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Powering dissemination Accessibility IT tools Other interesting topics

Disseminating statistics: Internet and Publications. Madrid, 3-5 March 2008. Powering dissemination Accessibility IT tools Other interesting topics. European Statistical Training Programme. Accessibility. ESTP. The movie goes …. For your eyes only.

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Powering dissemination Accessibility IT tools Other interesting topics

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  1. Disseminating statistics: Internet and Publications Madrid, 3-5 March 2008 • Powering dissemination • Accessibility • IT tools • Other interesting topics European Statistical Training Programme

  2. Accessibility ESTP The movie goes … For your eyes only But what about websites? For your … eyes only?

  3. Index Evolution Some definitions and a fact Norms and laws Accessibility testing tools Accessibility comparison results Possible approaches to increase accessibility INE website accessibility improvements Some useful links Conclusion

  4. Evolution ·To disseminate SOME statistical information ·To disseminate MORE statistical information ·To disseminate ALL statistical information ·To disseminate FREE statistical information ·To disseminate SORTED statistical information ·To disseminate BILINGUAL statistical information ·To disseminate ATTRACTIVE statistical information ·To disseminate COMPLETE statistical information . To disseminate ‘SWIVELized’(Civilized?)statistical information And now, it may be the moment to increase the dissemination of ACCESSIBLE statistical information First, humanity evolved ... to the Internet age Then the evolution of statistics disseminationin the web began

  5. Some definitions and a fact Wikipedia: Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality W.H.O. : E-Accessibility, is the ease of use by people with disabilities of information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet. Web sites need to be presented so that disabled users can access the information European Union Site: eAccessibility is about:    - using ICT to overcome traditional barriers, - making sure that ICTs are not creating barriers themselves The Fact:”Worldwide, over 750 million people are affected by some type of disability”

  6. More about ‘The fact’ “The Mission of ReadSpeaker (founded in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1999 is to make the "miracle of the Internet" accessible for dyslexics, people with learning disabilities, low literacy level, people with English as a second language, elderly with impaired vision and others that like to listen as well as read. These groups represents more than 20% of the population in most European countries and are also an untapped part of the market for online commerce, online banking, etc.” http://www.readspeaker.com/

  7. Norms and laws 1.- Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) http://www.w3.org/WAI/ 2.- UNITED NATIONS to focus on improving web access, technology standards for persons with disabilities http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/iddp2006.htm 3.- Communication from COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES to the Council, the European Parliament, the economic and social Committee, and the Committee of Regions. Brussels, 13.09.2005 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/docs/access/cec_com_eacc_2005.html 4.- Americans with Disabilities Act http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p70-107.pdf

  8. Testing Google homepage (1) Testing brightness, and contrast (colour difference) (http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html) Results Brightness is OK, but not enough contrast Tested website

  9. Testing Google homepage (2) Testing contents with http://www.tawdis.net/taw3/cms/en Results. (lower) Priority 1=A 2=AA (higher) 3=AAA

  10. Testing our sites(using same test) R E S U L T S 5 Sites with those 3 pages accessible

  11. Possible approaches to increase accessibility (1) • http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiproyecto:Wikipedia_grabada • “Blind or visually-impaired persons can use screen readers, but these programs are still far from being as accurate as human reading” ( and very expensive too). • “Spoken articles make the Wikipedia accessible to persons who understand a language but are unable to read it.”

  12. Possible approaches to increase accessibility (2) European Commission site: Listening to the screen texts, saving an audio file, and a special printable layout

  13. Possible approaches to increase accessibility (3) Selecting visual styles (colours, contrast) http://www.seg-social.es/inicio/?MIval=cw_usr_view_Folder&LANG=6&ID=40247

  14. Possible approaches to increase accessibility (4) Spain’s Organization for the Blind ( www.once.es) Changing colours and contrast

  15. Possible approaches to increase accessibility (5) CEAPAT (site only in Spanish) http://www.ceapat.org/accesibilidad.do Accesskeys or keyboard shortcuts

  16. Possible approaches to increase accessibility (6) GOOGLE Custom Search Engine (http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ ) ‘Reading’ numbers for people with disabilities

  17. Possible approaches to increase accessibility (7) Scottish Statistical office, Statistics Denmark, ... Easy fontsize change

  18. INE website. Accessibility improvements (1) Accessible common header Toolbar Content section Accessible common footer Customisable toolbar for every section in our site

  19. INE website. Accessibility improvements (2) Different sections but same header and footer, and different toolbars (buttons, icons, logo, background colour) in order to increase our website accessibility and usability T OOLBARS Listening option under implementation

  20. INE website. Accessibility improvements (3) Search engine and language options available for most of our pages Main options ( contact, favourites, sitemap) accessible by clicking on an icon Listening option accessible via icons and accesskey Easy fontsize change Easy page printing Accessibility page displaying keyboard shortcuts ( accesskeys)

  21. INE website. Accessibility improvements (4) New tool developed using SAPI 5 Two languages using two different voices Possibility of generating .flv, .wav, .mp3 files Manually and automatically converting different kinds of files, especially text files, into sound files Two dictionaries containing the correct pronunciation for special words, symbols or acronyms The original voices can be tuned to achieve a more ‘human’ sound

