- From: Daniel Dardailler <danield@www10.w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 12:02:58 +0100
- To: web-access@www10.w3.org
Hello, you'll find at this link: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TandS/Team/access-brief (and attached as well) the current draft of the briefing package we expect to submit to our members by Friday. Some Annexes (like non-US legal pointers, "current player" list or supportive association list) need more work, to come during this week and the next. ------------------------------------------------------------------ <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="Microsoft Word 97"> <TITLE>Web Accessibility Project Briefing Package</TITLE> <META NAME="Template" CONTENT="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\html.dot"> </HEAD> <BODY LINK="#0000ff" VLINK="#800080"> <H1><U>Briefing Package</U><BR> For Project <em>Web Access for People with Disabilities</em></H1> <P><HR></P> <H2>1. Executive Summary </H2> <P>The World Wide Web is not designed for people with disabilities. This includes the Web's supporting protocols, applications and content. </P> <P>In order to fulfill its mission, i.e. realize the full potential of the Web, W3C must promote a high degree of usability for people with disabilities, and to that effect proposes the creation of this Project with its associated International Program Office, for coordinating five Web-related activities: </P> <OL> <B><LI>Technology development.</B> Centered on protocols and data formats, especially HTML, CSS, HTTP, PICS and PEP. </LI> <B><LI>Development of tools</B>. In particular, authoring tools that encourage development of content in a format that supports use by people with disabilities.</LI> <B><LI>Guidelines for use of the technology.</B> Guidelines targeted at browser vendors, authoring tool vendors, and content creators. </LI> <B><LI>Education of content creators.</B> Raising the awareness of the content creation community to the needs of people with disabilities as they relate to the Web community and technology. </LI> <B><LI>Research and advanced development.</B> User interface design, novel devices, certification tools and labels are all areas where additional work is required before standardization is appropriate. </LI></OL> <P>At a recent meeting hosted (and called for) by the U.S. Government at the White House (see participant list in Annex), this International Program Office proposal was presented and W3C was clearly designated as the ideal host for such a program. Five keywords were put forward to justify this choice: International, Centralized, Consensus, Predictability, and Participation. </P> <P>This briefing package details the context of such a project, the exact purpose of these five areas of activity, and the expected planning (time, resource, and external funding). </P> <P><HR></P> <H2>2. Background </H2> <P>The emergence of the World Wide Web has made it possible for individuals with appropriate computer and telecommunications equipment to interact as never before. The Web is the stepping stone, the infrastructure, which will pave the way for next generation interfaces. Part of the W3C's commitment to realize the full potential of the Web is to promote a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. </P> <P>The current situation in that area is not very good and is getting worse everyday as more and more people rush into the Web business without any awareness of the new limitations and frontiers they may create. No single disability population is unaffected. For example: </P> <UL> <LI>The deaf cannot hear multimedia or audio events that do not contain captioning or audio descriptions. </LI> <LI>The blind struggle with the Web's inherent graphical interface, it's graphic-based content, and any Web protocol or application that cannot easily be rendered or accessed using audio, braille, large text or synthetic voice. </LI> <LI>The physically challenged have difficulty using certain hardware devices or web controls, including Web kiosks and WebTV. </LI> <LI>The cognitive and visually impaired have difficulties interpreting most web pages because they have not been designed with this population in mind. </LI></UL> <P>Worldwide, there are more than 750 million people with disabilities. A significant percentage of that population is affected by the emergence of the Web, directly or indirectly. For those without disabilities, the Web is a new technology that can help unify geographically dispersed groups. But these barriers put the Web in danger of disenfranchising people with disabilities in this emerging infrastructure. </P> <P>Furthermore, even those without disabilities would benefit from many changes motivated by the needs of people with disabilities. When driving a car, for example, the driver may wish to browse the Web for information (movie schedules, etc.) using a voice-based interface similar to that used by the blind. </P> <P><HR></P> <H2>3. Current W3C Status/Position </H2> <P>Since its inception, the W3C has had an official activity area devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities, thanks to the continuous effort of Mike Paciello of the Yuri Rubinski Insight Foundation (see <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities">http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities</A>). While the members of the Consortium have supported this area, it has not yet received significant resources. W3C believes that it is now time to address these problems. </P> <P>When considering a host organization to promote Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities, the