NOTE: Should this proposal be accepted, we plan to send formal invitations to all the standards bodies listed at the bottom of this document asking for their direct involvement.
"The principles of universality of access irrespective of hardware or software platform, network infrastructure, language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental impairment are core values in Web design..." Tim Berners-Lee
Many countries, through universal-access policies and infrastructure initiatives, have demonstrated their interest in ensuring that information technologies, telecommunications, electronic devices and Web Services (nay, all public "goods and services") are accessible and usable by all, including people with low-bandwidth communications, persons with disabilities and the fastest growing population segment, the elderly. As a result, many countries are aggressively seeking solutions for their Web/Software/Services through IT standardization and often find themselves floundering/operating in the same problem space - towards which international accessibility IT standards do we point our developers?
As with most things, business and profitability will be the driving force and vehicle to help us determine how we answer that question. In the international IT standardization world, the goal is to create standards that both facilitate world trade and promote consumer confidence in the products and implement the best practices. If we can ensure that those standards include the core value of universal access, than we will have achieved much towards our goal for including accessibility in the IT standardization process.
Even the executive branch of the United States government recognizes the business need to move toward the globalization of these standards, and strongly recommends procurement based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) IT standards, for commercial reasons and technical compatibility and interoperability.
In the gradual maturation process of our information societies and structures hide many untapped resources to improve productivity and the quality of life. This potential is growing due to the technological developments of speech recognition and synthesis, increased bandwidth (broadband, Internet 2, IPv6) and multi-platform access, i.e. where the possibility to connect to the Internet via means other than a desktop computer, such as digital TV, personal digital assistant (PDA), public kiosk, BrailleNote, Tablet PC and cell phones (3G). These developments are creating significant economic and social opportunities. They will also provide world citizens with the potential to have more convenient access to information and communication tools.
The mother-load of accessibility work up until fairly recently has been to "fix" the inaccessible information and content that already exists. But, it is the new services, applications, processes and content that hold the key to a truly accessible information age that will create new markets and provide the means to increase productivity and hence growth and employment throughout the world economy.
By developing and applyingharmonised international standards for IT we hope to improve the results of our accessibility initiatives. Companies and governmental organizations require more from IT than ever before to stay competitive, responsive to customers and operationally efficient and effective. Those countries that have adopted international standards of excellence have demonstrated their utility in creating an infrastructure for success.
This Roundtable hopes to attract as many technically oriented advocates of Accessibility initiatives and IT standardization as possible (from the Disability, Human Computer Interaction, eLearning, Information Architecture, Usability, IT Standards, Artificial Intelligence, Security Information Assurance, Assistive Technologies, Computer Science Engineering, and Software Accessibility fields), from as diverse a base (of countries and professional arenas) as possible, to comment on, and contribute to, the future of enabling and interoperability access of standards for Web/Software/Services.
By sharing information about standardisation activities and standards, we hope to build an important knowledge base. And, by exposing technical and political roadblocks encountered, as well as experience with positive shortcuts and best practices from lessons learned, we hope to strengthen that base.
We expect the results from this vigorous brain-storming session will be to point us towards the most appropriate and useful ways to achieve harmonization and coordination in the accessibility IT standardization's process arena. We intend to clarify the underlying importance of the Semantic Web Framework to this process. Additionally, we hope to discover what ideas appear to be the smartest and easiest to implement and to create the appropriative business cases.
One example of an organization that is making a difference is OASIS, a global consortium that develops specifications for interoperability for web services, security, and e-business, as well as in various vertical contexts. Another is the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative.
Last, but certainly not least, we hope to create a clear implementation vision, with associated action items and objectives. Tools, if you will, that we can walk away with, take back home to our working groups, companies, agencies, families, universities and committees to overtly and/or quietly lobby for implementation.We want to:
Katie Haritos-Shea,