  22. Some recommended links • WAI: Strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities • http://www.w3.org/WAI/ • Complete List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools • http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete • Audio contents (links ordered by product price H -> L) : • Loquendo http://www.loquendo.com/en/demos/demo_tts.htm • Readspeaker http://www.readspeaker.com/ • Cepstral http://www.cepstral.com/demos/ • Sodeslscot http://www.sodelscot.com/

  23. Accessibility ESTP For your … eyes only? NOT only for your eyes !

  24. IT Tools • Other interesting topics

  25. Our principles with regard to online dissemination

  26. Guidelines for designing and maintaining INEbase (common to our entire website) (1) • Our products are free of charge. • Availability of the maximum amount of information possible. • Immediate publication on the website of disseminated information. • Our information is bilingual, with this option existing on almost all INEbase pages (with certain restrictions).

  27. Guidelines for designing and maintaining INEbase (common to our entire website) (2) • Navigability (bookmarking) of our web pages. • Accessibility of our web pages (as far as is possible). • Dual-purpose in terms of target-audience (general public and experts). • Compatibility with main O.S. and browsers.

  28. Guidelines for designing and maintaining INEbase (common to our entire website) (3) • Adherence to a corporate image common to all our products. • Concentration of information (details, calendars, methodology…) on an operation on the same webpage. • Inclusion of the search tool throughout almost all of INEbase. • Minimise the number of ‘clicks’ necessary to reach an item of information, and time taken to load webpages.

  29. Users our data is aimed at

  30. Storage system for online INE statistical information • All the information produced by the INE in electronic formats, organised by subject • Up-to-date and highly-detailed data. Also summaries. Annual data and data in series format • A wealth of methodological, descriptive data, …. accessible from the menu for each operation. • Data from other bodies (Statistical System) • European data (Eurostat) • Aimed at all kinds of users (general, specialised)

  31. INEbase Structure. Directories and files of which the system is composed The ‘Jaxi’ program is the data file and results screen viewer. Different software applications browse the thematic tree structure

  32. Trying solutions against phishing “Phishing is an IT term referring to a type of criminal activity group with fraud, and which is committed by using the type of social engineering which by nature attempts to fraudulently obtain confidential information (such as a password or detailed information regarding credit cards or other banking-related information). The fraudster, known as a phisher, masquerades as a trusted person or company in what appears to be an official electronic communication, usually in the form of an email, or an instant messaging system, or even via telephone calls” 1.- Informing... 2.- Detecting downloads from ‘suspicious’ IP’s

  33. NOTE: We endeavour to tackle phishing As highlighted athttp://www.internautas.org/html/4077.html The following message was being sent: Our webpage The ‘phisher’s’ webpage

  34. Summary of part of what was highlighted • At the INE, by the nature of how we work, we mainly use … • Two ways of storing data in our INEbase system • as Series: previously in Tempus, now in Tempus 2 (Oracle) • as Tables: PC-Axis files • Two ways of presenting/viewing (disseminating) stored information on the website • in Series: previously in Tempus with a CGI script, now in Tempus 2 (Oracle) with a special software application (jsp) • in Tables: by means of a common “Jaxi” (JSP) development for PC-Axis tables and for tables formed by Tempus 2 series. • NOTE: Information could quite easily be stored only as series, and displayed only through tables.

  35. Development of applications • In online software applications, we use: • J2EE Technologies • Data storage in an Oracle RDBMS • Platform used as a web server is Apache

  36. Elements (methodologies, frameworks, libraries...) used • Online software applications : • Struts (is a support tool for developing Web applications under the VCM template under the J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) platform. Struts was developed as part of the Apache Software Foundation Jakarta project, but is currently an independent project known as Apache Struts) • JSF (JavaServer Faces (JSF) is a framework for Java applications based on a website which aids user interface development in Java EE applications. JSF uses JavaServer Pages (JSP) as the technology enabling the layout of webpages, but it can also accommodate other technologies such as XUL)

  37. Elements (methodologies, frameworks, libraries...) used • Other elements used • POI (The POI project consists of APIs for manipulating several file formats based on the Microsoft OLE 2 compound document format, using pure Java). We use it for exporting to Excel. • PDFlib (PDFlib is an extensively-used program library, which enables the programmer to generate and manipulate files in Adobe format). We use it to generate .PDF files

  38. Tools used Software applications for internal use (Intranet) Applications of this type are developed using Visual Studio .NET We currently have the 2005 version at the INE

  39. Tools used Internet/Intranet Applications. Jbuilder for programming applications (Jbuilder is a Borland Java IDE –Integrated Development Environment). This software was created in 1995 Toad for handling and designing data models. TOAD is an SQL and database administration software application, regarded as a useful tool for Oracle DBAs (database administrators). TOAD is available for the following databases: Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, and MySQL Paessler Webstress for stress and load testing applications. This tool is designed to realistically simulate several browsers requesting websites from a web server. It may be used to gather information on the functioning and user stability of a Web application, firing requests from a single machine XMLspy as an editor and generator of XML applications

