Reviving Negotiated Rulemaking for an Accessible Internet

Web accessibility requires designing and developing websites so that people with disabilities can use them without barriers. While the internet has become central to daily life, websites have overwhelmingly remained inaccessible to the millions of users who have disabilities. Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to combat discrimination against people with disabilities. Passed in 1990, it lacks any specific mention of the internet Courts are split as to whether the ADA applies to websites, and if so, what actions businesses must take to comply with the law. Further complicating matters, the Department of Justice (DOJ) initiated the rulemaking process for web accessibility in 2010, only to terminate it seven years later without issuing a rule—leaving the disability community without meaningful online access and businesses without clear standards. Meanwhile, complaints about the accessibility of websites have flooded federal agencies and the courts. Against that backdrop, this Note calls for the DOJ to use negotiated rulemaking, a regulatory innovation from the 1980s that has since faded in use, to achieve web accessibility. Given that the Supreme Court has declined to resolve whether the ADA’s protections apply to the internet, the business and disability communities should come together through negotiated rulemaking to build consensus on web accessibility

Evaluation of Web Accessibility and Usability from Blind User’s Perspective: The Context of Online Assessment

The central premise of our research is that the Web lacks accessibility and usability, creating problems for blind users in Web interactions. We want to understand the nature of accessibility and usability problems blind users face in a Web-based task. Extant literature recognizes this problem exists, but does not explain its nature. This understanding is needed to determine accessibility and usability requirements of the Web for blind users. Our research takes a task-oriented approach to develop this understanding in the context of online assessment. Employing verbal protocol analysis, we capture evidence of problems 6 blind participants observe and experience in completing the task. Analysis reveals two aspects of Web design that present accessibility and usability problems for blind users. Findings will help future research develop blind user profile for Web applications. Our study demonstrates an effective method for qualitative evaluation of Web accessibility and usability for the blind

Incorporating Accessibility in Web-Based Work Environments: Two Alternative Approaches and Issues Involved

The development of online work and collaboration environments presents a number of opportunities as well as challenges, especially for diverse user populations. They can enhance the mobility of workers and, subject to their design, offer access to people with disability and contribute significantly to tackling existing barriers in employment and social inclusion. At present, a number of web-based work environments have been developed; nonetheless, they hardly reach people with disability due to their low conformance with Web accessibility principles. One of the reasons why incorporating accessibility in online environments remains elusive for most Web service providers is that it is difficult for them to choose among the alternative approaches. This paper examines two different approaches of Web accessibility engineering from a provider’s perceptive and in relation to the resources required in each case. In the first approach, interfaces are made accessible by design, whereas the second approach involves the use of “filter and transformation tools” as a means to transform existing non-accessible interfaces into ones that comply with de facto Web accessibility recommendations. Based on the authors’ experience and hands-on practice on both approaches gained in the context of several European and national projects and through the development of fifteen accessible online tools in total, a study was conducted to examine the cost effectiveness of each approach. As a result, a set of practical guidelines are offered here for assisting web service providers in identifying the most appropriate approach with regards to the different needs of any given project

Digital accessibility of smart cities - tourism for all and reducing inequalities: Tourism Agenda 2030

Purpose: There is widespread agreement that the tourism sector should address the issue of sustainability. The purpose of this study is to analyze the digital accessibility of the cities awarded as European Capitals of Smart Tourism for their innovative, accessible and sustainable practices by the European Commission. Design/methodology/approach: An analysis of the digital level of accessibility of 50 uniform resource locator (URL) of European cities was undertaken. The analysis followed the international evaluation requirements of the World Wide Web (W3C). Findings: The results show that none of the official Web pages analyzed obtained 100% in relation to the digital accessibility requirements. The main factors that pose barriers to communication and interaction were identified. Practical implications: The paper encourages smart tourism destinations to overcome the challenge of matching both dimensions of accessibility to obtain barrier-free information to ensure cities are inclusive and sustainable in line with Agenda 2030 (sustainable development goal [SDG] 11). Originality/value: The concept of tourism for all receives special attention in the sector, and this notion is reflected in the UN SDGs. However, accessibility has not been extensively analyzed in relation to the cohesion between the digital and the physical dimension. Tourism research tends to focus on accessible experiences within destinations. This paper introduces a new insight into the key issue of digital accessibility, which can promote destination choice and influence the tourism experience.Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBU

A revaluation of the cultural dimension of disability policy in the European Union: The impact of digitization and web accessibility

Reflecting the commitments undertaken by the EU through the conclusion of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the European Disability Strategy 2010–2020 not only gives a prominent position to accessibility, broadly interpreted, but also suggests an examination of the obligations for access to cultural goods and services. The European Disability Strategy 2010–2020 expressly acknowledges that EU action will support national activities to make sports, leisure, cultural and recreational organizations and activities accessible, and use the possibilities for copyright exceptions in the Directive 2001/29/EC (Infosoc Directive). This article discusses to what extent the EU has realized the principle of accessibility and the right to access cultural goods and services envisaged in the UNCRPD. Previous research has yet to explore how web accessibility and digitization interact with the cultural dimension of disability policy in the European Union. This examination attempts to fill this gap by discussing to what extent the European Union has put this cultural dimension into effect and how web accessibility policies and the digitization of cultural materials influence these efforts

Process Model For Information Retrieval Environment For Hearing Impaired

  As the Internet usage has exponential increased and the embedding of multimedia content on the Web, some of the Internet resources still remain inaccessible for disable people with disabilities. Mostly, people who are Hard of Hearing or deaf experience inaccessible Web sites because of a lack of Closed Captioning for multimedia content on the Web, there is no sign language equivalent for the content on the Web, and an unsatisfactory evaluation framework for determining that if a Web page is accessible to the Hearing Impaired society. A number of opportunities for accessing web content are needed to be rectified in order to make the Hearing Impaired community to access the full benefits of the information repository on the Internet. This research paper contributes to resolve few of the Web accessibility problems that are being faced by the Hearing Impaired community. The objectives are to generate an automated Closed Captioning for multimedia content the for Web, to develop a framework for the Hearing Impaired community in order to evaluate Web accessibility. Moreover, to build a social network for the deaf community and to embed sign language equivalent for content available on the Web

Understanding blind Users' Web Accessibility and Usability problems.

Our motivation for this research is the belief that blind users cannot participate effectively in routine Web-based activities due to the lack of Web accessibility and usability for non-visual interaction. We take a cognitive, user-centered, task-oriented approach to develop an understanding of accessibility and usability problems that blind users face in Web interactions. This understanding is critically needed to determine accessibility and usability requirements for non-visual Web interaction. We employ verbal protocol analysis for an in-depth examination of difficulties participants face in completing an online assessment through a course management system. We analyze the problems that hinder accessibility and usability and explain the nature of these problems in terms of design principles. Our study contributes an effective method for qualitative evaluation of Web accessibility and usability. Our findings will guide future research to develop more accessible and usable Web applications for blind users

A Web-based Animation Authoring Application for Quadrupedal Characters

Creating animation for quadrupedal characters via key-framing is time consuming; furthermore, motion capture is expensive and cannot easily be applied to animals. Procedural animation can combat these limitations. However, procedural animation requires a certain amount of technical and mathematical prowess. In order to address these issues, this thesis delivers a web-based application capable of creating expressive animation using a procedural approach. The web-based interface allows the user to create a gait cycle for any quadrupedal shape through a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables the animator to easily modify character representation and gait parameters. Once the user has obtained their desired animation cycle, the animation data from the new web-based application can be exported directly into a preferred animation pipeline. This system provides a lightweight tool that saves the user time and requires minimal expertise. It also does not add to the cost of software and/or hardware and facilitates animation authoring from any computer with internet access and a web browser

myWebAccess: A platform for repairing, enhancing and re-distributing Web Services accessible to people with disability

International audienceWeb services are an emerging technology which has attracted much attention from both the research and the industry sectors in recent years. The exploitation of web services as components in web applications facilitates development and supports applications interoperability, regardless of the programming language and platform used. However, existing web services development standards do not take into account the fact that the provided content and the interactive functionality should be accessible to, and easily operable by, people with disabilities. This paper presents a platform named myWebAccess, which provides a mechanism for the semi-automated "repair" of web services' interaction characteristics in order to support the automatic generation of interface elements that conform to the de facto standard of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. myWebAccess enhances interaction quality for specific target user groups, including people with visual and motor disabilities, and supports the use of web services on diverse platforms (e.g., mobile phones equipped with a browser). The users of myWebAccess can create a personalized environment containing their favourite services, and can interact with them through interfaces appropriate to their specific individual characteristics