Access For All

The 2nd Pan-European Workshop/User Forum and the 1st International ÆGIS Conference entitled “Access for All in the desktop, web and mobile field: an end-user and developer perspective” will take place in Seville, Spain on 6 and 7-8 October 2010 respectively. All events are organised by the ÆGIS IP initiative (Open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards – www.aegis-project.eu), partially funded under FP7 (Theme: ICT‐2007.7.1; ICT & Ageing).
Detailed info and registration about the 1st International AEGIS Conference is available through www.aegis-conference.eu. Registration is now open.

On 3-4 November 2010, the WSC will organize an international workshop in the premises of the World Meteorological Organization, in Geneva, Switzerland, on “Accessibility and the contribution of International Standards”.
Accessibility is the degree to which a product, device, service, environment or facility is usable by as many people as possible, including by persons with disabilities. Its importance is signified by the fact that the number of persons with disabilities, either congenital, acquired or as a result of age is estimated to be around 650 million worldwide.
International standardization can be a powerful tool for strengthening accessibility in all these areas by setting the same standards around the world for accessible products, devices, services, environments and facilities.
The World Standards Cooperation (WSC) brings together the three leading international standards bodies, namely the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The workshop takes up the topic of the 2010 World Standards Day, celebrated each year on 14 October, which is “Accessibility”.
Workshop structure and expected outcome
The workshop will address three key subject areas:

• accessibility in the field of everyday products
• accessibility and buildings
• eAccessibility and eInclusion (in Information and Communication Technologies)

In a combination of plenary and break-out group meetings these three subject areas will be discussed and the potential of standardization – and in particular international standardization – to contribute to strengthening accessibility aspects in the design of products, services, environments and facilities will be addressed.
Key stakeholder groups participating in the workshop will include disability organizations, governments and regulators, product designers and manufacturers faced with accessibility requirements, consumers and standards developers from around the world. Under discussion will be the current and future needs in the field of accessibility as well as the possible contributions international standardization can make in facilitating the development of accessible solutions around the world.
The expected outcome of the workshop is a better understanding of both the work on accessibility issues in standardization in the various areas and the needs of those most concerned. It is hoped that the groundwork will be laid and a road map drawn up for future standardization initiatives with the involvement of the key stakeholders.

More information at the event website.

ACCESSIBLE consortium is proud to announce the realisation of their first Project Workshop on 13 July 2010, in the context of the ICCHP conference in Vienna.
During the ACCESSIBLE workshop the innovative results of the project, related to the accessibility assessment and simulation technologies, will be presented accompanied with the developed tools, which will be interactively tested from the participants.
The participation is fully free of charge.

Accessibility is becoming an ubiquitous topic nowadays, with many authorities and experts putting a lot of effort on pushing forward accessibility of software applications. Despite this fact, many ICT applications and systems are not fully accessible yet.

The development of accessible software applications requires a strong effort from developers and software designers. With the additional encumbrance of taking into account different kinds of accessibility requirements, guidelines and best practices, and different user interface implementation technologies, developers are faced with a daunting task. Therefore, the highly specialised skills required for developing accessible software sets aside most of them.

Starting from this lack of accessibility, the ACCESSIBLE EU FP7 project was established to contribute to better accessibility for all citizens, to increase the use of accessibility standards, and to develop an assessment simulation environment (including a suite of accessibility analysing tools as well as developer-aid tools) to assess efficiently, easily and rapidly the accessibility and viability of software applications for all user groups.

Actually the main goal of ACCESSIBLE is to develop appropriate open source assessment and simulation tools in order to fully support and incorporate accessibility constraints for the design and development of accessible new applications.

The ACCESSIBLE Consortium kindly invites you to participate in its first international Workshop that will take place on 13 July 2010 in the context of the 12th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP), in Vienna University of Technology, Austria.

The main objective of this workshop is to promote the innovative results of the ACCESSIBLE project related to the accessibility assessment and simulation technologies, to a wider community of potential users and to offer significant support to interested parties (ICT developers, designers, etc.) in order to encourage and empower them to contribute towards the inclusive ICT vision.
At the end of the Workshop, an award ceremony will be given to the organisation or to the developer of the most accessible software application (Web, mobile), according to the accessibility tests (WCAG 2.0, mobileOK) that are going to take place with ACCESSIBLE assessment tools. The ACCESSIBLE Award evaluation expert committee will be composed of well-known scientists and experts in the accessibility domain.

For more information about the ICCHP conference and the ACCESSIBLE Workshop, please visit the web page of ICCHP or the projects web page.

E-Access Bulletin’s sixth annual conference and exhibition on access to technology by people with disabilities, e-Access ‘10, takes place on 13 July 2010 at Olympia 2 Conference Centre, London, UK. This year, the event is co-hosted by OneVoice for Accessible ICT Coalition, the UK’s leading umbrella body for organisations promoting access to technology by all. These days, all organisations use technology, from externally-facing websites to internal ICT systems used by your employees. And with an ageing population, and in tough economic times, ensuring all your customers, service users and staff are included in everything you do is more vital than ever. This summer event includes a packed programme of interactive sessions, workshops and case studies to help organisations of all sizes take their first steps towards or improve their track record on accessibility. Sessions cover the business, legal and ethical drivers for making computers, mobile phones and all digital technologies accessible to all.
More information can be found here.

The AAATE workshop 2010 “AT – technology transfer” will take place in Sheffield, UK, on October 4-5 2010. A call for contributions is open. The event is free to some delegates including authors of accepted papers or members of the AAATE who register early. The workshop is being hosted by KT-EQUAL and by D4D. More on this event can be found at the event website .