  40. A look at some sophistications to round off this subject

  41. Eye tracking It is a sophistication, but we can also design our website with prior knowledge of which parts of it our users look at, concentrate on, and those parts they don’t bother reading This is a hot topic which has been the subject of many recent international meetings. In summary we will look at some conclusions from one of the studies carried out: (http://www.alt64.com/eyetrackingmedia/patron_de_navegacion.php ). According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking) “Eye tracking consists of measuring the point being focused on, or eye movement in relation to head movement” According to ( http://www.xperienceconsulting.com/servicios.asp?ap=27 ), 'Eye Tracking' is a non-intrusive, yet highly accurate means of analysing pupil movement

  42. Eye tracking Different scanning patterns, by sex of persons, or by order of loading of page elements

  43. Eye tracking If a title (without white space) is followed by the content or news summary (lead), the users reads it all, whereas if a space is left between both sets of content, the user skips over that section. Also the catchiness of the initial words of the aforementioned title determines whether or not the person reads on. (http://www.alt64.com/eyetrackingmedia/entradillas2.php) Keywords: certain words attract the attention of certain users. These words are not read in the context of the article, but are perceived through lateral vision. Detection of those words halts the scan for the person to decide whether or not the subject is of interest. The majority of subjects looking at advertisements looked, among other things, at the banner at the top of the page, where there was one

  44. Eye tracking Useful links • Wikipedia article: • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking • Website of a Spanish company dedicated to this subject (very interesting study and conclusions): • http://www.alt64.com/eyetrackingmedia/ • Previously mentioned comprehensive study: • http://www.alt64.com/extras/Eyetracking_Media_Espana.pdf • An English-speaking company: • http://www.eyetracking.com/ • Another English-speaking company: • http://www.enquiroresearch.com/

  45. Natural Finder http://www.bitext.com/natural-finder.asp Statement by the manufacturer: “NaturalFinder is the essential complement to any Internet or intranet search facility: it enables natural-language look-ups (Spanish or English), without the need to use operators only suitable for advanced users (Boolean, wildcards...). Thanks to linguistic technology, the user concentrates on writing the look-up in his or her own language, as if asking another person” • Search text examples: • I want information regarding transportation of dangerous goods by road • I need data on exchanging one position for another • I want information regarding high technology public examinations • Current law on rural leases • I want information on public works in Majorca • Information on taxes in Poland

  46. Natural Finder http://www.bitext.com/natural-finder.asp Our verdicts after trying it out: • We managed to change the search tool, adding ‘empty’ words (some verbs, prepositions, adverbs...) for them to be removed before searching the index. For example: ‘I want the national cpi’ would return the same links as ‘national cpi’ • Natural Finder would not be able to search any of the important areas of our site, for example Tempus2 • The cost(time and money)/benefit relationship was not to our advantage • Users have grown accustomed to searching in computer-speak, in other words, not using perfect Spanish: ‘General National CPI’ rather than ‘I want to know which was the General National CPI’. This means that they would obtain the same thing by typing fewer words.

  47. Other issues to be aware of and investigate (1) • AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) : • a new term to describe two browser capabilities which have been around for years, but overlooked by many web developers: • The ability to query the server without needing to reload the page. • The ability to analyse and work with XML documents • http://developer.mozilla.org/es/docs/AJAX:Primeros_Pasos • 2. It stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, which is a web development technique for creating interactive applications. These are executed on the client side, in other words, in users’ browsers, and run asynchronous communication with the server in the background. In this way it is possible to make changes on the actual page without having to reload it. This means an increase in page interactivity, speed usability • Web 2.0http://www.internality.com/web20/ “when we talk about the term Web 2.0, we mean a series of applications and Web pages which use collective intelligence to provide interactive network services giving the user control of his or her data”. Example of statitical web2.0 experiences on following slide:

  48. Other issues to be aware of and investigate (2) -An extremely interesting application with OECD data and using the SDMX format http://stats.oecd.org/nawwe/csp/default.html -Curious example of SVG graphics for the British population pyramid: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/populationestimates/svg_pyramid/uk/index.html -Curious and overloaded clock with a whole host of indicators :http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf -Well-presented page with names in the Swiss canton of Zurich : http://www.statistik.zh.ch/vornamen/vorname.php?nam=&M=&F=&year=9999 -Appealing and useful European atlas from the Swiss : http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/international/02/statatlas_europa.html ( pinchar 'statatlas' ) -Interesting Swiss tool: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/international/laenderportraets/spain/blank/kennzahlen/comparator.html -Automatic website translation, by Google: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

  49. Other issues to be aware of and investigate (3) The wayback machine (http://www.archive.org/) Old version ( 1998) Current version

  50. Other possibilities for improving the performance of a website. Akamai Servers According to one distributor: “it is a revolutionary online content and application delivery service which transforms the Internet from an unreliable transfer medium, into a high-performance network. The service makes it possible, with a simple change in the DNS, to download at speeds between 2 and 10 times faster than the times stipulated as normal, also guaranteeing a secure and reliable download. It is based on the simple concept of replicating client server content on Akamai and distributing it from the latter on the basis of certain criteria, such as: geographical location, server availability, etc.”

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