Centre for Internet and Society

N.C.P.E.D.P. and BarrierBreak Technologies put forward National Policy on Electronic Accessibility

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:43:42Z

Article in Disability News and Information Service, 15 July 2009

D.N.I.S. News Network: National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (N.C.P.E.D.P.) in association with BarrierBreak Technologies has come up with a draft for a National Policy on Electronic Accessibility. The objective of the policy is to provide persons with disabilities equal access to electronic and information and communication technology and services. This policy expands on the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which India has ratified.

Shilpi Kapoor, Managing Director, BarrierBreak Technologies says, “Technology today is there in all aspects of life. Using electronic and information and communication technology, we can bridge the barriers that exist for persons with disabilities. Such a policy needs to be applicable across different ministries and departments.”

The National Policy on Electronic Accessibility emphasizes the importance of creating awareness on accessibility and universal design and creating and implementing standards and guidelines. It also aims at promoting research and development in the area of universal design and assistive technology and independent living aids and schemes in the area of accessible electronic and information and communication technology.

The policy also emphasizes the importance of building capacity to ensure that accessible products and services can be developed in India.

Nirmita Narasimhan, Programme Manager, Centre for Internet and Society, feels positive about the draft. "Having a National Electronic Accessibility Policy would be an extremely positive move for India towards bridging the digital divide; it will serve as a leading example to other developing countries to take similar initiatives and create a truly inclusive and accessible world," she said.

The draft will be placed before N.C.P.E.D.P.’s Core Group on Communication and Information Technology in its meeting on July 23 and the National Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities on July 24. Once the policy is approved at these two forums, it will be placed before the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for their consideration.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/n.c.p.e.d.p.-and-barrierbreak-technologies-put-forward-national-policy-on-electronic-accessibility

Bookshare.org Seminar

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:49:34Z

A demonstration of Bookshare.org, an online digital library for people with print disabilities

Books without Barriers

Bookshare.org is an online digital library with over 7,500 books in English in accessible formats for people with print disabilities. Members can read books using any assistive technology such as DAISY, BRF and text file for only Rs. 400 per year.

Publishers and Authors in our Collection:

We have books from East West publications, Seasons Publishing, Orient Blackswan and authors such as Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Ashokamitran and many more.

Watch a Demonstration and Try Bookshare!

If you have a visual impairment, physical disability, such as cerebral palsy, or a learning disability, such as dyslexia, you can become a member and access our library! Come and see the many books available for you on 1 July 2009 at the CIS office.

Time and Date

Wednesday, 1 July, 2009; 11.00 am-1.00 pm

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Shariff Chambers (Wockhardt Hospital building), 14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052

Map

For a map, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/bookshare.org-seminar

Report on Second National Workshop on Web Accessibility, 5-7 June 2009

sachia — 2013-02-04T05:52:05Z

Nirmita Narsimhan reports on the second National Workshop on Web Accessibility for web developers, hosted by CIS in Bangalore from 5 to 7 June 2009, and attended by 15 participants.

The second National Workshop on Web Accessibility for web developers was held at the CIS office in Bangalore, 5-7 June 2009. Although this was intended to be more a city-based workshop, we still got participants from other states such as Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. There were in all 15 participants predominantly from the web development and web designing backgrounds, college students and even a person from the academic field and 3 trainers. There were also some who had already prior knowledge of accessibility and this helped to raise the level of issues which were being discussed from a basic level to a more advanced level. Overall, the workshop was extremely well received and many of the participants expressed their willingness to participate in more such workshops in the future.

The workshop was structured differently from the last one--the sessions were more practical-oriented and the trainers stressed a lot on group work. There were sessions on understanding disability, WCAG 2.0 principles and group exercises of designing accessible pages. This workshop featured some additional topics such as Flash accessibility, accessibility in documents and role play exercises for problem solving for different disabilities. For instance, in one of the sessions, the participants were asked to prepare a caption for a one minute video. One of the participants, already working on accessibility, demonstrated Orca for Linux.

Specific Outcomes

1. The participants understood the importance of creating accessible web pages and learnt about various techniques, tools and resources for accessibility.
2. All the presentations and lectures were video documented.
3. The participants filled up feed back forms and action points to be undertaken after the workshop. CIS distributed T-Shirts and certificates to all the participants.

To download a complete report on the workshop in pdf format, please click here.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/second-national-workshop

Follow-up Letter in Support of WIPO Treaty for Reading Disabled

sachia — 2011-08-25T08:43:42Z

CIS has sent another letter to the Department of Higher Education, Ministry for Human Resource Development, petitioning it to support the WIPO Treaty for the reading disabled.

In November last year, CIS launched a nation wide signature campaign to support the treaty for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled proposed by the World Blind Union to the WIPO. Since then, the list of signatories was updated. In May 2009, WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) held another meeting, and in light of this, the endorsement of the treaty and appeal to the government to support it was resubmitted, by an increased number of signatories, including members of the DAISY Forum of India.

The letter and list of signatories is available below.

Mr. R. P. Aggarwal
Secretary

Department of Higher Education
Ministry of Human Resource Development
‘C’ Wing, Shastri Bhavan
New Delhi-110001

Dear Sir,

Re: Letter of support for the proposed Treaty for the blind and visually impaired submitted by the World Blind Union.

We were extremely gratified that the Government took note of our letter in November, 2008, containing endorsements of 16 organisations urging the government to support the Treaty for the Blind, which was proposed by the World Blind Union in the WIPO SCCR meeting from Nov 1^st-6^th,2008. In light of the fact that there is another SCCR meeting scheduled from May 25^th-29^th, where this issue is to be taken up, we are resubmitting our endorsement and urgent plea to the Government to actively support this treaty, since it will be extremely beneficial to all blind, visually challenged and print disabled persons in India. The list of endorsers has expanded to include about 50 more organizations. There are many more who have verbally expressed support. We look forward to an active response from the Government on this. Thanking you,

Yours Faithfully,

Nirmita Narasimhan
Programme Manager
(Centre for Internet and Society)

