Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled
Hello Lovely, I am in the department of Central Excise. I find its official web site http://sermon.nic.in very inaccsssible. It's a secure web site where the officials and excise parties are supposed to enter data. Please check its accessibility. I would also like you to emphasise on provide alternative text against all graphics and buttons on government sites. It would at least ensure text announcement by screen readers. Best regards, Amiyo Biswas. Cell: 91-9433464329 - Original Message - From: "Swati Sinha" To: Sent: Saturday, September 12, 2009 11:03 AM Subject: Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled Dear Lovely, One of the site I would like to suggest is the website of Indira Gandhi national Open University (IGNOU). www.ignou.ac.in Thank You, With regards, Swati -Original Message- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Lovely chowdary Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 6:17 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in; vishnu.ramchand...@mphasis.com Subject: Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled Hai all, I am working as an web accessibility consultant at Iridiuminteractive Limited a Hyderabad based software company. For your information We are in the process of bringing awareness about web accessibility in various government departments. I would be glad to know some widely used government departments which you think as priority so that we can approach them and do further required work. Our vision is to see all the government websites web accessible soon. On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:22:29 +0530 wrote But government's draft National Policy for Electronic Accessibility offers some hope Last month, Deepak Kumar (name changed on request), a visually-impaired businessman, logged on to check out for some information on the newly-created Rajya Sabha website. Given the government's assurance this February that at least 50 important government websites would be made disabled-friendly and accessible, he should have faced no problems. However, there were accessibility problems galore. For instance, there were inappropriate alternate texts, no means to control the moving content, missing form labels, and code (XHTML) that did not match the world wide web consortium (W3C) specifications - all in violation of guidelines provided by the Indian government itself. Moreover, links leading to external websites existed but users were not informed about the same in advance, thus creating more problems for disabled people. The very title for the homepage of the website "Rajya Sabha - Parliament of India" failed to describe that it is the homepage. CHECKLIST TO BE DISABLED-FRIENDLY... * Include an 'ALT' attribute for all images and image map hotspots * Users should be able to tell where links are taking them without having to read the surrounding text * Text links are distinguished from regular text in a way that is consistent, and does not rely solely on colour * Avoid using frames in web pages * Provide accessible alternatives for interactive and multimedia content The world over, as new websites are created, countries like the US, the UK, Canada and Australia have enacted legislation to make it mandatory for creators of web pages to follow the minimum standards for accessibility adopted by those countries. Access to information is mandated by the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) that India has ratified and also by the Disability Act, 1995. Yet, for the estimated 60 million disabled people like Kumar in India, these are major hurdles to be crossed. For one, the estimated 5,000 government sites and portals (with the exception of a couple of sites like india.gov.in and bharat.gov.in) are not fully accessible to them. This, of course, does not include the thousands of websites run by Indian companies which do not comply with Web Access Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) Director Javed Abidi points out that even the Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry to the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) - which will be a computer-based test this year - "...completely ignores the interests of students with disabilities, who will face a great deal of difficulty appearing for it. From paper to online exams, disabled people will still be dependent on humans rather than technology." The Indian government, though, appears to be finally waking up to these problems, admits Abidi. India's draft National Policy on Electronic Accessibility (NPEA) is a case in point. It acknowledges that though the electronic age can benefit persons with disabilities, persons with disabilities are being excluded and thereby facing discrimination. For example, a perso
Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled
Dear Lovely, One of the site I would like to suggest is the website of Indira Gandhi national Open University (IGNOU). www.ignou.ac.in Thank You, With regards, Swati -Original Message- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Lovely chowdary Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 6:17 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in; vishnu.ramchand...