What is Accessible ICT?

Definition

Accessible ICT means information and communication technologies which are accessible by everyone, including people with disabilities. Accessibility can be broken down into four principles, originally stated for the web:

  • Perceivable – All users can perceive the information presented or needed to use the IT, despite possible sight, hearing, motor or cognitive limitations
  • Operable – All users can operate the controls or provide actions needed to control the IT, despite possible sight, hearing, motor or cognitive limitations
  • Understandable – All users can understand the required inputs and outputs of the IT, despite possible sight, hearing, motor or cognitive limitations
  • Robust – The IT implementation follows industry standards and best practices

Like Universal Design in facility design and construction, the goal is Access for All in ICT.

Scope of ICT

In the proposed revision of the federal Section 508 regulations, ICT is defined as

Any information technology, equipment, or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment for which the principal function is the creation, conversion, duplication, automatic acquisition, storage, analysis, evaluation, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, reception, or broadcast of data or information. Examples of ICT are electronic content, telecommunications products, computers and ancillary equipment, software, information kiosks and transaction machines, videos, IT services, and multifunction office machines which copy, scan, and fax documents.

The scope of ICT content is also detailed in the draft regulations:

Covered electronic content includes the following: content that is public facing; content that is broadly disseminated within the agency; letters adjudicating any cause within the jurisdiction of the agency; internal and external program and policy announcements; notices of benefits, forms, questionnaires and surveys; emergency notifications; formal acknowledgements; and educational and training materials. There are two exceptions to covered content: archival copies stored or retained solely for archival purposes to preserve an exact image of a hard copy, and draft versions of documents.

Legal and Policy Status of ICT Accessibility

Section 508.The regulations in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, approved in 1998 and currently in a proposed draft revision, apply to federal agencies and contractors to them. As such, some UI projects fall under 508 guidelines.

Web Policies based on WCAG 2.0. The University of Iowa and the State of Iowa has both adopted a web accessibility standard based on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 at level AA, commonly known as W3C WCAG2.0 AA.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Recent activity of the Department of Justice and Department of Education Office of Civil Rights demonstrates that they believe that the ADA implicitly covers ICT, and a rule-making is underway to explicitly include the web under ADA. The University of Iowa’s Disability Policy states “it is the policy of the University to provide equal access and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities to participate in any program, service, or opportunity provided by the campus”, and cites ADA and the Rehabilitation Act as legal bases among others.

Guidelines for Accessible ICT implementations

Consider accessibility issues in all phases of a project. Design in accessibility from the beginning, rather than simply testing for it at the end of a project.

Functional performance criteria are important as well as technical provisions. Testing with users with varied abilities and varieties of assistive technologies is a key part of implementation.

Define project scopes to avoid accessibility barriers.A project definition of “provide electronic access to notices of collegiate meetings” is much more inclusive than “put up digital displays with meeting notices” and can lead to a better outcome.

A well-known lawsuit against Arizona State for a project which adopted Kindles for e-text (thus excluding blind students from participating) could have been avoided if the project had been defined as ‘deploy e-text for students’ and the plan had included accessible reading strategies.

Avoid known bad choices. A joint letter from the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Justice and the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education was sent to all university presidents following the Kindle lawsuit, stating a basic principle:

“It is unacceptable for universities to use emerging technology without insisting that this technology be accessible to all students.”

Exceptions: Undue Burden

Federal laws allow for exceptions in cases where meeting the standards would impose an undue burden on an implementation. The definition from the federal Access Board is this: “Undue burden means significant difficulty or expense to the agency after considering all the agency resources available to the program or component for which the product is being developed, procured, maintained, or used.”

This is not intended to be used as a routine escape hatch; exceptions are expected to be uncommon.

SCIT 6/30/2013