Sr. No	Name of Organization	Contact Person
1	Akhil Bharatiya Drishtiheen Kalyan Sangh,	Mr. Ajay M. Joshi
2	Amulya Sahara	Sh. Ashok Kumar Goyal
3	Andhjan Kalyan Trust,	Mr. Praful N. Vyas
4	Arushi	Sh. Anil Mudgal
5	Astha	Ms Radhika M. Alkazi,
6	Atmajyoti Vikas Samitee	Mrs. Priti Yadav
7	Blind People's Association (Ahmedabad)	Mr. R.P. Soni
8	Blind Person's Association (Kolkata)	Mr. Amiyo Biswas
9	Blind Welfare Council	Sh. Yusuf Kapadiya
10	Centre For Internet And Society	Sunil Abraham,
11	Devnar Foundation for the Blind	Dr. A. Saibaba Goud
12	Discipleship Centre	Mr. John A
13	Farook College	Prof. K. Kuttialikutty
14	Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya	Ms. Prabha Puran Sharma
15	Human Development Institute	Ms. R.C. Meena
16	Indian Association for the Blind	Mr. S.M.A. Jinnah,
17	Indira Mahila Mandal Hudco New Nandeds	Sh. Nagnath Ramji Kadam
18	Jamia Millia Islamia	Prof. Zubair Meenal,
19	Janta Adarsh Andh Vidyalaya	Mrs. Kalpana Sharma
20	Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya	Rajesh Gupta
21	Jyoti Sroat School	Bertha G. Dkhar
22	L.V. Prasad Eye Institute	Mr./Ms. Beula Christy
23	Lakshmi Bai College	Dr. Nalini Govind
24	Maulana AzadLibrary(AligarhMuslim Universit)	Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan
25	Mitra Jyothi	Ms. Madhu Singhal
26	Montfort Centre For Education	Mr. Michael Mathew
27	National Association for the Blind, Delhi
28	NAB-Phiroze &NoshirMerwanjiRehabilitationCentre for the Blind (Mount Abu)	Sh. Vimal Kumar Dengla
29	National Association for the Blind (Uttarakhand)	Mr. Shyam Dhanak,
30	National Association for the Blind (Chandigarh)	Sh. Vinod Chadha
31	National Association for the Blind (H.)	Ms. Shalini Vats Kimta
32	National Association for the Blind (India)	Sh. Suhas V. Karnik
33	National Association for the Blind(Jharkhand)	Sh. Ar. Sahay
34	National Association for the Blind(Junagad)	Ms. Rinaben V. Jasani
35	National Association for the Blind (Karnataka),	(Mrs.) Saroja Ramachandra
36	National Association for the Blind (Kerala)	Sh. Manoj Kurian
37	National Association for the Blind (Sikkim Branch)	Mr. Rajesh Verma
38	National Association for the Blind(West Bengal)	Sh. Arup Chakroborty
39	National Federation of the Blind (Guwahati)	Mohd. Imran Ali
40	North Ex. Blind Welfare & Educational Society	Sh. Subhash Garg
41	Orissa Association for the Blind	Sh. Bihari Nayak
42	Rajasthan Netraheen Kalyan Sangh	Sh. Jitendra Bhargava
43	Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys' Academy	Sh. Sunilbaran Pattanayak
44	Saksham	Ms. Deepika Sood,
45	Salwan Public School	Mrs. Vandana Puri
46	Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled	Sh. Ganesh
47	Samrita Trust	Sh. Seetarama Sastry Nori
48	School for the Deaf Mutes Society	Dr. Homiyar Mobedji
49	Score Foundation,	George Abraham
50	Shikshit Yuva Sewa Samiti Basti	Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal
51	Shree Andhjan Vividhlaxi Talim Kendra,	Sh. Prakash Mankodi
52	Shri Navchetan Andhjan Mandal,	Sh. Himanshu Sampura
53	Shri Venkateswara College	Ayesha Maliwal
54	Shri Vrajlal Durlabhji Parekh Andh Mahila Vikas Grah,	Sh. P.J. Mankodi
55	Shruti Information Centre of Yashoda Charitable Trust	Ms. Sonal Sena
56	Shubham	Dr. Sangeeta Agarwal
57	Springdales School	Ms. Sonali Bose
58	St. Mary's School
59	Tagore International School,	Ms. Aparna Sharma
60	The Blind Relief Association (Delhi)	Sh. Kailash Chandra Pande
61	University of Hyderabad	Dr. Madhireddy Anjaneyulu
62	Venu Eye Institute & Research Centre	Ms. Tanuja Joshi
63	Victoria Memorial School for the Blind	Mrs. Radha Subrahmanian
64	Welfare Centre For Visually Handicapped,	Mr. Profulla Kumar Rout
65	Welfare Society for the Blind,	Smt. Jharna Sur
66	Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC)	Dr. Sam Taraporevala
67	Sense International (India)	Akhil Paul
68	N. Krishnaswamy Barrier Break Technologies (Mumbai)	Shilpi Kapoor
69	National Association for the Blind (NAB) Bangalore	Mr. Pruthviraj
70	National Federation for the Blind (Delhi)	S.K.Rungta
71	Mitrajyoti (Bangalore)	Madhu Singhal
72	Accessability (New Delhi)	Vikas Sharma
73	Alternative Law Forum (Bangalore)	Lawrence Liang
74	Acrodelon Technologies Pvt Ltd(Chennai)	Rahul Cherian
75	Enable India	Shanthi Raghavan
76	College Students and Graduates Association of the Blind(Chennai)	Ponmudi
77	Indian Association for the Blind(Chennai)	S.M.A. Jinnah
78	Prayatna(Chennai & Bangalore)	Aruna Sankaranarayanan
79	Worth Trust, Katpadi (TN)	Venki/Mike

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/follow-up-letter-in-support-of-wipo-treaty-for-reading-disabled

National Workshop on Web Accessibility, June 2009

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:51:12Z

A workshop on web accessibility (for web developers only) in Bangalore

The Centre for Internet and Society (www.cis-india.org) and Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled (www.samarthanam.org) are organizing a workshop on web accessibility for web developers from the public and private sector from June 5 to 7, 2009. The workshop will take place at the Centre for Internet and Society office on Cunningham Road, Bangalore, between 09:30-17:30 hours each day.

The workshop seeks to bring together practitioners from the private and public sector from all across the country. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of government and private web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites.

In addition to training web developers in accessibility, the workshop will also serve as a platform for capacity building by training potential accessibility trainers. Many of the sessions will be documented as lessons on accessibility and put up on the CIS web site. As part of one of the outcomes of the workshop, five inaccessible government web sites will be identified and taken up for retrofitting with accessibility features within the next few months.

Registration

To register, please email Nirmita Narsimhan at nirmita@cis-india.org or call 080-4092-6283. There is no registration fee.

National Policy on Electronic Accessibility

One of the primary endeavors of several disability organizations around the country is to have a national policy which governs electronic accessibility in India. CIS has been a forerunner in advocating for the policy and is actively working with the government in formulating the policy. As part of its advocacy efforts, CIS is also involved in capacity building through organizing workshops and awareness spreading in the private and public sectors.

Trainers

Rahul Gonsalves

Rahul has been building accessible websites since 2005 (sample work at http://rahulgonsalves.com/projects/). He has been actively involved in promoting web and accessibility standards. He spoke at the first international accessibility and technology conference in India, Techshare 2008, where he made a case for accessibility and conducted a workshop on retrofitting accessibility to existing websites, a concern for most large institutions with an existing online presence (slides available at http://www.barrierbreak.com/events-conference/techshare_presentations2008.php#track3)

In September 2008, he presented a paper examining ways in which people with various impairments - both physical and mental – engage with online content, and demonstrated practical ways in which authors can make online content accessible at the National Conference on ICT for Differently Abled People. He is a supporter of the push for having a national policy for governing electronic accessibility in India.