World Wide Web Consortium offers many advantages. </P> <P>First, we are the caretakers of the core Web protocols, and we can continue to serve as a neutral body, reaching consensus among the industry to </P> <UL> <LI>extend the underlying Web architecture (primarily through changes to the transport protocol, HTTP, and the addressing technique, URLs). </LI> <LI>extend the user interface paradigm (primarily through changes to the mark-up language HTML and the style sheet language CSS). </LI> <LI>accommodate the need for regulation (through PICS-based information labeling and PEP-based negotiation protocols). </LI></UL> <P>We are also International by nature, with Member representatives worldwide and permanent staff in Europe, the Pacific Rim, and the U.S. </P> <P>In the Accessibility area, education is one of the most important factors for success. One of the earliest roles of W3C was educational, acting as a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, especially specifications about the Web. </P> <P>The W3C <A HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/Activity.html">Accessibility activity statement</A> says: <B>"All the protocols and languages we issue as Recommendations should meet or exceed established accessibility goals. In addition, we will actively encourage the development of Web software and content that is accessible to people with most disabilities." </B>To meet these goals, the W3C staff recommends to their membership that W3C take on three roles with respect to accessibility: </P> <OL> <B><LI>Act as a central point for setting accessibility goals for the Web</B>. This requires W3C to coordinate with external organizations that represent people with disabilities to generate a widely accepted set of goals and guidelines that take into account the needs of the user community, the details of the technology, and engineering realities. W3C already fills this role in several other areas of technology, and it is a logical extension to a new user community. </LI> <B><LI>Act as an advocate for people with disabilities to the Web development community.</B> As the internationally acknowledged organization and leader for World Wide Web development, the W3C acknowledges its responsibility for advocating web accessibility for people with disabilities. As the Web user interface and infrastructure continues to evolve, the W3C will work to help its members become proactive in their efforts to design and develop the Web in a way that considers the user needs of people with disabilities. </LI> <B><LI>Act as an advocate for people with disabilities to the Web content community.</B> W3C already serves as a neutral party for distributing information about Web technology. W3C would like to extend this role to be proactive in explaining to content producers how best to use the technology to serve the needs of people with disabilities. </LI></OL> <P><HR></P> <H2>4. Proposal: A Project with an International Program Office for Web Accessibility </H2> <h3> Introduction </h3> <P>The staff of the World Wide Web Consortium proposes the creation of a new Project and an associated International Program Office to motivate, fund, and coordinate work aimed at making the Web accessible to those with disabilities. The Project itself consists of an Interest Group, a Coordination Group, and several Working Groups (the precise set of Working Groups will vary over time as deemed necessary by the Coordination Group). Instead of the usual Pilot that is associated with a W3C Project, we propose a semi-independent International Program Office whose role is to coordinate the technical work of the W3C Project with other work at individual companies, national governments, and key disability organizations. </P> <P>We recognize that several efforts, funded by various government agencies and supported by various disability organizations, are already in place. We do not seek to supplant or replace these commendable efforts. Rather, the intent of this proposal is to complement and coordinate those projects, while funding the areas of Web accessibility development that are not currently supported. A critical objective of this proposal is to enable the W3C to act as an important resource for, and partner with, governments and disability organizations worldwide whose mission statement includes access to the Web for people with disabilities. </P> <H3>Scope of the Activity </H3> <P>To adequately address the Accessibility problem a number of organizations that do not normally work together must coordinate their activities. These include the W3C and its member organizations, government agencies and non-profit organizations dealing with people with disabilities, as well as technology companies that directly address this market segment. </P> <P>We believe that the work can be divided into five major areas, with careful cross-coordination between the organizations and companies working in each area. </P> <H4>1. Technology development </H4> <P>This area is centered on Web protocols and data formats, especially HTML, CSS, HTTP, PICS and PEP. Since the Program Office is intended to concentrate on Web (rather than general computer) accessibility, we do <I>not</I> expect work on physical devices, etc. The work of the W3C, since its inception, has concentrated on precisely these technologies, and we see this work as core to W3C's focus and mission. We see the following initial work items in this area: </P> <B><DL> <DT>HTML</B> </DT> <DD>Completing the connection to existing ICADD framework and enhancements to FORMs and TABLEs. Finalize work on OBJECT tag (real ALT content, client side image map).