AEGIS presentation at Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre (RMLL) / Libre Software Meetings (LSM) Bordeaux, France, 6-11 July 2010

1. The AEGIS European Project:
Mainstreaming Accessibility
Through Open Source
Christophe Strobbe
K.U.Leuven, Belgium
christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be

2. Overview
●
Background
●
Areas & goals
●
3rd generation accessibility
●
Open Accessibility Framework (OAF)
●
User-centred design (UCD)
●
Open source
●
Examples

3. Demographic Shift
●
EU demographic shift:
●
2000: 15.7% over 64
●
2010: 17.6% over 64 (2007 estimate)
●
2020: 20.7% over 64 (2007 estimate)
●
EU-25 employment rates of older
workers
●
40% in 2004
●
59% in 2025 (2007 estimate)

4. i2010
EU policy framework for information
society and media
●
Aims
●
to create a Single European Information Space,
which promotes an open and competitive internal
market for information society and media
services,
●
to strengthen investment and innovation in ICT
research,
●
to support inclusion, better public services
and quality of life through the use of ICT

5. New Standards and Legislation
●
US: Section 508 & 255 refresh
(comments on Advanced Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking could be submitted until 25 June)
●
EU: Mandate M/376:
●
public procurement of accessible ICT
products and services
●
W3C:
●
WCAG 2.0 (Dec. 2008), ATAG
(authoring tools), UAAG (user agents)

6. AEGIS
●
± 20 partners
●
Coordinator: CERTH-HIT (Greece)
●
Companies: Sun/Oracle, AOL, RIM,
Vodafone, …
●
Research: Fraunhofer, Univ Poli Madrid,
Univ of Cambridge, Czech Tech Uni,
Univ of Toronto, K.U.Leuven
●
Others: Technosite, ACE (cf. oatsoft),…
●
Sept. 2008 – Feb. 2012 (42 months)

7. AEGIS: Areas
●
Desktop
●
Rich Internet Applications
●
Mobile applications
●
User-centred design

8. AEGIS: Goals
●
Determine whether 3rd generation
access techniques will provide a more
accessible, more exploitable and deeply
embeddable approach in mainstream
ICT (desktop, rich Internet and mobile
applications)
●
Open Accessibility Framework (OAF) to
address aspects of the design,
development and deployment of
accessible mainstream ICT

9. First Generation Accessibility
●
1960s – 1980s
●
Expensive, bolt-on
solutions
●
Limited and slow
●
E.g. Optacon,
talking calculator,
simple
screenreaders

10. Second Generation Accessibility
●
Late 1980s – today
●
Works with graphical user interfaces
●
Text to speech, speech recognition
●
Often relies on reverse engineering the
OS, replacing the video driver, chaining
the keyboard driver

11. Second Generation Accessibility

12. Third Generation Accessibility
●
“Engineered accessibility”
●
All the information needed by AT is
provided through a single programming
interface
=Accessibility API
●
Introduced to desktop Java by Sun
●
Later: GNOME, Apple Accessibility APIs,
MS UI Automation, IAccessible2

13. Open Accessibility Framework OAF
●
Address the whole “accessibility chain”:
design, development, deployment
●
Document describing the framework of
things needed for 3rd generation
accessibility
●
Collection of open source components
implementing various aspects of the
OAF, proven in AEGIS and contributed
back to the open source projects of
which they are part

14. Six Components of the OAF
●
Creation domain
1.Define “Accessible”
2.Create stock/re-usable components
3.Developer / author support tools
●
Use domain
4.Support “Accessible” in the platform
5.Create/distribute the accessible app
6.Assistive Technology & AT support
libraries

15. User-Centred Design
●
AEGIS development supported by user-
centred design
●
Downloads:
●
Use cases: http://www.aegis-
project.eu/ > Results> Deliverables >
Deliverable D1.1.3
●
17 Personas: (Creative Commons
License) http://www.aegis-project.eu/ >
Results > Personas

16. User-Centred Design: Personas

17. User-Centred Design: Personas

18. Open Source
●
Most software produced in AEGIS will
be open source
●
=> Eliminate license costs as argument
against accessibility
●
Contributions to mainstream
applications that are available as open
source