Dinesh Kaushal

Dinesh has been involved in the area of accessibility, specifically product development throughout his career. He started with developing SAFA (Screen Access for All), which is the first Indian language screen reader. He worked independently on this for a year, during which time he got a good understanding of the complete software development life cycle. SAFA was envisioned to facilitate reading and writing in Indian languages at affordable cost, with a view to enabling better jobs and education for persons with blindness and low vision. SAFA is a unique software as it has to interact with other applications to get information and present this information to the users in the format convenient for them. SAFA is currently being used by blind persons in their jobs, for their studies, and even for their exams and is available in 11 iIdian languages for which text to speech synthesizers are available. His subsequent work involved leading a team to develop a Daisy book player. Daisy books are xml based marked-up digital books which provide efficient access to the information for persons with blindness. His responsibilities were team coordination, software requirement specification, design specification, and monitoring testing. He is presently working with Code Factory as Lead Developer (Braille) for screen readers for the windows mobile platform. This software enables persons with blindness to get access to mobile phones and PDAs, making it possible to access information at par with their sighted colleagues. His role is to provide this information via Braille displays. The Braille display allows blind persons to read SMS, work with contacts and documents, navigate with the help of GPS, etc using electronic Braille. This product is available for more than 20 languages and is available all over the world.

Ajay Kolhatkar

Dr. Ajay Kolhatkar co-leads the web usability and accessibility research at the Web 2.0 Research Labs at SETLabs. Presently he manages the evangelization of Web Accessibility Assessment and Remediation product called Infosys iProwe developed by their lab. Ajay has a PhD in technology marketing from IIT Bombay. His research there focused on Consumer's Acceptance of Technology Based Services. The key research problem was modeling the attitude-behaviour linkage for technology acceptance and the critical role played by personality factors and situational factors. The context for the study was Automated Teller Machines. Presently his research interests include usability of self-service channels; technology adoption; consumer behaviour in technology interfaces etc. An electrical engineer from the College of Engineering, Pune and an MBA in Marketing from Symbiosis Institute, Pune, Ajay has over 16 years of industry experience. He can be contacted at Ajay_Kolhatkar@infosys.com

Proposed Sessions

Day 1

09:00-10:00: Introduction of participants, trainers and organisers
10:00-11:30: Session 1

Understanding disability;
Working with disabilities -- The need for an accessible web

This session will familiarise the participants with different types of disabilities and the work arounds, in terms of assistive technologies or simple modifications which will enable them to work effectively using computers.

11:30-11:45: Tea Break
11:45-13:00: Session 2 - Building an Accessible Website

Laying Accessible Foundations
Table-less layouts
Well-structured markup
Valid code

13:00-14:00: Lunch
14:00-15:30: Session 3--Group exercise
Participants will have to identify and use semantic markup to describe different parts of a given layout. They will then have to write basic HTML/CSS code to present the website and validate it using online/desktop tools.
15:30-15:45: Tea break
15:45-17:15: Session 4 - Building an Accessible Website
Participants will have a chance to use a variety of assistive technologies (screen readers/braille displays) and there will be an exercise followed be a group discussion. Sequential Access/Role play will be conducted which will help them understand some of the problems related to electronic accessibility.
17:15-17:30: Summary and winding up

Day 2
09:15-11:00: Session 5 - Building an Accessible Website

Removing Barriers
Principle 1 - Perception
Non-text content
Audio/Visual content
Adaptability
Contrast

11:00-11:15: Tea break

11:15-13:00: Session 6 - Principle 2 - Operable

Keyboard Access
Enough Time
Seizures
Navigable

13:00-14:00: Lunch

14:00-15:30: Group Exercise

Participants will be given online tools to evaluate colour contrast. They will have to evaluate and correct a layout for adequate contrast.
Participants will have to prepare a transcript of a one-minute film.

15:30-15:45: Tea break

15:45:16:15: Session 7 - Accessibility in documents
16:15-17:30: Session 8 - Principle 3 - Understandable, and Principle 4 - Robust

Natural Language
Predictable
Input Assistance
Compatible

Winding up, feedback and clarification

Day 3

09:15 -9:45: Flash accessibility

9:45-11:15: Group Exercise - Putting it all together
Participants will complete building the website(s)

11:15-11:30: Tea Break

11:30-12:45: Accessibility testing

Group Exercise - Testing + Validating using automated testing tools as well as manual testing

The website that has been built will be validated to HTML, CSS and WCAG standards.
All errors identified will have to be corrected in a participatory fashion.

12:45-13:00: Wrapping up

Action points -- The road ahead

13:15- 14:00: Lunch

Videos

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/national-workshop-on-web-accessibility-june-2009

Access India Meet-Up, May 2009

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:50:37Z

Meet-up of members of Access India mailing list (open to invitees only)

Access India is an informal mailing list for the visually impaired community in India, in which subscribers primarily discuss technology and various aspects of its accessibility. Although the Access India mailing list, originally started in 2002, was intended to be a forum for discussing technology-related issues for the blind, it has over the years expanded to cover a whole range of social, educational, cultural, political and other issues of significance to the visually impaired community in India. It is one of the largest mailing lists of blind persons in India and has roughly 500 members from all over the country. Members of the Access India community in various cities hold informal gatherings from time to time. An annual national meeting of Access India members is also held, where various issues affecting the community are discussed in detail.

Agenda

2 PM: Welcome address by CIS, hosts of the meet.

2:05 PM: A round of introduction by participants.

2:30 PM: Presentation by representatives from AreaPal, a Bangalore-based social networking group founded by students. areapal allows users to locate and connect with people on the basis of their area and neighborhood. It is a genuine neighbourhood networking service. Apart from that, they also provide user-generated news, events and marketplace based information about a user’s area. For further information, please visit www.areapal.com.

2:40 PM: Question time.

2:50 PM: Presentation by representatives from 3I Infotech, a company which recently launched e-Mudhra, an initiative to roll out digital signatures. The main focus of the discussion will be the accessibility of their product. For additional information, please visit http://www.e-mudhra.com/

3:00 PM: Question time.

5. 3:10 PM: Presentation by representatives from iVolunteer, an organization that matches volunteers seeking volunteering opportunities
with organizations and individuals looking for volunteers in Bangalore. To learn more about the organization, please visit www.ivolunteer.in

3:20 PM: Question time.

6. 3:30 PM: Introduction to Inclusive planet. Inclusive Planet is in the process of building the largest online portal for disabled persons in India. It is intended to be a comprehensive portal containing various resources including employment resources, educational resources, a match-making
channel, accessible books section, discussion boards, resources for medical facilities, sports and entertainment center, etc. We hope to have a
representative from Inclusive Planet demonstrate the site for us, inform us about its scope and expansion plans, and tell us about how we can contribute toward making the site totally accessible. Please visit http://www.inclusiveplanet.org/

3:50 PM: Question time.

4:00 PM: Tea followed by open discussion on technology.

4:45 PM: Vote of thanks and conclusion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/access-india-meet-up-may-2009

Can you read me?

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:11:00Z

Article by Sahana Charan in the Bangalore Mirror, 11 March 2009

Over 90% of govt websites can’t be accessed by people with disabilities; A Bangalore-based social research organisation has now initiated a nation wide campaign to make the web more accessible to them.

