Towards bridging the accessibility needs of people with disabilities and the ageing community

ABSTRACT

This communication paper introduces the "Web Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and Harmonisation" (WAI-AGE) project, a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) project. It is funded by the European Commission under its 6^th Framework Programme (FP6) of the Information Society Technologies (IST), and includes activities to: better understand the needs of the ageing community in the context of existing Web accessibility guidelines; work with the ageing community to obtain more direct input and contribution into the development of solutions and strategies for Web accessibility; revise existing and develop new educational materials to better reflect the accessibility needs of the ageing community on the Web; and to pursue standards coordination and harmonisation to promote the adoption and implementation of a common set of Web accessibility guidelines. This paper delivers some insights on the current progress of the project, and describes some of the expected outcomes. This paper also highlights some of the opportunities for researchers, experts, developers, industry, and users to contribute to the outcomes of the project.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Economics, Human Factors, Management, Standardization

Keywords:
accessibility, ageing, aging, design for all, elderly, older people, people with disabilities, web, web accessibility