</DD> <B><DT>CSS</B> </DT> <DD>Development of extensions to support speech output. </DD> <B><DT>HTTP</B> and <B>PEP</B> </DT> <DD>Negotiation of user agent features. </DD> </DL> <H4>2. Development of tools </H4> <P>The key to making the Web accessible is making sure that the content is produced in a way that keeps the needs of people with disabilities in mind. There are two kinds of tools that are critical to making this happen: authoring tools that prompt and remind content creators about the needs of people with disabilities, and tools for checking that standards for accessibility have been met. </P> <P>The International Program Office must work with vendors of tools to encourage them to take the needs of people with disabilities into account. This is a role that W3C has played to a certain extent in the PICS work and in work on Distributed Authoring and Versioning. But, in general, this kind of work with W3C member companies has not been seen as central to most areas. While W3C can work effectively in this area, it can do so only with the cooperation of the individual members - W3C holds no "stick" with which to force members into compliance; and especially so on issues that do not relate to interoperability with other Web agents. </P> <P>The primary initial work item here is the development of a <B>Style Guide for tool developers</B>: items that they should provide in their user interface to make it easy for content creators to "do the right thing" for people with disabilities. Developing this Style Guide (as well as the one mentioned in C., below) will lead to suggestions for specific tools, which may be integrated into authoring environments, for validating accessibility of content. </P> <H4>3. Guidelines for use of the technology </H4> <P>There are several existing guidelines for the use of HTML for people with disabilities, but these are rapidly falling behind the technology. There is confusion in the industry because there are several, incompatible, sets of guidelines. The industry needs a mechanism for generating either a single set of guidelines or (at worst) several compatible sets of guidelines, and, most importantly, for keeping the guidelines up-to-date as the technology evolves. These guidelines are not trivial - they depend on a wide range of factors, including</P> <UL> <LI>current Web technology</LI> <LI>desired use (conversion to Braille is different from speech output, which is in turn different from screen reading)</LI> <LI>audience (levels of accessibility means different things to a manager or a developer)</LI> <LI>disability being addressed. </LI></UL> <P>W3C does not, as a general rule, deal with producing style guidelines. We concentrate on "mechanism, not policy" and have allowed the market to shape the use of our technologies. On the other hand, the W3C <I>does</I> attempt to provide mechanisms for this purpose (the <B>alt</B> tag is one example) and <I>does</I> attempt to make it clear that this mechanism should be used to maximum advantage. We see a clear role of educating the community about good use of the technology, but it would not be reasonable to say that this has been a central focus for our efforts to date. </P> <H4>4. Education (sensitization) of content creators </H4> <P>As mentioned above, the primary issue is making sure that Web content is produced in a form accessible to people with disabilities. We do not believe that this process can be completely automatic, even given good authoring tools; it requires attention on the part of the designer to needs of a community that is all-too-often ignored. The key to success here is a combination of tools that make it easy to do the right thing, and education that reinforces the importance of using the tools routinely and correctly. </P> <P>We see this as the major externally funded activity called for by this proposal. While we believe that this is perhaps the most important aspect of the work, it is not something that falls easily within W3C's existing role. Clearly, part of this work should happen as part of the training program that comes with any Web authoring tool. But part of this work goes beyond individual tools, and is part of the traditional role of government: sensitizing the key players (content providers, in this case) to the needs of an important minority population with special needs. </P> <H4>5. Research and advanced development </H4> <P>The other areas of this proposal deal with work that has developed to the point where industry-wide standardization is reasonable. But there is a great deal of work that has not reached this point and which requires funding. Just as an example of this work, the development of automatic certification tools for Web content needs to be encouraged, as does work on making accessibility a goal for scripting interfaces to HTML display tools. </P> <P>W3C participates in both advanced development and research projects, as do all of its host institutions (INRIA, Keio University, and MIT). </P> <H3>Structure of the Project </H3> <P>W3C Projects usually consist of an interest group, a coordination group, several working groups (composition changing over time), and an associated Pilot Project. This Project follows this general form, initially consisting of:</P> <OL> <LI>An Interest Group on the topic of Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities. This Interest Group works primarily through the use of a members-only email list, augmented with semi-annual face-to-face meetings. There is no participation requirement for joining the Interest Group.