Helen Petrie from HCIRG, University of York on accessible digital culture

1. Accessible digital culture: past, present and future Helen Petrie and Christopher Power Human Computer Interaction Research Group, Department of Computer Science, University of York

2. Overview The past: websites, WCAG1 The present: Podcasts, Multimedia, WCAG2 The future: personalization, localization, … beyond WCAG ….

3. Interacting with the web The Past

4. The past: a mid-noughties burst of interest! mid noughties (2003 – 2005) Considerable interest in accessibility of the digital world, including digital culture Disability Rights Commission Formal Investigation eGov Unit, target set for government (-funded) websites of midway between WCAG** Level A and Level AA accessibility Culture Online funded innovative projects in digital culture area – accessibility mandatory MLA funded an accessibility audit of websites in the museums, libraries and archives sector

5. Very quick primer on WCAG Web Content Accessibility Guidelines A set of guidelines from the World Wide Consortium on how to make websites accessible to people with disabilities Three levels of conformance Level A = most basic Level AA = middle Level AAA = most advanced, fully accessible 14 guidelines, divide into 65 checkpoints Automatic tools available, but only test a minority of these checkpoints

6. The MLA accessibility audit Assessed the accessibility of 300 websites in the museum, library and archives sectors 46% of websites met minimum WCAG Level A on automated testing (so real level of accessibility probably lower) Only 3% met level AA – the government and EU target Substantially better than commercial websites (only 19% met Level A) (evaluated in the DRC FI)

7. What happened then ….? Government failed to follow through very visibly on its commitment to accessibility of websites – relevant government unit closed Disability Rights Commission merged with others to become EHRC … bogged down in other issues No cases brought against organizations for lack of accessibility of their websites (at least two settled out of court)

8. What happened then … ? European Commission continued to push for eAccessibility as part of its “Information Society for All” plans eEurope 2002, eEurope 2005, i2010 strategy Is anyone listening? Have the targets been set too high? Is it too hard to implement accessibility in digital culture and related areas? UK government has now appointed Martha Lane Fox as Chairman of a Digital Inclusion Task Force

9. Interacting with technology The Present

10. Where are we now? Ten years on, WCAG 1.0 has aged poorly Changes in technology, changes in interaction and changes in user activities on the web chipped away at its relevance Rumours of a new WCAG circulated; drafts were submitted, revised and eventually promised for 2008 Release was expected to be received with much fanfare

11. The Mystery Release of WCAG 2.0 Instead of fanfare, WCAG 2.0 appeared in waves of silence December 2008 was the official release Many did not know this release happened One year on, there are few tools addressing WCAG 2.0 criteria Why is this the case?

12. Is WCAG 2.0 harder than WCAG 1.0 to understand and use?

13. Is WCAG 2.0 harder than WCAG 1.0 to understand and use? Hopefully this is not the case – but it is very different! WAI has made some definite improvements over WCAG 1.0 in the following ways: Guidelines are grouped into categories or principles so that developers can orient themselves easier Guidelines are (mostly) technology independent for ‘futureproofing’ W3C-speak is properly defined and explained But we need to look deeper to understand this upgrade to WCAG

14. WCAG 2.0 Structure: Principles and Guidelines Four principles Perceiveable, Operable, Understandable and Robust Under each principle are guidelines These are general statements about what designers and developers should aim for in their websites

15. WCAG 2.0: Success Criteria Each guideline has success criteria These are like the old checkpoints from WCAG 1.0 – these are the things that we can test for in the site Each success criteria can be evaluated to a level, like WCAG 1.0 priorities (A, AA, AAA) Some checkpoints can have conditions on content that allows them to satisfy multiple levels But … the success criteria do not tell you how to test your technology

16. How are success criteria tested? The new ‘futureproofing’ has removed the technology from the success criteria themselves Tests are separate from the criteria – they are stored in separate documents called ‘Techniques’ There are sufficient techniques that have been judged by the WCAG WG to be sufficient to meet the success criteria; however: Only for W3C technologies currently in use Often contain multiple tests and conditions before we know we can use them Retains the major criticism of WCAG 1.0 – not evidence based, but value based decisions

17. There is an interesting catch Techniques come in a few different types: Sufficient – endorsed by the WCAG WG as being sufficient for meeting a guideline Advisory – they might help in some way General – independent of technologies Technology specific – for W3C technologies only Most importantly – these techniques are not part of WCAG itself – they are not binding – meaning they don’t have to be used, nor are they part of any kind of conformance statement Essentially, the WCAG WG has moved the responsibility of developing correct tests onto the development community

18. What does that mean for us? We are not bound by the W3C technologies – we can try to use WCAG 2.0 (even with all of its flaws) to test lots of different technologies Podcasts Audio blogs Picture sharing Video sharing Social networking AJAX, Flash etc.

19. What does this mean for us? First – when tools come out we have to, as a community, check what those tools are testing Second – begin to develop techniques for non-W3C technologies and validate them with users Third – share good practice an validated techniques

20. Interacting with content The Future

21. What is our end goal? Is it to build accessible technology? Is it to push the boundaries of technology? Is it to develop guidelines and standards? No! In the end we want to communicate some kind of meaning with people! We want to share our concepts, our culture with them

22. What type of meaning? Any kind!

23. Contentversus Delivery

24. Distortion of meaning

25. What does accessible content mean? We need to develop ways to maintain and transmit the meaning to the person experiencing an exhibit Can people understand what you are trying to communicate? Can people perceive the information? Can people interact with it? Pretty hard to do that for everyone in one content presentation What is the solution?

26. Personalisation of content Matching of user preferences

27. Measurement of the impact of the meaning One thing that we are missing is a true understanding about the experience of the person interacting with a cultural artefact How do we know if our intended meaning is getting through? How do we know what emotions are being evoked from our meaning? If someone gets a different meaning, or feels something different, in what ways is that interesting? How do we describe these modified experiences?

28. An EU supported eAccessibility NetworkStrand X: eAccessibility for digital culture

29. A group of 25 organizations around Europe is in final negotiation with the European Commission to start aneAccessibility Network it will support the exchange of knowledge about eAccessibility in a number of areas: websites, ticket machines, banking machines, digital television …. digital culture … d

30. Contract has not been signed, so it is still unofficial at the momentHowever, it is very clear (for reasons that we cannot articulate) that the Commission wants to support this initiativeOf course, the funding from the Commission is not great and we will be seeking further funding in the UK

31. Activities we plan: Workshops, tutorials at conferences, other events … Online support – website from the point of view of developers, not obscure techno-speak … examples of good/bad practice what else? In what areas?

32. What would YOU find helpful?A practical exercise …

33. Key issues – what topics in accessibility are of interest to you?What support – how can we help address these issues?When? Where? How?

34. Questions?Further questions/thoughts/comments?helen.petrie@cs.york.ac.ukcpower@cs.york.ac.uk