-----

Would it come as a shock to you that more than 90 per cent of government websites, including those dealing with social welfare issues, can be of no use to visually or hearing impaired persons or even some senior citizens? At least, that is what the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) found out when it did a random check on 23 websites of important government organisations. Of the 23 websites that were checked, 21 failed to meet basic standards which could make them accessible to persons with disabilities including those with visual and hearing impairment and motor disabilities.

The study revealed that The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) websites were the only ones that were designed to meet the needs of all persons including those with disabilities.

When Nirmitha Narasimhan, Programme Manager at CIS, who is visually-impaired herself, ran an automated tool over these websites, she found that most of them failed to meet basic standards. “We carried out accessibility testing on the homepages of 23 sites using an automated tool and of these 21 failed automated verification and only the RBI and IIM-B websites passed verification on the basis of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Priority 1 checkpoints. But even these websites had some problems. Overall the sites that failed the fewest tests were RBI, IIM-B, RTI and CMC Vellore,” she said.

Access for All

Considering that some of the websites that failed the accessibility test were important for all citizens, including the Railways, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, RTI and National Informatics Centre (NIC) websites, the research organisation decided to take this exercise forward by launching a national campaign for electronic accessibility. Their campaign has been so successful that they are now in talks with the central government to formulate a draft policy on electronic accessibility.

“Persons who have disabilities such as blindness or low vision, deafness, cognitive impairment and so on are unable to browse through websites like other persons, since they are unable to see graphics, flash presentations, hear audio clips etc. They use technologies such as screen readers (like Jaws and NVDA which read out whatever appears on the screen for a blind user) or other kinds of devices to perform the functionalities associated with using the computers. For deaf persons, it is necessary to have captioning for an audio clip to tell them what is being played,” says Nirmitha. But she adds that even for assistive technologies to be used, the websites need to have built-in features that will make them accessible to everyone.

Guidelines

“Most websites have features such as graphics which cannot be interpreted by technologies such as screen readers. In such a case, the website creator has to take care to give alternative texts which describe what the graphic is about. For instance, under a picture of a dog on a website, there should also be a line describing the picture,” adds Nirmitha, who is now working with web developers across the country to create awareness about guidelines for creating a website.

The World Wide Web Consortium (www) has come out with guidelines on how to build websites which are accessible to persons using assistive technologies. These guidelines are called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and address the needs of all disabilities and inabilities. “In the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and many other countries, it is mandatory to implement these guidelines for all websites. Since ours is an internet-savvy nation, it is high time these rules were made mandatory here,” says Nirmitha.

CIS has conducted a series of workshops for web developers from organisations including NIC, JNU and many voluntary agencies so that they could incorporate WCAG. In Karnataka, all government websites are designed by NIC, so it goes without saying that none of them are disabled-friendly.

Their Own Site Too

Karnataka has over 9.4 lakh persons with disabilities of whom at least 10-15 per cent are able to use assistive technology and can access the net. In Bangalore city alone, close to one lakh persons are disabled and quite a few of them have knowledge of computers.

But it is a pity that the website of the Directorate for the Welfare of the Disabled and Senior Citizens cannot be accessed by people who need to use it the most.

Forget being disabled-friendly, the website has not been updated since 2007 and the gallery section still shows pictures of former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy.

What the guidelines say

For sites which have graphics, alternative text should be given at the bottom describing the graphic for the benefit of visually impaired persons.

For the hearing impaired, video clips should be accompanied by text running at the bottom of the clip so that they will know what is being said.
Flickering text that cannot be deciphered by a screen reader (a technology used by the visually impaired that reads out test on the computer screen aloud) should be avoided.
For those with motor impairment, options can be given to avoid the use of mouse and where only one single key could be used.

-----

To read the article at the Bangalore Mirror website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/can-you-read-me

Workshop for Web Developers on Web Accessibility

royson — 2011-08-23T22:52:40Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/workshop

Department of Information Technology Meeting on a National Policy on E-Accessibility

nirmita — 2011-09-22T12:32:54Z

On 30 January 2009, the Department of Information Technology hosted a meeting in New Delhi bringing together important stakeholders to discuss the issue of electronic accessibility for the disabled and persons with special needs in India.

Creating a barrier free internet is vital to creating a pluralistic and democratic virtual environment, where all groups irrespective of disability or levels of literacy are able to access culture and knowledge goods and services which are available on the internet today. Since its inception last year, CIS has been campaigning for legislative, administrative and legal interventions in the area of web accessibility for the print disabled and working with different groups towards the common goal of having a National Policy on Electronic Accessibility in India.

On 30 January, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) called a meeting of all stakeholders to discuss the issue of web accessibility for disabled persons and persons with special needs. The meeting was attended by 34 key persons from the Government and private organisations around India. Sunil Abraham (Director--Advocacy, CIS) and Nirmita Narasimhan (Programme Manager, CIS) were amongst the attendees (a complete list of attendees is given below).

The meeting was chaired by N. Ravi Shankar, Joint Secretary, DIT, who in his opening remarks briefed the gathering about the initiatives of the Government in this area. He talked about the Government’s goal of providing Universal Accessibility and Internet for all. He informed the gathering that the DIT had already initiated schemes for ICT empowerment of visually impaired/hearing impaired children; under these schemes, 21 ICT Vocational Centers had already been set up and 100 additional ICT vocational centers would be set up in phase II. Additionally, he explained that the issue of Universal Accessibility had been internationally addressed at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2008 held in December 2008 in Hyderabad. He stressed the need for initiating inclusive developmental activities in the e-governance programme of DIT and language initiatives of TDIL (Technology Development for Indian Languages), in order to increase coverage and diversity, culminating in education for all alongside Internet for all.

Dr. Govind, Senior Director and Head of Department, E-Infrastructure and Internet Governance Division in the Ministry, highlighted the issue of web accessibility for visually impaired and other differently able persons and the need for initiating a concrete action plan for the same.

Javed Abidi, Director, National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People talked at length about the need for web accessibility and proposed that the government should set a time line within which all existing government web sites should be made standards compliant. All new web sites should be created keeping compliance with WCAG 2.0 in mind right from the start and proposed that for existing web sites, we should adopt a staged approach and aim at ensuring complete compliance at least by 2010-2012.

Ms. Neeta Verma, Sr. Technical Director, NIC gave a presentation on the issues related with making web accessibility universal. She said that NIC has formulated guidelines for government websites, in association with DIT and DARPG. Compliance to these guidelines shall make Indian government websites Usable, User Centric and Universally Accessible. She proposed that even the Manual of Procedures (MoP) used in the Govt. should mandate Universal Web Access for Government business and day to day activities. Websites should not only be designed once for accessibility but also need to be sustainable in the long run.

