Accessibility digital by default presentation for digital futures 2012

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hi I’m Alison Smith from Pesky People and today I’m here at Digital Futures 12 to talk about accessibility in the digital by default agenda. \n\nI am one of 20% of the population that is disabled and one of the 10 million in the UK that has a hearing loss.\n\nI started Pesky People because there was nothing about disability or digital access in Digital Britain so where did I fit in it? Now have *Digital by Default* not much has changed.\n\nWhat is Pesky People is a digital start up who’s mission is to use digital technology working nationally with disabled people, digital providers/innovators, the cultural and commercial sector to seek and create solutions that improve digital access and inclusion.\n\nWe take the best of social media, challenge companies who get it wrong with an aim of finding creative solutions. \n\n\n\n
• #3: We campaign and takes up digital discrimination on behalf of disabled and deaf people to raise issues and seek solutions (with considerable success) utilising social networking extensively to achieve great results in three days what would take three weeks to just solicit a response. \n\nThe whole point is that at the end of the day it’s about customer service and they are being let down and discriminated against. It is devastating when you are treated like dirt and feel like you can’t do anything about it.\n\nMy first blog *The Future is NOT Orange* documented how Orange in Telford Shopping Centre screamed abuse at me and refused to cancel a 2 year contract cos the mobile wouldn’t work with my digital hearing aids (I had a fault code to cancel it). http://www.peskypeople.co.uk/2009/09/the-future-is-not-orange/\n\nRadio Shropshire picked it up, I became one of 12 o’clock main news items and my 2 year contract was cancelled. \n\nOne Call Insurance cancelled a deaf woman’s car insurance she booked online after she asked about how she would contact breakdown cover in an emergency being deaf - they responded by cancelling her insurance. One blog later they did a u-turn and also instigating a national wide text messaging breakdown service.\n\nA complaint about Empire Cinemas led them to review their infra red induction loop facilities and discovered they were missing kit. A wheelchair user couldn’t reach the credit card machine in Ikea cos it was too high and to reach - they agreed to put in accessible credit card facilities & induction loops in all their stores point of sale counters AND compehensated the complainant with a £2,000 sofa. \n\nIn 2010 The National Digital Inclusion Conference 2010 backed down and booked British Sign Language interpreters following a twitter campaign. They agreed to my suggestion of live streaming with both British Sign Language and onscreen subtitles and the event trended on twitter as a result.\n\nDWP job centres continues to be a real problem - another deaf woman has had her benefits cut because she couldn’t phone them! Since they failed to provide her with an email address which is against their own policies she couldn’t contact them and last week she was asked by a manager to prove her hearing loss to them despite being profoundly deaf. \n
• #4: This is a story of two sides of the digital by default. Some of the work I’m doing at moment includes\n\nSubtitles Now! is a social media campaign we set up in response to The Space Arts website jointly funded by BBC and Arts Council’s response that they wouldn’t make it accessible for disabled people £4.5 million and it’s an ‘experiment’. www.facebook.com/subtitlesnow\n\nOnline video access for deaf people is dire so we set up #subtitlesnow campaign. 700 people joined via Facebook and a further 363 via twitter on a online day of action on 6th June 2012 it reached over 50,000 people using social media and we joined it's sister campaign #CAPTIONthis in the USA. Sadly both sides of the atlantic had the same result not one broadcaster or provider - BBC, Channel 4, Guardian, Sky, Amazon, Love Films responded.\n\nKreative Kidz is a fantastic Telford and Wrekin Council arts programme year round creative programme for learning disabled kids up to age of 19. They asked me to document the summer programme using social media tools so we are using blogging, video, audioboo & producing story cubes little boxes that you can print images and text on (check out www.bookleteer.com) - with no report in sight. What has been interesting is I wanted to upload the images to flikr to manae but that presents a safeguarding issue - so there are lessons to be learned as we go along to how social media can be best used within existing council structures.\n\nWe are a founder of A11yLDN unconference a an accessibility event that is now in it’s third year happening on 19th Sept in London www.a11ylondon.org.uk. A11y is the short name given to web accessibility on twitter. \n\nI’m also a freelance arts consultant with 20 years experience in disability arts and access.\n
• #5: Now I’m going to tell you a story - What does a Doctor Who fan (who’s visually impaired) and Doctor Who Experience have in common? \n\n@dalekette on the right of Steven Moffat went to Dr Who Experience last year. It was a disaster. \n\nShe couldn’t get the information she needed online or when she phoned. \n\nWhen she turned up clearly holding her white stick she was given an itouch with subtitles and asked for her driving license. It got worse from there on and her blog post http://www.peskypeople.co.uk/2011/05/dr-who-experience/ not only detailed her issues but how to get it right.\n\nWithin 3 days she had a response from the Head of BBC World Wide Branding (after I phoned), she returned to visit as their guest and they insigated all the changes she requested they added a nice touch of using the same audio describer from the TV series as the commentator on the AUDIO DESCRIPTION on the itouch and ipads. \n