@mphasis.com Subject: Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled Hai all, I am working as an web accessibility consultant at Iridiuminteractive Limited a Hyderabad based software company. For your information We are in the process of bringing awareness about web accessibility in various government departments. I would be glad to know some widely used government departments which you think as priority so that we can approach them and do further required work. Our vision is to see all the government websites web accessible soon. On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:22:29 +0530 wrote >But government's draft National Policy for Electronic Accessibility offers some hope Last month, Deepak Kumar (name changed on request), a visually-impaired businessman, logged on to check out for some information on the newly-created Rajya Sabha website. Given the government's assurance this February that at least 50 important government websites would be made disabled-friendly and accessible, he should have faced no problems. However, there were accessibility problems galore. For instance, there were inappropriate alternate texts, no means to control the moving content, missing form labels, and code (XHTML) that did not match the world wide web consortium (W3C) specifications - all in violation of guidelines provided by the Indian government itself. Moreover, links leading to external websites existed but users were not informed about the same in advance, thus creating more problems for disabled people. The very title for the homepage of the website "Rajya Sabha - Parliament of India" failed to describe that it is the homepage. CHECKLIST TO BE DISABLED-FRIENDLY... * Include an 'ALT' attribute for all images and image map hotspots * Users should be able to tell where links are taking them without having to read the surrounding text * Text links are distinguished from regular text in a way that is consistent, and does not rely solely on colour * Avoid using frames in web pages * Provide accessible alternatives for interactive and multimedia content The world over, as new websites are created, countries like the US, the UK, Canada and Australia have enacted legislation to make it mandatory for creators of web pages to follow the minimum standards for accessibility adopted by those countries. Access to information is mandated by the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) that India has ratified and also by the Disability Act, 1995. Yet, for the estimated 60 million disabled people like Kumar in India, these are major hurdles to be crossed. For one, the estimated 5,000 government sites and portals (with the exception of a couple of sites like india.gov.in and bharat.gov.in) are not fully accessible to them. This, of course, does not include the thousands of websites run by Indian companies which do not comply with Web Access Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) Director Javed Abidi points out that even the Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry to the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) - which will be a computer-based test this year - "...completely ignores the interests of students with disabilities, who will face a great deal of difficulty appearing for it. From paper to online exams, disabled people will still be dependent on humans rather than technology." The Indian government, though, appears to be finally waking up to these problems, admits Abidi. India's draft National Policy on Electronic Accessibility (NPEA) is a case in point. It acknowledges that though the electronic age can benefit persons with disabilities, persons with disabilities are being excluded and thereby facing discrimination. For example, a person with visual impairment can't access an ATM; a person with hearing impairment can't enjoy TV programmes; and physically challenged people cannot access kiosks at railway stations. The Department of Information Technology, too, convened a meeting late last month to discuss the draft NPEA, as prepared by the NCPEDP along with BarrierBreak Technologies. Once the core group approves the final draft, it will be put up for comments on the internet for a month, after which the final draft policy would be submitted to the government for approval. The objective of the NPEA is to provide a person with disabilities equal access to electronic
Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled
Dear Lovely, One of the site I would like to suggest is the website of Indira Gandhi national Open University (IGNOU). www.ignou.ac.in Thank You, With regards, Swati -Original Message- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Lovely chowdary Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 6:17 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in; vishnu.ramchand...@mphasis.com Subject: Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled Hai all, I am working as an web accessibility consultant at Iridiuminteractive Limited a Hyderabad based software company. For your information We are in the process of bringing awareness about web accessibility in various government departments. I would be glad to know some widely used government departments which you think as priority so that we can approach them and do further required work. Our vision is to see all the government websites web accessible soon. On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:22:29 +0530 wrote >But government's draft National Policy for Electronic Accessibility offers some hope Last month, Deepak Kumar (name changed on request), a visually-impaired businessman, logged on to check out for some information on the newly-created Rajya Sabha website. Given the government's assurance this February that at least 50 important government websites would be made disabled-friendly and accessible, he should have faced no problems. However, there were accessibility problems galore. For instance, there were inappropriate alternate texts, no means to control the moving content, missing form labels, and code (XHTML) that did not match the world wide web consortium (W3C) specifications - all in violation of guidelines provided by the Indian government itself. Moreover, links leading to external websites existed but users were not informed about the same in advance, thus creating more problems for disabled people. The very title for the homepage of the website "Rajya Sabha - Parliament of India" failed to describe that it is the homepage. CHECKLIST TO BE DISABLED-FRIENDLY... * Include an 'ALT' attribute for all images and image map hotspots * Users should be able to tell where links are taking them without having to read the surrounding text * Text links are distinguished from regular text in a way that is consistent, and does not rely solely on colour * Avoid using frames in web pages * Provide accessible alternatives for interactive and multimedia content