All attendees gave their inputs on the issue of web accessibility. Shri Jaijit from Sun Microsystems stressed the fact that the need for standards was not essential for disabled persons alone, but was necessary for other groups as well, such as illiterate persons. Ms.Shilpi Kapoor from Barrier Break Technologies mentioned that most government web sites had to firstbe be made html compliant in order to be standards compliant and stressed the need for training, resource generation and sensitization. Shri Minocha, Director, NAB felt that a law similar to the one in USA should be implemented which mandates that any web site developed had to be Universally Accessible. He asked the Government. to look at daisy guidelines, digital library and procurement policy for differently abled persons. He strongly urged the Government to take into account not merely standards of website accessibility, but also brouser standards, document standards etc, since an accessible web site was not of much use if the content posted on it was in an inaccessible format. He also appreciated the efforts of NIC and C-DAC towards working for open source and cited the example of the Venezualian Government. He proposed that DIT should initiate a technology development or customization project in this area. Shri Vijaiy Krishnamani from Infosys stressed on the need for creating a common simple usable interface rather than multiple types.

Shri Vijay Kapur from Microsoft proposed for implementation of WCAG1.0 & 2.0 standards to bring out interactivity in web content like Arya and the Clint side document accessibility through the daisy consortium.

Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, CEO, NIXI offered complete support for all initiatives in the area of web accessibility and voiced the opinion that all software produced out of public funds should be made available in the public domain so as to encourage research and innovation. In addition to policy advocacy, he was also supporting a capacity building and awareness workshop on web accessibility for web developers from all over the country which was being organized by CIS in Ghaziabad from Feb 16th-18th. Smt.Jayalakshmi Chittor of CSDMS proposed that an audit process should be evolved to check government web sites for WCAG 2.0 compliance and cited the example of Malta for policy in this area. Some other issues which were stressed time and again by other attendees were the legal mandating of adherence to standards within a fixed time period, adequate representation of Indian language in Unicode format, adherence to WCAG 2.0 and not merely 1.0, supporting voice enabled web sites etc. Sunil Abraham Director Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) lauded the DIT/MCIT for the timely and critical accessibility initiative and strongly endorsed the suggestion to create a national policy document mandating accessibility for all publicly funded electronic infrastructure. CIS offered to provide a comparative analysis of national electronic accessibility policies from developed and developing countries and also prepare a draft policy for DIT/MCIT. Further, he urged DIT/MCIT to advocate for the adoption of the proposed WIPO Treaty for improved access for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled put forward by the World Blind Union and knowledge Ecology International.

After the round of discussions the following recommendations were made to the DIT/MCIT:

i) The Government should formulate a national policy to mandate necessary guidelines so that the web sites are standards compliant for universal web accessibility.

ii) Steps should be taken for sensitization and awareness generation towards this issue through trainings, publicity, workshops, conferences.

iii) R&D projects should be initiated for development of screen readers in Indian languages and other tools for universal web access.

Attendees

Shri N. Ravi Shanker, Joint Secretary, DIT, New Delhi - Chairman
Dr. Govind, Sr. Director, DIT, New Delhi
Shri Mohan Ram, ED, ERNET India, New Delhi
Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, Additional CEO, NIXI, New Delhi
Shri Javed Abidi, Director, National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP, New Delhi
Shri Dipender Minocha, Director, NAB, R.K. Puram, New Delhi
Ms. Neeta Verma, Sr. Technical Director, NIC, New Delhi
Shri A. Bandopadhyay, GM, Webel Mediatronics Ltd., Kolkata
Mr. Sunil Abraham, Director – Policy, Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore
Ms. Shilpi Kapoor, Founder and Managing Director, Net Systems Informatics (I) Pvt. Ltd. and Barrier Break Technologies, Mumbai
Shri Vijay Kapur, Microsoft India, New Delhi
Mr. Rahul Gonsalves, Web Accessibility Consultant, Bangalore
Jyotindra V.Mehta, Advisory Systems Consultant, IBM Global Services India
Mr. Zamir Dhale, Sense International India Office, Ahmedabad Gujarat
Shri Jaijit Bhattacharya, M/s Sun Microsystems, New Delhi
Ms. Jayalakshmi Chittor, CSDMS, Noida, U.P
Shri Manoj Jain, TDIL, DIT, New Delhi
Ms. Gitanjali Sah, UN Solution Exchange, New Delhi
Shri Pradeep Gupta, Managing Director, Cyber Media India Ltd., Gurgaon, Haryana
Shri Vijay Krishnamani, Infosys, New Delhi
Shri Ajai Kumar, C-DAC, Pune
Shri Indranil Das Roy, M/s Webel, Kolkata
Shri Deepak Maheshwari, Microsoft India , New Delhi
Shri Vikas Goswami, Microsoft India, New Delhi
Ms. Helen Mahtani, Programmer, NCPEDP, New Delhi
Shri Muthamma B. Devaya, Senior Program officer, NCPEDP, New Delhi
Ms. Nirmitha Naresimhan, Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore
Ms. Tejal Tiwari, ERNET India, New Delhi
Shri D.P. Misra, NIC, New Delhi
Shri Sachin Rizal, Sense International (India) Ltd., Ahmedabad Gujarat
Ms. Ritu Srivastava, CSDMS, Noida
Shri Santosh Kumar Gupta, CSDMS, Noida, UP
Shri Rajan Varada, UN Solution Exchange, New Delhi
Shri S.K. Aggarwal, Scientist ‘F’, DIT, New Delhi - Convenor

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/meeting-by-the-dit-on-a-national-policy-on-e-accessibility-at-delhi-on-jan-30th-2009

Accessible websites could become a reality

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:26Z

Article by L. Subramani in the Deccan Herald, 11 February 2009

Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO that researches on Internet's influence on families and individuals, had reported that about 99 per cent of government websites have failed in meeting with the accessibility guidelines issued by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

As Kanchan Pamnani speaks about web accessibility, she relates to us an old story learnt at school. A crane called his long-time friend, a wolf, for dinner and showed a tall, narrow jar that had delicious fishes in it. Unable to put its head inside and eat, the bewildered wolf returned home hungry, as the crane enjoyed putting its long beak inside the jar and tasted its content.

“What’s the point in information being available on the Internet? The visually challenged can’t access the content all the same, since the design and presentation of websites are not friendly to the screen reader software they use to access them through PC and laptops. And they need this the most, since it saves their time and energy when they get things done online,” Ms Pamnani said.

Despite being home to the world’s largest visually impaired population, the problem of inaccessible websites has been common in India. What hurts Ms Pamnani, a visually challenged lawyer and folks like her is the irony that several website developers in India comply with accessibility norms while creating websites for their foreign clients for fear of their product getting rejected and ignore the same while making sites for home-based organisations.

Some months ago, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO that researches on Internet's influence on families and individuals, had reported that about 99 per cent of government websites have failed in meeting with the accessibility guidelines issued by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). It had highlighted CMC Velore, RBI and IIMB as some of the institutions whose websites are either too difficult or impossible for persons with visual impairment to access with their special screen reading software.

“Someone has to take responsibility for this situation,” Pamnani mentioned. “Given that people from the IT community have created these websites, they will have to take the blame.”

Screen readers, which the blind use to get content of a computer in voice, comprises of text to speech engine (a sort of virtual larynx) and the software that allows users to interface with the system. However, graphically rich webpages or features that are primarily visual in nature become a potential minefield to the screen reader since it doesn’t know how that information can be rendered “readable” to the TTS engine.