• #6: Taking on these issues we want to go a step further so we developed Go Genie www.gogenie.org \n\nIt is our flagship project - people want the access information online easily and when you look it’s not only all over the place and hard to find but also with only 1% of websites being accessible how the heck are you able to find it?\n\nThe beauty of Go Genie is that anyone can add information and update it but also offers easy way to find the access information on any venue. \n\nIt relies on crowdsourcing so anyone can add the data, offers short cut links to contact a council, museum, pub and so on. It also allows you to add reviews and videos. \n\nThe research was funded by Arts Council England and the pilot build funded by NESTA. We also won funding from NOKIA to build a mobile app.\n\nWe did 4 days of user experience research with 40 disabled and deaf people and they gave us over 150 different access issues which we want to use to develop it further.\n\nIt’s in beta stage and needs some more work to complete it.\n
• #7: In order to be successful at implementing *digital by default* you need to understand both statistics and the issues of digital discrimination. The solutions you will find by working with the very people who are excluded.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics Internet Access Quarterly Update just released and these stats are taken from a blog post by Rich Watts and ONS\nArbitrary Constant: http://bit.ly/TlFSXg @rich_watts | Office for National Statistics Internet Access Quarterly Update, 2012 Q2: http://bit.ly/PKXJBC\n\n* 3.9million people have never used the internet\nof that 3.9m that’s 34% of ALL disabled adults. That’s 1 : 3\n* Non disabled people the figures are 1 : 10 that have never used the internet.\n* 38% of adults over 65 have never used the internet - that’s 2.12million people 2: 5 of the population.\n\nShockingly even with all the will in the world the reality is even with the government’s target 80% of those applying for Universal Credit only 17% of those in receipt of Jobseekers allowance apply online. Call Centres can be added barriers with both the cost of 0845 numbers from landlines and mobiles prohibitive and they will be encouraging people to go online to complete the forms.\n\nWhere does that leave people who have no way of getting online? \n
• #8: The stats speak for themselves. We are an economic force not to be ignored with a combined market was worth £100billion in 2010. If you look at it from an employment point of view there were 7 million disabled people of working age in 2008. It has been hard to find up to date statistics on this one so if anyone can signpost me that would be great!\n\nBear in mind of that £100billion 1/4 of business is lost to inaccessible websites and services e.g. buildings and customer service.\n\n1 : 3 people know a disabled person in their family or friends and with a growing ageing population it means that if we don’t start to address digital accessibility issues right now a huge chunk of the population getting older will be locked out. \n\nSource: Office for Disability Issues - 2012 Legacy for Disabled People: Inclusinve and Accessible Business http://bit.ly/UGDKaN \n
• #9: To understand the issues around digital by default you need to understand the statistics and the issues of digital discrimination.\n\nOne quarter of businesses is lost to inaccessible websites or services.\n\nSource: Office for Disability Issues - \n2012 Legacy for Disabled People: Inclusinve and Accessible Business http://bit.ly/UGDKaN\n
• #10: Going onto the issue of hearing loss.\n\nVideo is becoming a huge vehicle online - please add subtitles now to your videos!\n\n10 million people have a hearing loss according. \nOf that 70% are over 70.\nAnd those in their in their 40s over 50% have some hearing loss. \n\nIt’s a big issue that is not addressed online.\n\nSource: Action on Hearing Loss http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/your-hearing/about-deafness-and-hearing-loss/statistics.aspx\n
• #11: It is really worth your time reading the The Oxford Institute surveys of 2009 and 2011.\n\nThey show the number of disabled people online is not increasing.\n\nIt’s not increased in 2 years from 41% of the population as opposed to 78% of non disabled people who are now online. \n\nOXiS state as they did in 2009 THAT DISABILITY IS A KEY SOURCE OF DIGITAL EXCLUSION. This takes into account both both disability and health related issues.\n\nWith the lack of information about how accessible laptops, smart phones and other digital gadgets are, the cost of additional assisted technologies is huge JAWS screen reader license costs £1000\n\nEyetracking kits can cost £8,000 yet there are ways of using open source and cheaper options but they need developing.\n\nThe cost of online all combined quite frankly many disabled people can’t afford to be. They are more likely to be in poverty, unemployed, combine that with the current attack by the CONDEMS on cuttting benefits, capping housing benefit and the implementation of ATOS reviews of disabled people and increase in disability hate crime. \n\nDisabled people are fighting to stay alive and be a part of society. I see the comments and concern every day on facebook and twitter. \n\nWe have a society that separates us into the deserving poor and disabled and undeserving poor and disabled.\n\nCombine this with the fact that (and this is a statistic from the UN in 2006 I think) only 1% of websites FULLY accessible digital by default - there are no real stats to show how much of online content is fully accessible - there is a lot to achieve a lot by 2015.\n
• #12: The stats are useful and it is worth knowing how people are accessing the internet. \n\nConsumer habits dictate so there is no point making your digital content accessible on a website when 73% of next generation users are using a mobile device.\n\nI strongly recommend you do your research to know who is using the internet, how they are accessing their internet and on what platforms. Why not find out what people are using in your own area?\n\nSource: OxiS Internet Survey 2011\nhttp://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/oxis/\n\n\n