</LI> <LI>A Working group for Technology development (extension of HTML, HTTP, CSS).</LI> <LI>A Working group on Guidelines and Style Guide (for HTML and browsing/authoring tools).</LI> <LI>A Working group on Test and Certification software. </LI> <LI>An associated International Program Office (IPO) devoted to Web Accessibility for people with Disabilities. The IPO will have its own full-time director, to be hired by W3C using external funding.</LI></OL> <P>Membership in each Working Group is restricted, as usual at W3C, to members who make a commitment of resources. In this case, members must commit to participation in a one-hour conference call every other week (for each Working group). They must also agree to produce deliverables (typically written drafts for consideration by the group) in a timely manner as agreed by the group itself. Each Working Group is free to schedule face-to-face meetings, not to exceed once each quarter, at which attendance is also required. The W3C Project Manager is charged with scheduling these meetings in a way that minimizes their expense and maximizes their productivity.</P> <P>Once these working groups have established their own internal structure they will elect representatives to an overall Coordination Group for the Project. From its inception, however, the Project will have a subgroup (consisting of the Project Manager and the chairs of each Working Group) that will function as the interim Coordination Group until a formal election can be held. The Project Manager, in consultation with the Coordination Group, shall be empowered to create, redirect, or disband Working Groups as necessary to maintain the work on the Project.</P> <P>The International Program Office is autonomously funded to act as a coordination body for work in this area both inside and outside W3C. The Director of the IPO, while reporting to the Director of W3C, will be solely in charge of the external funds allocated to the IPO. As such, the Project Manager for W3C reports to the Director of the IPO and will coordinate work on the W3C Project with external projects sponsored by the IPO. The Director of the IPO will work with the Project Manager to ensure the full and participation of all the Disability Organizations that have provided their support to this project (the initial list of these organizations is given in an Annex and is expected to grow during the project lifetime) </P> <H3>Projected Schedule </H3> <P>This Project must be reviewed by the W3C member organizations and is then subject to approval by the Director of the W3C. Assuming that these conditions are met, we expect to have a launching meeting at or adjacent to the 6<SUP>th</SUP> International World Wide Web Conference in April 1997. The Conference will take place at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara California. The Project launch meeting will be held at a nearby location within one week of the Conference; the date and location will be announced to all W3C members by February 14, 1997.</P> <P>Working groups will start operating soon after the meeting and deliverable timelines will be defined at the beginning of each activity. All Working Groups will be chartered and no Working Group will have a task that lasts for more than 6 months. The Interest Group and Coordination Group, however, are expected to last for the duration of the Project, a minimum of three years from the start date. Within one month of the start of the Project the Project Manager will announce to all W3C members the initial structure of the Project, the Charters of the initial working groups, the companies participating in the project, and the initial schedule for the Working Groups. The Project manager will maintain this information on the W3C web site and will provide a progress report at each Advisory Committee meeting while the project continues. The Director of the International Program Office will be invited to attend all Advisory Committee meetings, and will report as agreed by the D! ! irector of the W3C.</P> <H3>Resource Statement</H3> <P>Under normal circumstances, W3C would suggest the creation of a Project to address only the technical agenda proposed in this briefing package. This would require the commitment of 50% of a project manager, 25% of a senior protocol designer, and 25% of a senior language designer. The proposal would be to allocate 50% of Daniel Dardailler's time to be the project manager, 25% of Henrik Frystyk Nielsen's time to be the protocol designer, and 25% of Dave Raggett's time to be the language designer. All of this time allocation is within the existing budget of the W3C.</P> <OL> <LI>50% of a project manager. </LI> <LI>25% of a senior protocol designer (HTTP, PEP). </LI> <LI>25% of a senior language designer (HTML, PICS). </LI> </OL> <P>With the strong interest of the U.S. government and a number of organizations (see the Annex) that represent persons with disabilities, however, we believe that the W3C should go further. The creation of the International Program Office, to be funded by outside money but housed within W3C, will require a full-time Program Officer (i.e. Director of the IPO), and will require the following staff: </P> <OL start=4> <LI>100% of a senior Program Officer </LI> <LI>75% of a technical writer. </LI> <LI>200% of an educator/marketer/event coordinator. </LI> <LI>50% of a junior engineer for code development. </LI></OL> <P>In addition, of course, there is funding required for travel, computers, network, and general overhead items. There is a requirement for administrative support as well. Based on salary, general expenses, and overhead at MIT, we estimate that the full budget for the International Program Office will be $1,500,000 per year.