Fw: Jodi Mattes Access Award

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lisa Yayla" <fnugg@online.no>
To: <adaptedgraphics@topica.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2003 1:03 PM
Subject: Jodi Mattes Access Award


Hi
Came across this on another list, thought it might
be of interest to some. It is about web accessibility
for museums, galleries, etc.
Thought the Museophile - http://access.museophile.net/
interesting.
Best,
Lisa

The Jodi Mattes Access Award

The Museums Computer Group is pleased to announce
that the winner of the first Jodi Mattes Access
Award is the National Maritime Museum in
Greenwich.

Sites nominated:
Australian Museum spiders site -
http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders
Disability Museum - http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/
Hampshire Museums Service - http://www.hants.gov.uk/museums
London's Transport Museum - http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/
Museophile - http://access.museophile.net/
My Brighton and Hove -
http://http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/index.htm
The National Gallery, London -
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk>
National Maritime Museum - (*WINNER*) http://www.nmm.ac.uk
Tate - http://www.tate.org.uk/imap (COMMENDED)

The Jodi Mattes Access Award is intended to
recognise museum, gallery and heritage
websites that have emphasised principles of
access for all in their design, navigation
and content. The judges included representatives
from  MAGDA, MCG, Resource and RNIB.

The judges were keen to award websites which
showed acommitment towards compliance with
access standards. Judges felt that the NMM Website
http://www.nmm.ac.uk clearly demonstrates this commitment.
Features particularly welcomed include:

*  Good contrast between text and background
*  Allowing users to change the size of the
text with browser controls
*  Style sheets to control screen appearance
*  'Meaningful' links that make sense out of context
*  Use of the ALT attribute to describe graphics.

The judges were also impressed with the ease of
navigation around the NMM's Collections Online
system, which provides information about 7,000
objects in the collections.

In addition to compliance with access standards,
the judges were also aware that a growing number
of museums, galleries and heritage venues are
developing innovative content aimed at groups
with particular needs. The judges especially
wanted to commend Tate for innovation in the
presentation of content in its i-Map system
http://www.tate.org.uk/imap

The judges felt that, as yet, innovative content
is not being paired with standards compliance and
that there is plenty of room for improvement. The
judges hope that next year's award might motivate
organisations to produce compliant websites with
innovative content. For this year, though, they
wanted to make particular mention of museums,
galleries and heritage sites which had made strides
in the relatively new area of accessibility, where
there are few existing examples of good practice. They
congratulated all the sites nominated for their
efforts in improving access to the
wealth of information available in the sector.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

For further information please contact: Fiona Marshall, ICT
Strategy
Officer, East Midlands Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council.
Telephone:
0116 285 1355.  Email: fmarshall@emmlac.org.uk

Jodi Mattes

The Jodi Mattes Access Award is named in memory of Jodi
Mattes
(1973-2001). Jodi worked at the Royal National Institute
for the Blind and the British Museum.  Amongst many other
things, Jodi worked to ensure that the British
Museum's COMPASS website was accessible to all. She
organised
testing of COMPASS by blind and partially sighted users,
worked with the
system developers on changes informed by the testing process
and specified
visitor desks accessible to wheelchair users. She also
worked on accessible
text descriptions, which has fed into the development of
content on
children's COMPASS. Jodi's work has inspired other museums
to develop
accessible websites and the MCG is proud to commemorate
 her work through this award.



Award announcement

The winner of the Jodi Mattes Access Award was announced at
the
Talking
Images conference at Eltham Palace in South East London on
20 May.

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Received on Sunday, 25 May 2003 19:33:15 UTC