• #13: There are common problems I’m going to focus on web accessibility rather than include apps as they are another level entirely.\n\nEven the government has got it wrong on a basic level as you can see from the image.\n\nCommon issues with websites include long winded urls that are not user friendly for screen readers to read, being unable to increase screen size or it runs into other boxes, visually impaired people don’t necessarily use screenreaders most have some vision and will use other aids such as magnifiers. \n\nOur user testing of Go Genie showed that no one knew how to change the browser settings defaults to make a website more accessible they just used what was on the screen.\n
• #14: It’s worth also noting that tabbing between key tabs has to be user friendly - if it takes you all over the place you waste time trying to find the right button if you can’t use a mouse. \n\nMany people with visual impairments use yellow text on black or white text on black to view websites.\n\nFailing to provide yellow text on black backgrounds or white text on black backgrounds is a common one, most people with a visual impairment have some level of sight and many may not be using screenreaders but visual aids such as magnifiers over their screen to read the text.\n\nAlso make sure your web developer allows your site to connect with with inbuilt accessibility functions to read the text on screen aloud or other screenreaders. It’s only a small bit of code that can make all the difference\n\n
• #15: Images need alt tag descriptions using titles such as “logo” rather than “this is Shropshire Council’s logo it has shows no context to the image or relationship to the text on screen. So if you have a flikr account do you add descriptions to your images before importing them to your websites?\n\nImages need alt tag descriptions using titles such as “logo” rather than “this is Shropshire Council’s logo it has shows no context to the image or relationship to the text on screen.\n\nLastly too much text on a page is a nightmare too many boxes and choices - the better the navigation and easy of use the better it is for people with cognative disabilities, learning disabilities including dyslexia.\n\nCheck out Crippen’s website for how he uses alt descriptions on all his cartoons http://www.crippencartoons.co.uk/gallery.shtml \n\nThe next two slides show two sides to the digital by default. How you tube’s auto captioning that adds subtitles doesn’t work (using a screenrecording of the Digital by Default interview on www.theinformationdaily.tv. and Universal Subtitles which you can use to create your own subtitles for free. www.universalsubtitles.org\n\n\n\n
• #16: My last point:\n*Build access from your opening brief. We are not an afterthought.*\n\nDespite all these problems there are straight forward solutions to hand and practical ones and they are easy to implement.\n\nBe creative and dynamic about your approaches and get Podnosh or use socialmediasurgeries.com and train up people who get digital, social media and use the tools out there. Let them own it! It’s not just about marketing and advertising it is about connecting with people and an extension of your customer service use the tools to your best advantage.\n\nAccount for the impact in any digital project around accessibility. Give it a budget!\n\nPay disabled people for their expertise. Less is more and you will get 80% of your information and solutions from 20% of those involved even in user testing.\n\nGet your knowledge - The Smithstonian Museums in USA has build a digital accessibility wiki to address digital access for disabled people in their museums. http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/\n\nIt’s about sharing knowledge. Work together across the LA sectors - share knowledge and expertise so does this exist? Share staff crowdsourcing is better than working alone and it is more effective.\n\nYou can’t get everyone online you need to provide the information in print and through community, social, educational and other routes even bus stops! \n\nAllow people to contact you in the way they need to phone, email, skype video or text, mobile phone text messaging. Be open in how you communicate. \n\nOffer broadband as a utility like gas, light and heating. Why not have shared wifi point in a tower block like they offer at universities? If people are paying £20 a month for broadband access why not help make it affordable to those on benefits. If there is a collaborative approach such as bulk buying computer equipment and selling it to council tenants and other initiatives - do it. Be a strong bargaining power with the providers.\n\nProvide accessible internet points where people go (and make it free) doctor surgeries, hospitals, pubs, cafes restaurants, community centres. Don’t forget accessible kit - if the keyboard and mouse is not accessible or a person needs a screen reader etc. put it in. Train staff to assist use social media surgeries. \n\nUse open source routes - don’t be so precious about your data - get people together to find the solutions - take the lead from Manchester Open Cities approach. \nhttp://blog.okfn.org/2011/08/25/greater-manchester-open-data-city/\nhttp://futureeverything.org/research/current-projects/open-data-cities/\nhttp://datagm.org.uk/\n\nKnow the accessible versions out there like Easy Chirp for twitter www.easychirp.com, accessible train times the best place I’ve come across for train journeys has the permission of national rail to scrape the data.\n\nRun hack events that brings all parties together and get everyone you need in the same place - they will come up with the solutions for you. Ask your constituents what they need?\n\n
• #17: I’m Alison Smith and can be contacted on email alison@peskypeople.co.uk, mobile 0779440568, twitter is a great way to reach me @peskypeople. Go Genie website is www.gogenie.org. \n