Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2007

News

Web specialists make 'buzz' mean business

If buzz-words like an ‘online world’ or ‘networked community’ are to have real meaning, then the world-wide-web must be accessible to everyone who wants digital content and has appropriate devices and telecommunications - from school children to people with disabilities.

La Trobe’s Ms Nevile, left, with WGBH’s Ms Rothberg
and Mr Yonaitis from HiSoftware.

At the moment this is not the case, according to Liddy Nevile, Associate Professor in La Trobe University’s Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering.

Large web pages rarely fit on devices with small handheld screens, let alone phone screens - and many important sites are not accessible to people with adaptive technologies.

‘It’s not a networked community unless everyone can participate’, says Ms Nevile, a point highlighted by a US Federal Court Judge last September when he sustained a discrimination claim, establishing a precedent that retailers must make their websites accessible to the blind.

‘The suit was filed as a class action on behalf of all blind Americans who were being denied access to the web pages of a giant retail chain.’

Ms Nevile recently organised a ‘Web Adaptability Conference’, on the University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora.

She says forthcoming ISO standards - which have been co-authored by her, Madeleine Rothberg from the US, a keynote speaker at the conference, and others - can be implemented by a combination of software and other open source products.

The conference focused on helping organisations to manage their web responsibilities, with topics such as auditing websites and resources for adaptability and standards compliance; repairing inaccessible content; discovering accessible content; and matching resources to users’ needs and preferences.

Delegates who attended the conference ranged from educators, researchers and symbolic language resource developers to information managers and technical staff.

The work of keynote speaker, Madeleine Rothberg, Director of Research and Development for the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media in the US, focuses on providing access to multimedia and educational technology for users with disabilities, both through directly accessible solutions such as captions, talking software and audio description, and with improvements in infrastructure through standards.

WGBH - the Sesame Street television company in Boston - having pioneered services for 37 million blind or deaf Americans, has a reputation for making almost anything accessible. The company works on standards for describing resources and the needs and preferences of people with disabilities.

For the higher education sector, Madeleine Rothberg also works with a consortia of US universities to ensure that the software they are developing for teaching and learning includes the new description standards and applications that match resources to users’ needs and preferences.

‘By sharing the effort of providing accessible resources, universities are expecting to move much closer to being able to offer inclusive education with far less individual effort,’ Ms Nevile says.

Leading accessibility software developer Rob Yonaitis from HiSoftware conducted workshops showing how institutions can manage accessibility.

‘Australia has a strong reputation for its contribution to developing accessibility standards for the web - and La Trobe regularly attracts people who lead in global standards development, furthering the work we are doing here in Melbourne for this important part of the ICT sector.’