The United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the first human rights treaty of the millennium. It was signed by an unprecedentedly high number of UN Member States in a relatively short time – 126 since 30 March 2007. Accessible ICT is one of the key obligations of the treaty, including the requirement that websites be designed to be accessible.
ITU has been active in accessibility and human factors for many years. A Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility and Human Factors (JCA-AHF) has been established by Study Group 2 to coordinate standardization activities in the field.
JCA-AHF has organized this Tutorial, which intends to train ITU concerned departments on how to improve current ITU facilities (websites and meetings) in order to meet the requirements for an accessible ICT infrastructure.
Objectives:
This tutorial will provide a high-level overview of the delivery of
accessible content on the web around the theme “A Web without Barriers.”
Participants will be introduced to the accessible web obligations of the
international treaty.
A discussion of the problem of inaccessible web content, including markup of
images, online forms and PDFs, will be covered, as well as the solutions for
addressing these barriers.
Public policy benefits will also be addressed including the benefits of the
accessible web for people without disabilities. The tutorial also provides a
look at the emergence of technical standards for the accessible design of
information and communications technology. Free resources for checking your
website for accessibility and remediation will also be highlighted.
During the tutorial a demonstration of on-site and remote web captioning
will be given followed by a discussion on how this tool can be applied in
ITU. In addition, web conferencing accessibility software issues will be
discussed.
Target audience:
The tutorial is addressed to the staff of ITU and similar organizations working on public policy, web content management, web development and conference organization; the target levels of expertise are beginner and intermediate. The tutorial is free of charge, if you need assistance to obtain access to the ITU premises in order to attend the tutorial, please contact the JCA-AHF Secretariat at:
tsbjcaahf[at]itu.int
Online webcast
The TUTORIAL will be available as a webcast (video and audio) in order that remote participants can see and hear presentations from wherever they are in the world. If you wish to attend remotely, please see
(http://www.itu.int/ibs/ITU-T/200804tutorial/index.html).
