A Role for Metadata in Promoting Accessibility

Liddy NevileLa Trobe University

Australia

Summary

• The Web for all people• Definition of accessibility• Accessibility standards/laws• Communities working on accessibility• Metadata for accessibility• Current state of development

The Web for every One

• The range of benefits:• Knowledge/Science/…• Tele-health• Tele-education• Ecological • Equity

--> telecommunications access for all--> content and services access for all

Definition of accessibility

• Scenario 1– Rashid is driving his new Porsche to

Agra on Valentine’s Day. He realises that he has not brought flowers and wants to know where he can collect some roses on his way. “Google” knows, but Rashid cannot take his eyes off the road to check the Web. His on-board computer is rendered useless.

Definition of accessibility

• Scenario 2– Indira is a tele-education student

studying mathematics . Her specialisation is continuous fractions. She is finishing her doctoral thesis. Her professor is in Delhi. Indira lives in Sakristi with her parents. Indira is deaf/blind and depends upon her computer and Braille device to communicate.

Definition of accessibility

• Accessibility is about ‘independence’, access despite changes in:– Devices (desktop, laptop, palm, phone..)– Contexts (quiet, noisy, public, …)– Modalities (seeing, hearing, touching, ..)– Abilities (illiterate, dyslexic, dysnumeric,

…)– Languages– Cultures

Definition of accessibility

• In summary, accessibility is about content and services that are developed once and yet available to all devices (and people, including those using assistive technologies)

• i.e. Re-usable multi-media content in forms that comply with W3C standards for accessibility

Accessibility standards/laws

• European Economic Community– Requirements for equity for people with

disabilities, esp. in e-government, e-education, ...

• U.S.A.– Requirements for government

procurement (s. 508) - competitive advantage

• Australia– Requirement for lack of discrimination

(Disabilities Discrimination Act - Common Law interpretation)

Accessibility standards/laws

• India– A “right to information”

• Differences (in enforcement):– EU - a right– USA - a constraint– Australia - a common law protection– India - a common law right

‘accessibility’ Communities

• W3C and W3C WAI (Web Content Accessibility Initiative)

– Guidelines for authors, authoring tools and user agent developers

• EuroAccessibility– Characteristics of accessibility

(based on WCAG)

• Disability communities, advocacy communities, digital library initiatives, ….

Accessibility Metadata WGs

• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative• International Committee Technology

Standards (INCITS V2)• IMS Global Learning Consortium

and• W3C’s Evaluation and Reporting

Language (EARL) Working Group

User profiling

• WebForAll technology (Industry Canada)– smart card to manage hardware/software

• AccessForAll profile (IMS et al.)– Control– Display – Content

Control needs and preferences

User profiling

• WebForAll technology (Industry Canada)– smart card to manage hardware/software

• AccessForAll profile (IMS et al.)– Control– Display – Content

• AccessForAllAlways (CEN MMI-DC) - include language and culture

Content discovery/repairUser profiles

Web services

Metadata repositorysearch engine etc..

Content repositoryWeb server etc..

Technical aspects of access

– Content from HTML to XML (W3C)– Use accessible technologies (SVG, SMIL, i18n, ...)

– Migrate metadata ( HTML to XML to RDF)

– Separate content & presentation (CSS, XSLT, ...)

– Describe user in metadata

=> Use [content + presentation + user] metadata to provide access

State of development

• W3C WAI guidelines – WCAG, ATAG, UAAG, DI, CSS, EARL, XSLT,

SMIL, SVG, ….– XAG

• DCMI, IMS etc…– AccessForAll profile

http://www.imsproject.org/accessibility/

• AccessibilityMetadata– 30th April 2004 in Brussels

Thank you

• http://w3.org/WAI/• http://dublincore.org/groups/access/• http://www.imsproject.org/accessibility• mailto:Liddy.Nevile@motile.net