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White Paper: promoting Design for All and e-Accessibility in Europe

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Abstract

This White Paper results from the collaboration of Design for All (DfA) and e-Accessibility expert bodies representing the European Union member states [ref: the coordination centres of the national European Design for All e-Accessibility network (EDeAN) in 23 European Union Member States, in this document referred to as NCCs]. The objectives of this White Paper are threefold: (1) to present the current state of affairs of EDeAN, active since 2002 as part of the European Commission’s action line supporting the development of the European Information Society; (2) to outline a roadmap for future initiatives, actively reflecting views of the EDeAN network in specific domains related to DfA, e-Accessibility and e-Inclusion; and (3) to bring forward a set of suggestions and recommendations regarding the activities of the network, aiming to support the creation of a fully inclusive European Information Society. The paper is organised as follows: Section 1 provides a short introduction to DfA and Accessibility in Information Society (IS) and Information Society Technology (IST) developments in Europe. Section 2 provides an overview of policy as well as R&D activities related to DfA and accessibility in IST in Europe. Section 3 briefly describes the role of EDeAN and the new challenges that emerge as a result of the changing European policy environment. Section 4 presents current challenges that emerge in five domains directly related to DfA and accessibility, such as policy and legislation, industry, monitoring and evaluation—benchmarking, standardisation, R&D, and education and training. Finally, Sect. 5 puts forward a number of recommendations with regard to future activities for EDeAN. The contents of this paper reflect results from the open discussion forums supported in the EDeAN website (ref: EDeAN Special Interest Groups, SIGs). The draft paper was written by the EDeAN Secretariat for 2005, FORTH-ICS (Greece), and completed with the support of all NCCs. Support was also provided by the European Commission DG Information Society and Media and by the D4ALLnet project (ref: an EC funded project with the code IST-2001-38833).

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Notes

  1. eEurope 2005: http://www.europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/2002/action_plan/index_en.htm.

  2. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): http://www.w3.org/WAI/.

  3. http://www.eypd2003.org/eypd/eypd/index.html.

  4. Section 508: http://www.section508.gov/.

  5. TIDE 103—GUIB (Textual and Graphical User Interfaces for Blind People, 1/12/1991–31/5/1993).

  6. TIDE 215—GUIB-II (Textual and Graphical User Interfaces for Blind People, 1/7/1993–31/12/1994).

  7. TIDE TP1001—ACCESS (Development platform for unified ACCESS to enabling environments, 1/1/1994–31/12/1996).

  8. IST-1999-20656—PALIO (Personalised Access to Local Information and Services for Tourists, 1/11/2000–30/4/2003).

  9. COST219: Accessibility for All to services and terminals for next generation mobile networks. See: http://www.tiresias.org/cost219ter/ for more information.

  10. WAI-DA (IST 13470): http://www.w3.org/WAI/WAIDA/

  11. IS4ALL: IST Thematic Network "Information Society for All" (IST-1999-14101). For more information see: http://www.is4all.ics.forth.gr/.

  12. http://www.edean.org.

  13. The EDeAN Charter is available at: http://www.edean.org/about.asp?selectedcategory=5.

  14. For a full list of the EDeAN NCCs see: http://www.edean.org/about.asp.

  15. IST-2001-38786—Inclusive Design Curriculum Network (http://www.idcnet.info).

  16. IST-2001-38833—Design for All Network of Excellence (http://www.d4allnet.gr).

  17. http://www.europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/i2010/communication/index_en.htm.

  18. eInclusion@EU: http://www.einclusion-eu.org/.

  19. The Inclusive Design Resource developed by the RSA. See: http://www.inclusivedesign.org.uk/ for details.

  20. CEN-ISSS: European Committee for Standardisation—Information Society Standardisation System. See: http://www.cenorm.be for details.

  21. The EU Web Accessibility Benchmarking Cluster is a cluster of European projects to develop a harmonised European methodology for evaluation and benchmarking of websites. See: http://www.wabcluster.org/ for details.

  22. IST Advisory Group (2003) Ambient Intelligence: from vision to reality ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/ist/docs/istag-ist2003_consolidated_report.pdf.