The world over, as new websites are created, countries like the US, the UK, Canada and Australia have enacted legislation to make it mandatory for creators of web pages to follow the minimum standards for accessibility adopted by those countries. Access to information is mandated by the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) that India has ratified and also by the Disability Act, 1995. Yet, for the estimated 60 million disabled people like Kumar in India, these are major hurdles to be crossed. For one, the estimated 5,000 government sites and portals (with the exception of a couple of sites like india.gov.in and bharat.gov.in) are not fully accessible to them. This, of course, does not include the thousands of websites run by Indian companies which do not comply with Web Access Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) Director Javed Abidi points out that even the Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry to the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) - which will be a computer-based test this year - "...completely ignores the interests of students with disabilities, who will face a great deal of difficulty appearing for it. From paper to online exams, disabled people will still be dependent on humans rather than technology." The Indian government, though, appears to be finally waking up to these problems, admits Abidi. India's draft National Policy on Electronic Accessibility (NPEA) is a case in point. It acknowledges that though the electronic age can benefit persons with disabilities, persons with disabilities are being excluded and thereby facing discrimination. For example, a person with visual impairment can't access an ATM; a person with hearing impairment can't enjoy TV programmes; and physically challenged people cannot access kiosks at railway stations. The Department of Information Technology, too, convened a meeting late last month to discuss the draft NPEA, as prepared by the NCPEDP along with BarrierBreak Technologies. Once the core group approves the final draft, it will be put up for comments on the internet for a month, after which the final draft policy would be submitted to the government for approval. The objective of the NPEA is to provide a person with disabilities equal access to electronic
Re: [AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled
Hai all, I am working as an web accessibility consultant at Iridiuminteractive Limited a Hyderabad based software company. For your information We are in the process of bringing awareness about web accessibility in various government departments. I would be glad to know some widely used government departments which you think as priority so that we can approach them and do further required work. Our vision is to see all the government websites web accessible soon. On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:22:29 +0530 wrote >But government's draft National Policy for Electronic Accessibility offers some hope Last month, Deepak Kumar (name changed on request), a visually-impaired businessman, logged on to check out for some information on the newly-created Rajya Sabha website. Given the government's assurance this February that at least 50 important government websites would be made disabled-friendly and accessible, he should have faced no problems. However, there were accessibility problems galore. For instance, there were inappropriate alternate texts, no means to control the moving content, missing form labels, and code (XHTML) that did not match the world wide web consortium (W3C) specifications - all in violation of guidelines provided by the Indian government itself. Moreover, links leading to external websites existed but users were not informed about the same in advance, thus creating more problems for disabled people. The very title for the homepage of the website "Rajya Sabha - Parliament of India" failed to describe that it is the homepage. CHECKLIST TO BE DISABLED-FRIENDLY... * Include an 'ALT' attribute for all images and image map hotspots * Users should be able to tell where links are taking them without having to read the surrounding text * Text links are distinguished from regular text in a way that is consistent, and does not rely solely on colour * Avoid using frames in web pages * Provide accessible alternatives for interactive and multimedia content The world over, as new websites are created, countries like the US, the UK, Canada and Australia have enacted legislation to make it mandatory for creators of web pages to follow the minimum standards for accessibility adopted by those countries. Access to information is mandated by the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) that India has ratified and also by the Disability Act, 1995. Yet, for the estimated 60 million disabled people like Kumar in India, these are major hurdles to be crossed. For one, the estimated 5,000 government sites and portals (with the exception of a couple of sites like india.gov.in and bharat.gov.in) are not fully accessible to them. This, of course, does not include the thousands of websites run by Indian companies which do not comply with Web Access Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) Director Javed Abidi points out that even the Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry to the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) - which will be a computer-based test this year - "...completely ignores the interests of students with disabilities, who will face a great deal of difficulty appearing for it. From paper to online exams, disabled people will still be dependent on humans rather than technology." The Indian government, though, appears to be finally waking up to these problems, admits Abidi. India's draft National Policy on Electronic Accessibility (NPEA) is a case in point. It acknowledges that though the electronic age can benefit persons with disabilities, persons with disabilities are being excluded and thereby facing discrimination. For example, a person with visual impairment can't access an ATM; a person with hearing impairment can't enjoy TV programmes; and physically challenged people cannot access kiosks at railway stations. The Department of Information Technology, too, convened a meeting late last month to discuss the draft NPEA, as prepared by the NCPEDP along with BarrierBreak Technologies. Once the core group approves the final draft, it will be put up for comments on the internet for a month, after which the final draft policy would be submitted to the government for approval. The objective of the NPEA is to provide a person with disabilities equal access to electronic and information and communication technology and services, according to BarrierBreak Technologies Managing Director Shilpi Kapoor. "We were pressurising the government earlier this year to adopt WCAG 2.0 for making all Indian websites accessible to people with visual impairment. We were inspired by the prompt response from the Ministry of IT, when it made a declaration making all important government websites disabled-friendly. This has motivated us to expand our horizons beyond web accessibility, and we are now looking at the entire domain
[AI] Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled
But government's draft National Policy for Electronic Accessibility offers some hope Last month, Deepak Kumar (name changed on request), a visually-impaired businessman, logged on to check out for some information on the newly-created Rajya Sabha website. Given the government's assurance this February that at least 50 important government websites would be made disabled-friendly and accessible, he should have faced no problems. However, there were accessibility problems galore. For instance, there were inappropriate alternate texts, no means to control the moving content, missing form labels, and code (XHTML) that did not match the world wide web consortium (W3C) specifications - all in violation of guidelines provided by the Indian government itself. Moreover, links leading to external websites existed but users were not informed about the same in advance, thus creating more problems for disabled people. The very title for the homepage of the website "Rajya Sabha - Parliament of India" failed to describe that it is the homepage. CHECKLIST TO BE DISABLED-FRIENDLY... * Include an 'ALT' attribute for all images and image map hotspots * Users should be able to tell where links are taking them without having to read the surrounding text * Text links are distinguished from regular text in a way that is consistent, and does not rely solely on colour * Avoid using frames in web pages * Provide accessible alternatives for interactive and multimedia content The world over, as new websites are created, countries like the US, the UK, Canada and Australia have enacted legislation to make it mandatory for creators of web pages to follow the minimum standards for accessibility adopted by those countries. Access to information is mandated by the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) that India has ratified and also by the Disability Act, 1995. Yet, for the estimated 60 million disabled people like Kumar in India, these are major hurdles to be crossed. For one, the estimated 5,000 government sites and portals (with the exception of a couple of sites like india.gov.in and bharat.gov.in) are not fully accessible to them. This, of course, does not include the thousands of websites run by Indian companies which do not comply with Web Access Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) Director Javed Abidi points out that even the Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry to the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) - which will be a computer-based test this year - "...completely ignores the interests of students with disabilities, who will face a great deal of difficulty appearing for it. From paper to online exams, disabled people will still be dependent on humans rather than technology." The Indian government, though, appears to be finally waking up to these problems, admits Abidi. India's draft National Policy on Electronic Accessibility (NPEA) is a case in point. It acknowledges that though the electronic age can benefit persons with disabilities, persons with disabilities are being excluded and thereby facing discrimination. For example, a person with visual impairment can't access an ATM; a person with hearing impairment can't enjoy TV programmes; and physically challenged people cannot access kiosks at railway stations. The Department of Information Technology, too, convened a meeting late last month to discuss the draft NPEA, as prepared by the NCPEDP along with BarrierBreak Technologies. Once the core group approves the final draft, it will be put up for comments on the internet for a month, after which the final draft policy would be submitted to the government for approval. The objective of the NPEA is to provide a person with disabilities equal access to electronic and information and communication technology and services, according to BarrierBreak Technologies Managing Director Shilpi Kapoor. "We were pressurising the government earlier this year to adopt WCAG 2.0 for making all Indian websites accessible to people with visual impairment. We were inspired by the prompt response from the Ministry of IT, when it made a declaration making all important government websites disabled-friendly. This has motivated us to expand our horizons beyond web accessibility, and we are now looking at the entire domain of electronics and ICT to enrich the lives of persons with different forms of disabilities," adds Abidi. The draft policy emphasises on a 'universal design' which will not exclude assistive devices for particular groups of persons with disabilities. The reason, explains Abidi, is that hardware such as mobile phones can be used for communication, as well as to access the information highway. Similarly, the classification for software is no longer as simple as desktop-based or web-based application. Software applications can be used on desktops, kiosks, mobiles and the web.