Mindful of this bottleneck, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which play the role of rule-makers in the way the web functions, designed a set of guidelines web developers must use while creating websites. For instance, it calls for giving heading levels which makes screen reader users to press “Shift and the number key depending on which heading level (one to five) they want to reach” and straight away go to the heading instead of going line by line.

For webpages to be fully accessible, the guidelines ask developers to use HTML tags and create alternative, verbally described pages (to the graphically rich ones) that can be read by screen readers. Probably fearing the labour it takes, developers of websites are alleged to be overlooking the guidelines and disability activists say that the negligence is proving to be too costly for them.

“These days, most of the government documents are available on the Internet,” said Javed Abidi, Chairman, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled Persons (NCPEDP). “The technology is available and there is also the necessary awareness, but web developers seem to be taking this issue too lightly.”

Abidi and Pamnani have been talking about the situation with NASSCOM and were close to hosting a Dharna in front of the venue where the industry body was hosting its leadership summit on Wednesady. However, the protest was called off since NASSCOM agreed to focus on the issue.

“As a first step, the body has agreed to make their own website accessible,” Abidi, the New Delhi-based, wheelchair-bound disability activist, said. “Then they have agreed to urge their members to follow suit. Also, despite their attempts to take up accessibility as a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) issue, we want them to consider this as a rights issue, since the United Nations Convention for Rights of Persons With Disability (UNCRPD), which India has signed and ratified, states (in article 9) that access to information is a right.”

So Pamnani and several other visually challenged users of the Internet feel the day when they can log on to the website of an online store and purchase anything of their choice isn’t far away.

-----

To read the article at the Deccan Herald website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/accessible-websites-could-become-a-reality

Workshop for Web Developers on Web Accessibility

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:51:35Z

Solution Exchange, an initiative of the United Nations Agencies in India, and the Centre for Internet and Society are organizing a workshop on web accessibility for web developers from organizations in the public and private sector, with the support of The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). The workshop will be held in Delhi from February 16^th-18^th, 2009. CIS' media partner for the event is Disability News India.

This workshop, which will feature seven trainers and about thirty participants, is the first one of its kind, bringing together practitioners from NIC and other government departments, as well as from small and medium enterprises across the country. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of government and private web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites.

The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical sessions. The trainers will be specialists in various aspects of web accessibility. The main focus will be on WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The participants will be persons already involved in developing web sites with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc. The workshop will in a sense not only help in training web developers in accessibility, but will also attempt to increase capacity building by training potential accessibility trainers. There will also be a session where key persons involved in the working groups on accessibility, e-governance architecture and open standards will share the National Informatics Centre perspective.

Many of the sessions will be documented as lessons on accessibility and put up on the CIS web site. As part of the outcome of the workshop, five inaccessible government web sites will be identified and taken up for retrofitting with accessibility features within the next few months.

In its move to support web accessibility, NIXI has already undertaken the translation of the WCAG 2.0 standards into Hindi--the first translation of the WCAG into any Indian language. This is intended to aid web developers in the need for creating accessible web sites.

Please click on the links for more information about the proposed sessions to be held at the workshop and the participating trainers.

The workshop will be held in the Human Resource Development Centre Building of the CSIR in Ghaziabad (HRDC building, CSIR, Sector 19, Central Government Enclave, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad-201002, UP).

Map

Please refer to the map as necessary.

Participants

Click here for a complete list of participants and their organisational affiliations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/workshop-for-web-developers-on-web-accessibility

Updated List of Signatories for Letter Supporting WIPO Treaty for the Reading Disabled

sachia — 2011-08-25T08:35:54Z

The list of signatories to a letter in support of the WIPO Treat for the Reading Disabled has been updated.

In November last year, CIS launched a nation wide signature campaign to support the treaty for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled proposed by the World Blind Union to the WIPO. The letter was, at that time, endorsed by 16 organisations in the disability sector throughout the country. The treaty is scheduled to come up again for discussion in a couple of months.

CIS has been carrying on its work of gathering support for the letter. The updated list of signatories is as follows.

Name of Organization	Contact Person
Akhil Bharatiya Drishtiheen Kalyan Sangh	Mr. Ajay M. Joshi
Amulya Sahara	Sh. Ashok Kumar Goyal
Andhjan Kalyan Trust	Mr. Praful N. Vyas
Arushi	Sh.Anil Mudgal
Astha	Ms Radhika M. Alkazi,
Atmajyoti Vikas Samitee	Mrs. Priti Yadav
Blind People's Association (Ahmedabad)	Mr. R.P. Soni
Blind Person's Association (Kolkata)	Mr. Amiyo Biswas
Blind Welfare Council	Sh. Yusuf Kapadiya
Centre For Internet And Society	Sunil Abraham
Devnar Foundation for the Blind	Dr. A. Saibaba Goud
Discipleship Centre	Mr. John A
Farook College	Prof. K. Kuttialikutty
Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya	Ms. Prabha Puran Sharma
Human Development Institute	Ms. R.C. Meena
Indian Association for the Blind	Mr. S.M.A. Jinnah,
Indira Mahila Mandal Hudco New Nandeds	Sh. Nagnath Ramji Kadam
Jamia Millia Islamia	Prof. Zubair Meenal
Janta Adarsh Andh Vidyalaya	Mrs. Kalpana Sharma
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya	Rajesh Gupta
Jyoti Sroat School	Bertha G. Dkhar
L.V. Prasad Eye Institute	Ms. Beula Christy
Lakshmi Bai College	Dr. Nalini Govind
Maulana Azad Library (Aligarh Muslim University)	Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan
Mitra Jyothi	Ms. Madhu Singhal
Montfort Centre For Education	Mr. Michael Mathew
National Association for the Blind, Delhi
NAB-Phiroze & Noshir Merwanji Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind (Mount Abu)	Sh. Vimal Kumar Dengla
National Association for the Blind (Uttarakhand)	Mr. Shyam Dhanak
National Association for the Blind (Chandigarh)	Sh. Vinod Chadha
National Association for the Blind (H.)	Ms. Shalini Vats Kimta
National Association for the Blind (India)	Sh. Suhas V. Karnik
National Association for the Blind (Jharkhad)	Sh. Ar. Sahay
National Association for the Blind (Junagad)	Ms. Rinaben V. Jasani
National Association for the Blind (Karnataka),	(Mrs.) Saroja Ramachandra
National Association for the Blind (Kerala)	Sh. Manoj Kurian
National Association for the Blind (Sikkim Branch)	Mr. Rajesh Verma
National Association for the Blind(WestBengal)	Sh. Arup Chakroborty
National Federation of the Blind (Guwahati)	Mohd. Imran Ali
North Ex. Blind Welfare & Educational Society	Sh. Subhash Garg
Orissa Association for the Blind	Sh. Bihari Nayak
Rajasthan Netraheen Kalyan Sangh	Sh. Jitendra Bhargava
Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys' Academy	Sh. Sunilbaran Pattanayak
Saksham	Ms. Deepika Sood
Salwan Public School	Mrs. Vandana Puri
Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled	Sh. Ganesh
Samrita Trust	Sh. Seetarama Sastry Nori
School for the Deaf Mutes Society	Dr. Homiyar Mobedji
Score Foundation,	George Abraham
Shikshit Yuva Sewa Samiti Basti	Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal
Shree Andhjan Vividhlaxi Talim Kendra	Sh. Prakash Mankodi
Shri Navchetan Andhjan Mandal	Sh. Himanshu Sampura
Shri Venkateswara College	Ayesha Maliwal
Shri Vrajlal Durlabhji Parekh Andh Mahila Vikas Grah	Sh. P.J. Mankodi
Shruti Information Centre of Yashoda Charitable Trust	Ms. Sonal Sena
Shubham	Dr. Sangeeta Agarwal
Springdales School	Ms. Sonali Bose
St. Mary's School
Tagore International School	Ms. Aparna Sharma
The Blind Relief Association (Delhi)	Sh. Kailash Chandra Pande
University of Hyderabad	Dr. Madhireddy Anjaneyulu
Venu Eye Institute & Research Centre	Ms. Tanuja Joshi
Victoria Memorial School for the Blind	Mrs. Radha Subrahmanian
Welfare Centre For Visually Handicapped	Mr. Profulla Kumar Rout
Welfare Society for the Blind	Smt. Jharna Sur
Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC)	Dr. Sam Taraporevala