</P> <P>We propose that W3C fund, from its existing membership fees, the technical component of this project (i.e. items 1 through 3). This leaves the salary of the Program Officer and items 5 through 7 to be covered by alternative sources. There are four funding sources that can be tapped for these expenses (which come to approximately $1,300,000 per year). </P> <OL> <LI>The European Commission has already requested that W3C (through its European office) submit a proposal for work, and W3C is considering Accessibility as one area to be funded.</LI> <LI>There is a network of grant agencies that deal specifically with helping people with disabilities. W3C has approached several of these agencies and they are willing to consider funding the IPO.</LI> <LI>The W3C member companies may be willing to contribute to a special fund for this work. </LI> <LI>The U.S. government can make up part of the costs through its normal funding agencies (NSF, NIDRR). Initial inquiries have shown that these organizations are also willing to support the IPO.</LI></OL> <P>We propose that the W3C fund the core technology work for this project from its membership dues. The Project Manager (Daniel Dardailler) along with the W3C management team should seek external funding for the remaining items. In particular, we expect that Jim Miller (domain leader for Technology and Society) should spend up to 25% of his time over the next 6 months to locate this external funding. The W3C membership should be kept informed through the newsletter and Web site of progress on locating funding as well as progress toward locating a Director of the IPO.</P> <P><HR></P> <H2>5. Annexes.</H2> <h3> <u>Annex</u>: Participants at the White House meeting on January 6th 1997. </H3> <P> This meeting was arranged by Tom Kalil, Senior Director to the National Economic Council (White House), and Mike Paciello (Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation) with the intent to bring together some key players in the industry and academia, and to position W3C as <em>the</em> central organization directing web accessibility for people with disabilities. <P>David Capozzi, U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board <BR> capozzi@access_board.gov </P> <P>Carl Cargill, Netscape Communications Corporation <BR> carl@netscape.com </P> <P>Audrey Choi, FCC <BR> achoi@fcc.gov </P> <P>Daniel Dardailler, W3C <BR> danield@w3.org </P> <P>Larry Goldberg, WGBH <BR> larry_goldberg@wgbh.org </P> <P>Joseph Hardin, NCSA <BR> hardin@ncsa.uiuc.edu </P> <P>Scott Isaacs, Microsoft Corporation <BR> scotti@microsoft.com </P> <P>Steve Jacobs, NCR <BR> steve.jacobs@daytonoh.ncr.com </P> <P>Tom Kalil, National Economic Council <BR> kalil_t@a1.eop.gov </P> <P>Murray Maloney, SoftQuad, Inc./YRIF <BR> murray@sq.com </P> <P>Jim Miller, W3C <BR> jmiller@w3.org </P> <P>Howard Moses, OSERS <BR> howard_moses@ed.gov </P> <P>Mike Paciello, Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation <BR> paciello@yuri.org </P> <P>Dave Raggett, W3C <BR> dsr@w3.org </P> <P>Larry Scadden, NSF <BR> lscadden@nsf.gov </P> <P>Gary Strong, NSF <BR> gstrong.nsf.gov </P> <P>Gregg Vanderheiden, Trace Research and Development Center <BR> po@trace.wisc.edu </P> <P>Kate Seelman, NIDRR <BR> kate_seelman@ed.gov </P> <H3><u>Annex</u>. Legal Standards That Require Web Access </H3> <P>Providing additional motivation to build accessibility into the Web's infrastructure are certain legal standards and requirements (current and proposed). Many of these requirements already exist in US and other national laws. There is work in Europe to extend the national laws into a pan-European framework that would, presumably, also be considered for adoption worldwide. </P> <P>Following is a brief list of existing U.S. laws that affect the accessibility of the World Wide Web for people with disabilities: </P> <UL> <LI><A HREF="http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm">The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)</A> <BR> While the ADA primarily deals with buildings, it<B> </B>also covers effective communication with people with disabilities, eligibility criteria that may restrict or prevent access, and requires reasonable modifications of policies and practices that may be discriminatory. </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.gsa.gov%2F/coca/SECT508.htm">Public Law 102-569, Section 509</A> <BR> "…shall develop and establish guidelines for Federal agencies for electronic and information technology accessibility designed to ensure, regardless of the type of medium, that individuals with disabilities can produce information and data, and have access to information and data…" </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html">The Telecommunications Act of 1996, Sections 255 and 256</A> <BR> Several sections of the Telecommunications Act address barriers and potential issues related to the inaccessibility of the Web. It establishes the Telecommunications Accessibility Advisory Committee (TAAC) to address the needs of people with disabilities. </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.caption.com/#A__captioning_tdca_ht">Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 </A><BR> This Act requires new televisions to have built-in decoder circuitry. With the advent of WebTV and the push towards a Web interface that is more easily accessible via television, the requirements of web accessibility that supports captioning are solid. </LI></UL> <H3><u>Annex</u>. References to