to situate disabled-related guidelines, which they often do not have due to lack of experience with people with disabilities and their requirements

ACCESSIBLE will provide developers and designers with an “harmonised methodology framework” (HAM) for gaining insight into the accessible software development process - To support any potential user (developer, designer, IT manager, etc.) of ACCESSIBLE test their developments against

- Number of publications, number of workshops organized by the consortium and audience size, number of conferences attended, number of leaflets and newsletters, website, size of user forum - At least 4-5 Guidelines/ standards to be incorporated by ACCESSIBLE - ACCESSIBLE incorporation in public procurements


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any set of accessibility criteria. Also to take into account appropriate needs and preferences of people with disabilities

Secondary Objective 1 (SO1)

- Existing development tools and packaged solutions give little out-of-the-box assistance in most cases or, at worst, make it impossible to develop accessible solutions - Many developers and, more surprisingly, designers, are not aware of the importance or need for accessibility as many of them do not have the necessary knowledge or skills for building accessible products

ACCESSIBLE will provide designers / developers / testers with a developer/ designer-aid tool in order to drive the design for people with disabilities and to develop accessible software applications for them - ACCESSIBLE will support developers with specific tools and mechanisms for the implementation of accessible software applications even if they don’t have the appropriate knowledge or skills for creating accessible solutions

- The exploitation of Designer-aid Tool for mobile applications ( - The exploitation of ACCESSIBLE three-layer ontological Framework for disabilities and accessibilities, Accessibility-centred rules inference engine, ACCESSIBLE Rules editor - Ontologies implementation from at least 7 different domains of disabilities - Number of publications, number of conferences attended, number of leaflets and newsletters, - The dissemination and exploitation of EARL based Reporting Tool

SG1

Many developers and, more surprisingly, designers, are not aware of the importance or need for accessibility. Consequently, many software products are being built in blissful ignorance, about accessibility issues. In addition, in many cases they don’t have appropriate accessibility mechanisms in order to solve foreseen problems on their products

ACCESSIBLE will support developers with specific tools and mechanisms for the implementation of accessible software applications even if they don’t have the appropriate knowledge or skills for creating accessible solutions

- The dissemination exploitation of developer / designer aid tools - Software Development users acceptance of ACCESSIBLE results and products - Number of publications, number of workshops organized by the consortium and audience size (developers, designers, etc.)

SG2

Developers need to have appropriate tools and methodologies in order to trace the status of accessibility during each stage of the overall software development process

- ACCESSIBLE will support developers with a common assessment simulation module for checking the status of accessibility into their software applications ACCESSIBLE will provide designers / developers / testers with a developer/ designer-aid tool in order to drive the design for people with disabilities and to develop accessible

- Software Development users acceptance of ACCESSIBLE results and products - The dissemination exploitation of Accessibility assessment tools


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software applications for them

SG3

Some of today's accessibility barriers have easy technological solutions, while others do not, and in some cases the present situation is still far from being satisfactory. The necessity of a harmonized conceptual framework for accessibility is of greater importance for the development of accessible products

ACCESSIBLE will provide developers and designers with an “harmonised methodology framework” (HAM) for introducing and “wrapping” accessibility into the software development process

- ACCESSIBLE incorporation in public procurements - User’s acceptance of ACCESSIBLE results and products - Number of publications, number of conferences attended, number of leaflets and newsletters

Table1: Project Logical framework

project periodic report publishable summary · alcatel-lucent deutschland ag 4 aldag germany...

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