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/signatory-list

Report on the Internet Governance Forum

sachia — 2011-08-23T04:51:55Z

CIS attended the UN Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, December 3-7, 2008.

As an outcome of the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which took place in Hyderabad from December 3-7, 2008,

(a) CIS entered into an agreement with the W3C to make translations of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines into some Indian languages; and

(b) CIS, the UN Solutions Exchange group and the Daisy Forum of India (DFI) decided to work together on the web accessibility issue and form a core group of organizations across the disability sector for this purpose.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/igf-report-1

Government websites: Access denied to special users

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:22Z

Article by L. Subramani in the Deccan Herald, 8 December 2008

The homepages of 23 government agencies have been identified as inaccessible to special users, the city-based Centre for Internet and Society has found.

The organisation carried out an automated test using software tools, on websites of agencies like the National Informatics Centre, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of HRD etc, the majority of which have failed to meet even the basic access criteria laid down in the guidelines of Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).

“Except for the Reserve Bank of India and CMC Vellore, all the sites don't even meet priority 1 of WCAG (W3C Access Guidelines), which would ensure availability of text for non-text elements (images) and other graphical contents that can't be read out by screen reader software,” said Nirmita Narasimhan, who carried out the tests at CIS. She mentioned that all of the websites failed in priority 2 and 3 of the guidelines.

“Despite being one of the most important sites for persons with disability, the homepage of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment - which contains documents and important government schemes for persons with disability - has completely failed to meet the accessibility criteria.

This is not only against the spirit of laws that guarantee freedom of information, but also contradicts the government's own policy of making websites accessible to persons with disability,” she added.

Handbook

Nirmita pointed out that the Right To Information handbook - an important reference for persons with disability, demanding information from government and private organisations - has been provided in an inaccessible document format.

She echoed the common contention that persons with disability are deprived of one of the most important aspects of modern technology, despite being empowered by technologies like screen readers and speech recognition software.

The information, coming soon after the International Day for Persons with Disabilities was observed, raises question marks over the government's commitment to break barriers, and its genuineness in creating an accessible society as per the Persons with Disability act (1995) and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disability, to which it has been one of the early signatories.

Ganesh Prasad, Director (Systems and Process) at Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled described the test results as ‘not surprising, but certainly disappointing.’

“Given the urban conditions, visiting a place in person has become one of the most difficult things for persons with disability,” Prasad said.

Priority 1 of the guidelines calls for text descriptions of images or alternative pages with text contents, while priority 2 asks for the turning off of auto refresh and other deprecated features of W3C technologies, and recommends semantic information of the page for persons with disability to instantly know the contents.

-----

Read the article on the Deccan Herald website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/government-websites-access-denied-to-special-users

Accessibility Test Results: Government and Other Popular Websites

nirmita — 2011-08-17T08:50:16Z

The CIS conducted some automated accessibility tests on a few Government web sites, including that of the National Informatics Centre, and on the web sites of some banks, medical and educational institutions. This is a report of the results.

Summary

We carried out accessibility testing on the homepages of 23 sites using the automated tool at www.contentquality.com. Of the 23 sites tested, 21 failed automated verification and only the RBI and IIM-B websites passed verification on the basis of WCAG Priority 1 checkpoints. However, all 23 sites had issues with Priority 2 and Priority 3 checkpoints and failed on these criteria. Most sites also used layout tables, without linearized alternatives. Overall the sites that failed the fewest tests were RBI, IIM-B, RTI and CMC Vellore. On the additional test carried out on the quality of the alternative text, only the Ministry of HRD passed; this test was not applicable for the CMC Vellore, RBI, RTI, IIM-B and DDA sites; all others failed the test.

Even a basic automated verification tool, thus, demonstrates the deplorable state of public website accessibility in India, where all sites surveyed, except two, did not even conform to the basic accessibility criteria enumerated in the WCAG priority one checkpoints.

The section below lists the tests that most sites commonly failed; this is followed by a section with the actual test details, including information on the URL, time of test, status, browser emulated and checkpoints passed/failed.

Note:

The web content accessibility validation tool on www.contentquality.com, i.e. the HiSoftware Cynthia Says portal, is designed to identify errors in content related to Section 508 standards and the WCAG guidelines. This free tool is an online test which only validates one page at a time – the tests above were run for the homepages of the various sites and while this served as an initial automated accessibility check, this was by no means a comprehensive test for which more sophisticated tools as well as manual checking would be required.

Checkpoints

Priority 1

1.1 (a) Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), image map regions, animations (e.g., animated GIFs), applets and programmatic objects, ascii art, frames, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand-alone audio files, audio tracks of video, and video.

- RBI and CMC Vellore passed this, all others failed

6.3 (l),(m) Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.

12.1 (i) Title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation.

- HRD, DDA, NASSCOM, Hindu and Times of India failed. All others passed; in some cases this was not applicable.

Priority 2

7.4 Until user agents provide the ability to stop the refresh, do not create periodically auto-refreshing pages.

11.2 Avoid deprecated features of W3C technologies.

12.3 Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate.

13.2 Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites.

Priority 2 - Tables

3.2 Create documents that validate to published formal grammars.

5.3 Do not use tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized. Otherwise, if the table does not make sense, provide an alternative equivalent (which may be a linearized version).

Priority 2 - Forms

12.2 Describe the purpose of frames and how frames relate to each other if it is not obvious by frame titles alone.

12.4 Associate labels explicitly with their controls.

13.2 Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites.

- All passed 7.4 . With regard to all the other checkpoints, some sites passed and others failed.

Priority 3

4.3 Identify the primary natural language of a document.

9.4 Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.

9.5 Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls.

10.5 Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links.

Alternative text validation

1.1 Validate that the alt text does not use the word image When users add alternative text to an image they tend to add the word "Image" when it really says nothing about the image, but describes the object versus the meaning of the object. This check will fail a page for the use of the word image in the alternative text.