Existing Reports </H3> <UL> <LI><A HREF="http://www.boston.com/wgbh/pages/ncam/captionedmovies.html">Captioning and Audio Description for the Deaf</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.trace.wisc.edu/text/guidelns/htmlgide/htmlgide.html">Design of HTML Pages To Increase Their Accessibility to Users with Disabilities: Strategies for Today and Tomorrow</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund/access-browsers.html">World Wide Web Browser Access Recommendations</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund/access-overview.html">World Wide Web Accessibility to People with Disabilities: A Usability Perspective</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/world.html">Designing An Accessible World</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.gsa.gov/coca/SB_paper.htm">People with Disabilities and NII: Breaking Down Barriers, Building Choice</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/java/java.htm">Java and JavaScript Accessibility</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://bucky.aa.uic.edu/">The Mosaic Access Project</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.yuri.org/webable/library/w3cjart.html">Designing the Web for People with Disabilities</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.cm.spyglass.com/doc/icadd.html">ICADD Support for HTML 3.2</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://208.203.148.66/doc/icadd/sdacomp.html">SDA/Element Comparison: HTML 2.0, 3.2 and ICADD 2.2.1 </A></LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Style/Activity.html">Cascading Style Sheets: W3C Activity Area</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://iitfcat.nist.gov:94/doc2/sp868.html">Report by the Committee on Applications and Technology of the Information Infrastructure Task Force</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.public.iastate.edu/~sbilling/ada.html">Americans with Disability Act Document Center</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm">US Department of Justice ADA Home Page</A> </LI></UL> <H3><u>Annex</u>. Current Players and Critical Partners </H3> <P>The following organizations make up some key "players" in the area of web access for people with disabilities. All of these organizations and corporations are deeply involved in Web accessibility development and activities. In order to launch a successful program that is geared towards designing and developing access to the Web for people with disabilities, it is imperative that the W3C establish a collaborative relationship with them. </P> <UL> <LI><A HREF="http://www.trace.wisc.edu/">Trace Research and Development Center</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.boston.com/wgbh/pages/ncam/">WGBH National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM)</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.yuri.org/">The Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation (YRIF)</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.prodworks.com/">The Productivity Works, Inc.</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://microsoft.com/windows/enable/">Microsoft Corporation</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.ncsa.edu/">NCSA</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.sil.org/sgml/">SGML Consortium</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.cm.spyglass.com/doc/icadd.html">International Committee for Accessible Document Design (ICADD)</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://weber.u.washington.edu/~doit/">University of Washington (Project DO-IT)</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.sq.com/">SoftQuad, Inc.</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.utoronto.ca/atrc/">University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Center (ATRC)</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.cast.org/">Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)</A> </LI> <LI><A HREF="http://www.cm.spyglass.com/">SpyGlass, Inc.</A> </LI></UL> <H3><u>Annex</u>. Some Groups Representing People With Disabilities </H3> <H3>General Disability </H3> <UL> <LI>Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe </LI> <LI>Harmony (Europe) </LI> <LI>National Council on Disability (NCD) </LI> <LI>National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation and Research (NIDRR) </LI> <LI>Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America (RESNA) </LI> <LI>World Institute on Disability (WID) </LI></UL> <H3>Organizations for the Blind/Visually Impaired </H3> <UL> <LI> Groupement des Intellectuels Aveugles ou Amblyopes - Paris (GIAA) <LI> Royal National Institure for the Blind, UK (RNIB) <LI> European Blind Union (EBU) <LI>American Council of the Blind (ACB) </LI> <LI>American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) </LI> <LI>National Association for the Visually Impaired </LI> <LI>National Federation of the Blind (NFB) </LI> <LI>Royal Society of the Blind, Hong Kong </LI></UL> <H3>Organizations for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired </H3> <UL> <LI>American Deafness and Rehabilitation Association </LI> <LI>Galludet University </LI> <LI>Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, Inc. </LI></UL> <H3>Organizations for the Mobility Impaired </H3> <UL> <LI>American Paralysis Association </LI> <LI>United Cerebral Palsy Associations, Inc. </LI> <li> Association des Paralytiques De France (APF) </UL> <HR> <ADDRESS> Daniel Dardailler <A HREF="mailto:danield@w3.org"><B>danield@w3.org</B></A> </ADDRESS> </BODY> </HTML>
Received on Monday, 3 February 1997 06:03:11 UTC