Call for Papers, WWW8 Developer Day

Call for Papers

This year at the WWW8 conference we will have a stream of sessions during
Developer Day devoted to access issues. The conference is in Toronto from
May 11 to 14. Developer's Day is on Friday the 14th.

(Toronto is a great place to visit especially if you have US dollars which
are equivalent to about 1.5 Canadian dollars. Given the exchange rate, WWW8
would probably be the least expensive conference you can go to in 1998 in
North America. Toronto is the home of the ATRC, so we can help find
reasonable, accessible accomodation.)

The following is the access stream description, to give you an indication
of the types of papers we are looking for:

Accessibility: Software and Design

Barrier Free design is a topic every developer will be compelled to attend
to, if not because of the market incentives or the design advantages, then
for legal reasons. Considering access from the start in the design cycle is
far more efficient and inexpensive than being forced to retrofit and fix
later on. Many developers have come to know the meaning of the "curbcut
advantage." Curbcuts refer to the ramps cut into sidewalks or footpaths.
These were initially created to allow people in wheelchairs easier access.
Once they were widely implemented it became clear that they were of great
advantage to people who were not using wheelchairs (e.g., people with baby
carriages, shopping carts, roller blades, bicycles, etc.). E-mail,
alt-text, captioning, the Finder menu on the Mac, keyboard equivalents in a
GUI, and voice browsing, were all motivated by the needs of people with
disabilities but have obvious advantages for the general consumer.

What constitutes barrier free access for emerging technologies or evolving
standards is not well defined. Although the general principles of barrier
free design are well documented, there is no systematic prescriptive
process in place for designing accessible leading edge software. By
necessity this is an ongoing participatory process.

This day long session will grapple with accessible design of emerging
web-based standards and software. Developers are encouraged to present
unsolved or partially solved access challenges for input or discussion
during the session. Presenters are invited to discuss techniques that
result in barrier free web-based products and case studies of successful or
unsuccessful development strategies or business practices that are directed
at barrier free design.

If you are interested in presenting please submit a proposal for a 30 to 45
minute presentation. Please specify the access challenge, what sector you
represent, will you be discussing the process of creating barrier free
software or specific techniques and design decisions? Please frame your
presentations for developers: talk in specific technical terms not in
generalities. A panel of barrier-free design experts will be available to
respond to sessions seeking input.

Please email me at jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca if you have a paper proposal.

All that is needed is:
 1.  Name of presenter
	   2.  Affiliation  of presenter
	   3.  blurb/bio about the presenter -- e.g.:
	        "Prof. Plumb and Miss Scarlet designed the
	 	 first working ZML parser, and implemented
		 the first browser incorporating the SDDOM
		 (Super Duper Document Object Model)"
	   4.  Talk title (can be updated later)
	   5.  Brief presentation outline (1-4 sentences).

    Relevant URLs (biographical, or presentation-related) are
    welcome.
The paper is not required until the day of the presentation when it will be
put up on the Web.

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you feel might have something to
contribute.


Thanks

Jutta Treviranus
Session Chair, Accessibility
WWW8 Developer Day
jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca