Education and Outreach Working Group
Brainstormed Ideas
22 June 2001
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

media - broaden - evaluation - policy - networking

The following lists include ideas generated from discussions during the W3C/WAI Education and Outreach Working Group meeting held at CWI in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on June 22, 2001.

The suggestions below are collection of brainstormed ideas reflecting many different viewpoints during the meeting, and do not necessarily represent the consensus of the group.

Generating media attention and interest in Web accessibility, and increasing participation in Web accessibility efforts within a given country:

Gather contact information for people with disabilities who are comfortable talking to the media.
Get to know journalists, and maintain contact with them.
Write letters replying to articles in national-level newspapers.
Focus on mainstream press as much as possible, and use a message that emphasizes the mainstream nature of disability issues.
Focus on plenary sessions at conferences rather than workshops or break-out sessions where people are already familiar with and supportive of Web accessibility.
Mention to the press names of companies and organizations that have made progress on accessibility.
Mention to the press organizations, including municipalities, that have accessibility problems.
Encourage participants in accessibility promotion campaigns to respond to news features and keep the issue alive with follow-up stories and letters.
Promote some Web sites as "the best of some bad ones" if there are not yet better sites to point to.
Be constructive and explain how to make Web sites accessible.
Rate and rank Web sites according to their degree of accessibility, and let organizations compare each other's sites.
Add logos, perhaps like a sports scoring system, to Web sites.
Hold a large public event about accessibility, and involve the media.
Get organizations to make public promises for Web accessibility.

Broadening a core group of accessibility advocates:

Bring in outside speakers to talk to a local core group.
Start a local Web site promoting Web accessibility.
Invite participation from different disability user organizations: "we need your knowledge" - then provide information that they can take back to their own organizations.
Plan Web accessibility promotion activities so that they happen at the same time as other e-Europe activities.
Plan an initiative with the central information office of national organizations.
Advise people that Web accessibility is part of a trend of development as the Web moves onto new devices, and those who don't make their sites accessible will fall behind on supporting access from some newer devices.

Reviewing Web sites for Web accessibility and usability; and using logos

Explain the tools that can be used to evaluate Web sites.
Evaluate Web sites against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, but also provide an option for people who are users to evaluate sites based on their own experience using the sites.
Be cautious about people who do not have disabilities using assistive technologies to do evaluations; if a reviewer is using assistive technology to evaluate a Web site and does not have the relevant disability himself or herself, involve someone who is a regular user of that assistive technology, and have them review the site as well.
Include a diverse group of people with disabilities in the evaluation process for Web sites, using their usual assistive technologies in their usual settings where possible.
Involve people with disabilities, but don't expect one person to reflect more than their own experience.
Be careful not to rely only on expert users - people with disabilities who are expert computers users and assistive technology users. Include some people who are more novice users.
Use a protocol of questions for usability, e.g. navigation, consistency, etc., to score Web sites including their score for Web Content Accessibility Guideline conformance.
Consider using usability guideline sets during evaluation, such as those from Trace Research and Development Center.
Develop a database in which to organize and compare the results of Web site reviews.
Investigate delays in localizations (local translations) of Web site evaluation tools that may affect evaluation results, and adjust evaluations accordingly.
Investigate delays in localized implementations of accessibility features in browsers, multimedia players, or assistive technologies; for instance, if only one screen reader is localized to a given language, then evaluation of certain accessibility features can be much more focused.
If using logos to indicate a given accessibility conformance level on a Web site, clarify the scope of the Web site to which they apply, and what type of evaluation process was used to review the Web site.

Developing policy approaches for Web accessibility within individual countries, including procurement processes:

Use and build on e-Europe initiative.
Develop a long-term educational action, but not at expense of current activities.
Involve more user organizations in the process.
Encourage people with disabilities to participate directly as much as possible.
Emphasize people with disabilities as a significant portion of the market share.
Try to build multi-stakeholder initiatives wherever possible.
Evaluate and compare the effectiveness of different approaches to promoting accessibility, including different policy approaches in EU Member States.
Transfer best practices from one country to another where appropriate.
Use benchmarking approach creatively.
Promote accessibility issues along with usability issues.
Explore application of social issues to public procurement policies.
Identify multiple candidates for centers of excellence - wherever good work is being done.
Distribute list of member representatives to Accessibility Expert Group, and encourage more community contacts; distribute e-groups Web site information.

Ideas for more networking in the future around Web accessibility:

Hold another one of these meetings.
Exchange more information about events and resources for promoting Web accessibility.
Don't set up another e-mail list.
Add more people to the eEurope discussion list.
Consider having W3C Offices host local language lists.
Stay in touch through Sylvie Duchateau sylvie.duchateau@snb.jussieu.fr

Last updated 30 January, 2002 by Judy Brewer, jbrewer@w3.org