References

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  14. European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs, Unit EMPL/E/4 (2001) Attitudes of Europeans to disability, Eurobarometer 54.2

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Acknowledgements

The EDeAN Secretariat would like to thank the European Commission for their support, and the D4ALLnet consortium, for providing the online networking infrastructure for EDeAN and for mobilising the network members. We would also like to thank Paivi Tahkokallio and Pier Luigi Emiliani for their particular efforts and contribution to this paper. D4ALLnet IST-2001-38833 (Design for All Network of Excellence) is a Thematic Network funded by the European Commission (1/1/2003–31/12/2005). The project partners are: Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Greece (Coordinator); National Research Council (CNR), Italy; The Danish Centre (DC), Denmark; Forschungsinstitut Technologie-Behindertenhilfe (FTB), Germany; Institute for Rehabilitation Research (iRv), the Netherlands; National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), Finland; Center for User Oriented IT Design, Royal Institute of Technology (CID-KTH), Sweden. The project members are: University of Linz - “Integrated Studies” (UoL), Austria; VZW Toegankelijkheidsbureau (VZW-T), Belgium; Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), France; Central Remedial Clinic (CRC), Ireland; The National Secretariat for the Rehabilitation and Integration of People with Disabilities (SNRIPD), Portugal; The National Centre for Personal Autonomy and Technical Aids (CEAPAT), Spain; Middlesex University—Collaborative International Research Centre for Universal Access (CIRCUA), UK; Fraunhofer—FIT (FhG-FIT) (together with FTB, forming the Design für Alle—Deutschland), Germany; Swedish Handicap Institute (SHI), Sweden; The Delta Centre, Norway. The partners and the members of D4ALLnet are also EDeAN NCCs as of December 2005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Iosif Klironomos, Margherita Antona, Ioannis Basdekis & Constantine Stephanidis

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  1. Iosif Klironomos
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  2. Margherita Antona
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  3. Ioannis Basdekis
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  4. Constantine Stephanidis
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Consortia

EDeAN Secretariat for 2005

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Correspondence to Constantine Stephanidis.

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Editors

The White Paper has been edited by I. Klironomos, M. Antona, I. Basdekis, and C. Stephanidis.

Contributors

Soren Aalykke, Danish Centre for Assistive Technology, NCC for Denmark

Ray Adams, CIRCUA––Middlesex University, NCC for the UK

Bob Allen, CRC, NCC for Ireland

Haakon Aspelund, the Delta Centre, NCC for Norway

Toril Bergerud Buene, the Delta Centre, NCC for Norway

Mieke Broeders, VZW-T, NCC for Belgium

Christian Buhler, FTB, NCC for Germany, Benchmarking SIG moderator

Pier Luigi Emiliani, CNR, NCC for Italy, Proactive Assessment SIG moderator

Jan Engelen, KUL, Belgium, Standardisation SIG moderator

Henrike Gappa, FhG-FIT, NCC for Germany

Erkki Kempainen, STAKES, Finland, Policy and Legislation SIG moderator

Harry Knops, iRv, NCC for the Netherlands

Ülle Lepp, Estonian Foundation for the Visually Impaired, NCC for Estonia

Lenka Lhotska, Czech Technical University in Prague, NCC for the Czech Republic

Erik Loide, EFVI, NCC for Estonia

Niels-Erik Mathiassen, Danish Centre for Assistive Technology, NCC for Denmark

Klaus Miesenberger, Integrated Study—University of Linz, NCC for Austria

Hugh O’Neill, CRC, NCC for Ireland

Laurynas Pacenka, State Institute of Information Technologies, NCC for Lithuania

Carlos Pereira, SNRIPD, NCC for Portugal

Mateus Pustisek, Faculty of Electrical Engineering UL, NCC for Slovenia

Brian Restall, Projects in Motion Ltd., NCC for Malta

Cristina Rodriguez-Porrero, CEAPAT, NCC for Spain

Saulius Sidaras, State Institute of Information Technologies, NCC for Lithuania

Cecília Sik Lányi, Colour and Multimedia Laboratory, VEIN, NCC for Hungary

Dušan Šimšík, Access Centre—TUKE, NCC for Slovakia

Thijs Soede, iRv, NCC for the Netherlands

Yngve Sundblad, CID-KTH, Sweden, Curricula on DfA SIG moderator

Paivi Tahkokallio, STAKES, NCC for Finland

Claes Tjader, the Swedish Handicap Institute, NCC for Sweden

Gill Whitney, CIRCUA—Middlesex University, NCC for the UK

Ronald Wiman, STAKES, NCC for Finland

Fredrik Winberg, CID-KTH, Sweden, Curricula on DfA SIG moderator

Carlos Velasco, FhG-FIT, NCC for Germany

Nadine Vigoroux, IRIT, NCC for France

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Klironomos, I., Antona, M., Basdekis, I. et al. White Paper: promoting Design for All and e-Accessibility in Europe. Univ Access Inf Soc 5, 105–119 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0021-4

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