ATIS4all was presented in the Workshop on eAccessibility and Assistive Technology, 20 - 21 June 2011, BrusselsTechnical coordinator22/06/2011
ATIS4all was presented in the Workshop on eAccessibility and Assistive Technology in Brussels by the project coordinator
The European Commission, DG INFSO - Media and Information Society, hosted an expert-oriented workshop presenting a set of European studies on eAccessibility and Assistive Technologies.
Mr. Iakovidis, Acting Head of the Unit on ICT for Inclusion, highlighted the will of the European Commission to translate the issue of accessibility of web applications and assistive technologies from policy into practices throughout Europe. With that regard, the most effective approach so far seemed not to be the anti-discrimination one, aiming at mainstreaming the principles of e-accessibility on the basis of guaranteeing an indeniable human right, but to focus on the internal market: the definition of those market sectors which are hindered because of web-inaccessibility proved to be the key for improving them and making them implement the relevant standards.
Dr. Jose Angel Martinez from Technosite presented the main outcomes of a European study to monitor eAccessibility, which will be shortly available in the www.eaccessibility-monitoring.eu . The study showcases the state of the art in the accessibility of public and private website against the internet accessibility policy for 12 European Countries (the European tender that financed the study asked for this focus on 12 EU Member States, plus Australia, US and Canada as non Member States, while considering other 2 countries, Greece and Norway, as other "volunteer Countries"). Having a look to the portal and checking the different ranking is indeed an interesting exercise: a list of alerts, ranked according to the "trafic light" model, indicates the level of implementation of policies and technologies of those categories that have been monitored: e.g. a green light alert on ebooks means that a high implementation has been recorded; a yellow light on accessibility for assistive technology means a moderate level of implementation; a red light on ATMs stands for a low level of implementation. Dr. Jose Angel Martinez also did a presentation to the ATIS4all project.
"The involvement of user organization has proved to be extremely relevant" to the study, Dr. Martinez said. The contribution of AGE, EDF and ANEC, together with the feedbacks from other user organizations at national level on their perception of eAccessibility, have been gathered as an Annex to the report. In this way their comments complement those of the 15 national experts who carried out the whole study at national level.
On day 2, the outcomes of the study on internal market for assistive technology were provided by Deloitte, together with the implications from future ICT trends on assistive technology and accessibility from ALTEC. AGE highlighted that engagement of users since the early stage of the study is key to the effectiveness of the studies; getting on board user organizations in these European studies helps to better identify other European and national stakeholders that can be valuable to the study itself, whilst the user needs themselves are helpful to drive the study in its evolution.
For more information on the workshop, write to [email protected]...