Anne Taylor

Chapter 10 – Case studies of success

It is important to highlight organizations that are consistently making their information technology accessible for people with disabilities. Case studies of success often can show strategies that work, strategies that can be implemented in other organizations. This chapter highlights case studies of success in public libraries, government, education, and the corporate sector.

Chapter 2 – The history of access technology

This chapter provides an overview of the history of accessible technology. Early approaches, such as the typewriter, record player, and teletypewriter (TTY), created the foundations for accessible technology. Many of the technologies developed in the 1970s-1990s as access technologies, such as captioning, speech recognition, and computer synthesized speech output, now enjoy widespread use by all. The history of access technologies can help with understanding why incorporating accessible features into mainstream technologies is important and why there needs to be a culture change in how accessibility is managed.

Evaluation methods and measurement

In an ideal world, if developers follow technical standards related to accessibility and involve users with disabilities in the development process, it will result in fully accessible technology. However, accessibility standards have not been developed for every category of technology, and the application of existing standards do not automatically produce full accessibility. This is where evaluation methods come into play. Evaluation methods, including usability testing, expert reviews (inspections), and automated accessibility inspections, evaluate interfaces to determine if they are accessible and usable by people with disabilities.

Increasing legal requirements for interface accessibility

There is increasing legal activity, requiring accessibility for people with disabilities, across a number of categories of digital content - government information, corporate web sites, electronic hiring processes, and e-book readers. The purpose of this panel at CHI 2011 is to inform the interaction design community about these legal changes, and discuss strategies for successful implementation of accessibility regulations in design.

Chapter 1 – Introduction to accessible technology

This chapter provides an overview of the topic of information technology (IT) accessibility. For people with disabilities, accessible IT means having access to the same functions and the same information (not edited or summarized information) at the same time and at the same cost with an ease of use substantially equivalent to that experienced by the general population without disabilities. Having access to the same information at a later time, or a different version of the same information that is not as detailed, is not considered to meet this standard. This chapter discusses various types of disabilities and IT policies. A clear distinction is made between accessible IT, which requires the technology/application/content provider to ensure accessibility, and other types of assistive devices such as augmentative communication and prosthetics, which an individual can use independently without outside considerations. Finally, this chapter discusses usage of disability terminology throughout the book.

Chapter 4 – Technical standards for accessibility

This chapter provides a foundational understanding of the major international technical standards for technology accessibility. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, User Agent Accessibility Guidelines, and Accessible Rich Internet Application are all discussed in detail. Guidelines for non-web content, such as EPUB3 and WCAG2ICT, are also discussed. This chapter also provides a description of the process by which international technical standards are created by organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium.

Chapter 9 – Compliance monitoring policies and procurement

This chapter focuses on compliance mechanisms for ensuring the accessibility of information technology (IT). Compliance mechanisms are policy-level activities, occurring at the level of an organization, company, university, or governmental agency. This chapter discusses compliance monitoring policies in various governments and organizations and presents the different types of compliance mechanisms used for different types of technologies, including three types of triggers for compliance: spending money (procurement), updating web content, and updating software versioning. The need for IT accessibility plans is also discussed.

Chapter 6 – International disability law

Different countries utilize different methods for encouraging digital accessibility. These techniques include voluntary performance, regulations, or statutes. Some countries require private entities to have accessible technology, while most countries only require accessibility of government web sites. Some countries have full transparency while others do not publicly share any information. Some countries, due to their legal traditions, utilize private lawsuits as a mechanism for improvement and enforcement, while others do not. This chapter provides an overview of laws around the world, related to digital accessibility. This chapter is not designed to be comprehensive. A single chapter, even an entire book, could not adequately address laws on digital accessibility for every country on the planet. This chapter covers some of the best-known laws that relate to digital accessibility, such as the Equality Act in the UK, the Stanca Act in Italy, and the Disability Discrimination Act in Australia. This chapter also discusses differences in legal traditions that influence which approaches are most appropriate (e.g., lawsuits or legal statutes), as well as differences in how disability rights are addressed (civil rights vs. human rights). This chapter also discusses human rights documents relevant to digital accessibility, including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Marrakesh Treaty.

U.S. laws and lawsuits

Access to digital content and technology is critical not only to secure comprehensive information rapidly and with little effort, but also to participate on the virtual communal spaces that this technology has created. The right of persons with disabilities to “live in the world” on an equal footing requires the right to “live in the Internet.” Because American federal law for the most part does not impose responsibility for accessibility directly on digital content creators and technology developers, the task of including persons with disabilities in the digital community has been made more difficult. This gap in the law has required disability rights advocates to create a market for accessible technology and content by insisting that those who do have responsibility to refrain from discrimination against those with disabilities—public entities, federally funded entities, and public accommodations—face legal consequences for acquiring inaccessible products. This activity, in turn, leads those entities with liability to insist that tech and content developers offer accessible digital information and technology.