19. Why Open Source? (1)
●
Most common assistive technologies
(AT) are very expensive
(JAWS >$1000, ZoomText)
●
Some countries refund assistive
technologies
●
Some governments buy assistive
technologies for use in workplace
●
=> Governments are effectively biggest
buyers of assistive technologies

20. Why Open Source? (2)
●
AT is often too expensive for
●
developers who want to test their
products
●
users outside richest countries, e.g.
– no AT refunding in Greece, etc
– AT costs X times monthly salary =>
cracked AT
●
Governments can’t convince AT
developers to make certain
improvements

21. Why Open Source? (3)
●
Even in rich countries, budgets for AT
refunding are under pressure
●
Proposal:
●
invest in open source AT
●
=> probably cheaper in the long run
●
=> countries without money for AT also
gain access

22. Desktop Developments: AT (1)
●
Contributions to
GnomeShell
Magnification
(ATRC, University
of Toronto)
●
Contributions to
Orca screenreader
(ATRC, University
of Toronto)

23. Desktop Developments: AT (2)
●
Continuation of
Dasher:
alternative text
entry system
(Cambridge Univ)
●
http://www.inference.ph
y.cam.ac.uk/dasher/

24. Desktop Developments: AT (3)
●
Continuation of
OpenGazer: gaze
tracking with
webcam
(Cambridge Univ)
●
http://www.inference.phy.
cam.ac.uk/opengazer/

25. Desktop Developments: OOo (1)
●
Concept Coding Framework (CCF) in
OpenOffice.org Writer – for persons
with cognitive impairments

26. Desktop Developments: OOo (2)
●
odt2daisy (http://odt2daisy.sf.net/;
Vincent Spiewak & K.U.Leuven)
●
released at OpenOffice.org Conference
November 2009
●
convert OpenDocument Text (ODT) to
digital talking books in DAISY format
●
MS Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS

27. Desktop Developments: OOo (3)
●
odt2braille (K.U.Leuven)
●
to be released later this month!
●
export ODT to Braille or emboss directly
from OpenOffice.org Writer
●
supports BRF and Portable Embosser
Format (PEF)

28. Desktop Developments: More...
●
Improvements to eSpeak
●
English, Dutch, Swedish, Greek, ...
(languages represented in AEGIS
consortium)
●
Open, cross-platform support of
desktop accessibility framework on
Windows:
●
involves exploring potential
improvements to the Java Access Bridge
(ATRC, U of Toronto)

29. Web/RIA Developments (1)
●
WAI ARIA implementation in JavaScript
UI libraries
●
jQuery UI (popularity!)
●
MooTools (popular, but a11y still weak)
●
Fluid Infusion (a11y was goal since
beginning)
●
Accessibility in JavaFX UI components

30. Web/RIA Developments (2)
●
Cross-platform support for WAI ARIA in
open-source browser, i.e. Mozilla Firefox
(overtaken by events)
●
Open developer tool for creating
accessible RIAs (in NetBeans)
●
Demo of Content Management System
with jQuery UI widgets
●
Haptic maps

31. Mobile Platform Developments (1)
●
Screen reader
●
On-screen keyboard
●
AAC with symbol support for instant
messaging
●
Open-source text-to-speech engine for
mobile phones (porting eSpeak to
JavaME)

32. Mobile Platform Developments (2)
●
Alternative text entry for users with
motor impairments – Dasher
●
Captions and audio descriptions for
video
●
Accessible phone dialer and contact
manager (JavaFX)

33. Upcoming Events
●
2nd Pan-European Workshop/User
Forum
●
Sevilla, Spain, 6 October 2010
●
1st AEGIS Conference
●
Sevilla, Spain, 7-8 October 2010
●
GNOME Accessibility Hackfest
●
Sevilla, Spain, same week
●
http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/HackfestAEGIS2010

34. Contacting AEGIS
●
http://www.AEGIS-project.eu/
●
Twitter: aegisproj
●
Project coordinator:
Dr. Angelos Bekiaris: abek@certh.gr
●
Technical manager:
Peter Korn: peter.korn@oracle.com
●
AEGIS Project Ontario:
http://aegis.atrc.utoronto.ca/