1.2 Validate that the alt text does not contain the text: .jpg, .gif, .bmp, .jpeg Many content creation tools will automatically add alternative text when you add an image to your content. The text is generally the image name. Validate that: .jpg, .gif, .bmp, .jpeg, are not found in the alt text.

1.3 Validate that the alt text does not contain the text "image" Many content creation tools will automatically add alternative text when you add an image to your content. The text is generally the image name or the word image with a number associated, like image001. This checkpoint will fail a page if the string image is found in the alternative text.

2.1 Validate that Alternative Text is greater than 7 and less than 81 characters in length Short alternative text may not be valid, warn the report user if alternative text was found that is less than seven characters in length. Additionally alternative text should not be larger than 80 characters, if the alt text is greater the long description attribute should be used. This check validates that the alt attribute does not exceed 80 characters in length.

2.2 Validate that Alternative Text is not used to repeat words Alternative text should not be used to simply hide words with the hope of increasing your ranking on search engines. If you repeat a word more than 5 times your page may not be indexed.

- Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, JNU, IITD, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, AIIMS and NASSCOM failed on all these 4 points. Other results were split, with some passes and some failures

TEST DETAILS

National Informatics Centre

Verified File Name: http://indiaimage.nic.in/

Date and Time: 11/27/2008 12:01:55 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1, 6.3;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 13.1, 13.3, 12.2; Failed 11.2, 13.2, 12.4
Priority 3 - Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 10.5
Alt text quality – Passed 1.2, 2.2; Failed 1.1, 1.6; Warning 2.1;

Lok Sabha

Verified File Name: http://loksabha.gov.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 1:11:21 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 – Failed 1.1
Priority 2 – Passed 7.4, 12.3; Failed 11.2, 13.2, 12.4,
Priority 3 – Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5,10.5
5.3 – used lots of tables
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

Rajya Sabha

http://rajyasabha.gov.in/

Verified File Name: http://rajyasabha.gov.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 3:32:13 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 – Failed 1.1
Priority 2 – Passed 7.4, 13.1; Failed 3.2, 12.4
Priority 3 – Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5, 10.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

Ministry of Human Resources

http://education.nic.in/

Verified File Name: http://education.nic.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 3:43:36 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 – Failed 1.1, 6.3
Priority 2 – Passed 7.4, 12.4, 13.1; Failed 3.2, 11.2
Priority 3 – Passed 9.5,10.5 Failed : 4.3,9.4
Alt text quality – Passed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

Ministry of Urban Affairs

http://urbanindia.nic.in/moud/moud.htm

Verified File Name: http://urbanindia.nic.in/moud/moud.htm
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 9:11:56 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 13.1; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5 ; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

Delhi Development Authority:

Verified File Name: http://www.dda.org.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 9:56:31 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

http://www.dda.org.in/

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1, 6.3
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 13.1; Failed 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5 ; Warning 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – N/A

Railways

http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

Verified File Name: http://www.indianrail.gov.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:01:28 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 13.1, 13.2, 12.4 ; Failed 3.2, 11.2
Priority 3 – Passed 4.3, 10.5; Failed 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment

http://socialjustice.nic.in/

Verified File Name: http://socialjustice.nic.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:07:22 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 12.4 ; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5, 10.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

Ministry of Law and Justice

http://lawmin.nic.in/

Verified File Name: http://lawmin.nic.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:50:36 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 13.1, 12.4; Failed 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

RTI

http://www.rti.gov.in

Verified File Name: http://www.rti.gov.in
Date and Time: 11/26/2008 3:54:10 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 – Passed 1.1, 6.3; Failed 12.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 11.2, 13.1, 12.4; Failed 3.2, 13.2, 12.2
Priority 3 – Passed 9.4, 9.5, 10.5; Failed 4.3
Alt text quality – N/A

NCERT

Verified File Name: http://www.ncert.nic.in/index.htm
Date and Time: 11/26/2008 6:22:59 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 –Failed 1.1, 6.3, 7.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 13.1, 12.4, 12.2; Failed 3.2, 13.2, 11.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

JNU

http://www.jnu.ac.in/

Verified File Name: http://www.jnu.ac.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 4:00:11 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 – Failed 1.1, 7.1
Priority 2 – Passed 7.4 ; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.1, 13.2, 12.4
Priority 3 – Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5, 10.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

IIT Delhi

http://www.iitd.ac.in/

Verified File Name: http://www.iitd.ac.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 5:07:01 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 – Passed 6.3; Failed 1.1, 7.1
Priority 2 – Passed 7.4, 13.1,12.2, 12.4; Failed 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5, 10.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

AIIMS

http://www.aiims.edu/

Verified File Name: http://www.aiims.edu/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:11:37 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1, 7.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4,12.4, 13.1 ; Failed 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5, 10.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

CMC Vellore

http://home.cmcvellore.ac.in/

Verified File Name: http://home.cmcvellore.ac.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:15:44 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Passed 1.1; Failed 12.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 11.2, 12.4, 13.1 ; Failed 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 9.4, 9.5, 10.5; Failed 4.3
Alt text quality – N/A

IIM Ahmedabad

http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/

Verified File Name: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:19:46 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 12.4, 13.1 ; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

IIM Bangalore

Verified File Name: http://www.iimb.ernet.in/
Date and Time: 11/26/2008 6:27:18 AM
Passed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Passed 1.1, 6.3;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 11.2, 12.4, 13.1; Failed 3.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 9.4, 9.5, 10.5; Failed 4.3
Alt text quality – N/A

IIM Calcutta

Verified File Name: http://www.iimcal.ac.in/
Date and Time: 11/26/2008 6:30:42 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Passed 6.3; Failed 1.1
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 12.4, 13.1; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

State Bank of India

http://www.sbi.co.in/

Verified File Name: http://www.sbi.co.in/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:26:29 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 12.4; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.1, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

Reserve Bank of India

http://www.rbi.org.in/home.aspx

Verified File Name: http://www.rbi.org.in/home.aspx
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:36:25 AM
Passed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Passed 1.1;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4, 11.2, 13.1, 12.4; Failed 3.2, 13.2
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – N/A
http://www.rbi.org.in/commonman/English/Scripts/Home.aspx

NASSCOM

http://www.nasscom.in/Default.aspx

Verified File Name: http://www.nasscom.in/Default.aspx
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 10:47:00 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1, 6.3;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4; Failed 11.2, 13.1, 13.2, 12.4
Priority 3 – Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5, 10.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

The Hindu

http://www.hinduonnet.com/

Verified File Name: http://www.hinduonnet.com/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 11:00:09 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1, 6.3;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4 ; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.1, 13.2, 12.4
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

The Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Verified File Name: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
Date and Time: 11/25/2008 11:22:15 AM
Failed Automated Verification
Emulated Browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0

Priority 1 - Failed 1.1, 6.3;
Priority 2 - Passed 7.4 ; Failed 3.2, 11.2, 13.1, 13.2, 12.4
Priority 3 – Passed 10.5; Failed 4.3, 9.4, 9.5
Alt text quality – Failed 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 2.2; Warning 2.1

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-of-accessibility-tests-conducted-on-some-government-and-other-popular-web-sites