Internet for All

1. Internet for All • Internationalisation beyond English • Accessibility for disabled • Access as a necessity, not a luxury.

2. Internet for All • Internet/Web should be available for everyone, including • People who don’t know English • People with disabilities • Be aware of this when designing websites and software!

3. International Internet • Character sets • Localised web sites • Computer translation

4. Character Sets • ASCII – only English • Standard in USA? • Still used for Internet names • Latin1 – also other W Euro Latin alpha • French, German, Swedish, … • Accented chars, eg é ß å æ • Other, eg £ ¿ • Standard in UK

5. Unicode • Unicode • Add support for Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, … • Also Linear B, Cherokee, hieroglyphics, … • http://www.unicode.org/charts/ • Unicode is just a character set, need to install font as well • Complete Unicode font came with Office 2003

6. Unicode • In principle supported by all major programming languages, web browsers, operating systems, etc. • Problems can arise, though • Java support for Unicode is not perfect

7. Bidirectional texts • English written left-to-right • Hebrew, Arabic written right-to-left • But embedded English left-to-right • Does strange things to page layout

8. Touchscreen Input

9. International Domain Name • Internet software/standards assume names are in ASCII • www.abdn.ac.uk -- OK • www.uquébec.ca -- not OK • www.uquebec.ca instead • Unfair ….

10. International Domain Names • International Domain Names (IDN) • Allow Unicode in names • Based on encoding Unicode as ASCII • Spread is slow • Standard now agreed, but not yet universally implemented. • ICANN will allow Unicode top-level domains

11. Localisation • Web sites “localised” for different places • Language, currency, text direction, etc • Spelling: eg, colour vs color • Local news, offers • Culturally differences • Images: modestly dressed women for muslims • Names: Icelanders don’t have last names

12. Example • In-depth: office.microsoft.com • Requires a lot of work! • Shallower: google.com

13. Internationalisation • Making one web site (or Java app) which is maximally useful worldwide • Language: simple English • Forms: allow Unicode, don’t assume people have last names or postal codes • Avoid images that might offend some

14. Translation • Ultimate goal is to let people read web pages in other languages • translate.google.co.uk • Quality variable, (slowly) getting better • Widely used by many non-English speakers

15. Accessible Internet • Not everyone uses mouse and (touch)screen to access the Internet! • Web accessibility should address their needs, including: • Visual, motor, auditory, cognitive disabilities and those affected by seizures. • How to help such people use the Internet? • With a little bit of effort, developers can really enhance accessibility.

16. Visual Disabilities • Colour-blind • Developers: don’t assume people can see when something is red! • Poor vision • Need large fonts and screen magnifiers • Developers: DO NOT HARD-CODE FONTS IN WEB PAGES!!! • It may “look nice” to you, but means someone with poor vision cannot use it

17. Visual Disabilities • Blind • Screen readers: speak out web pages • Braille displays: display text in braille • Embossed printers: print braille • Screen readers most common • Essentially scan through a web page • Developers: • Include ALT tags for images • Remember that blind user will not “see” entire page!

18. Motor Disabilities • Poor hand control • Use keyboard instead of mouse • Developers: allow keyboard control!! • No hand control (or no hands) • scanning interface, controlled by switch • Assistive tech., head switch, sip/puff • Maybe Eye tracking. • Need special interface • Often expensive

19. Example: Scanning interface

20. Auditory • If sound or spoken word is used, may need to find alternative ways to convey content to deaf or hard of hearing users.

21. Cognitive Disability • General • Keep things simple and clear • Dyslexia • Avoid white backgrounds, • don’t justify texts (stretch to fit column), • avoid italics

22. Seizures • Be aware that photoepileptic seizures can be caused by flashing flights, particularly repeated strobe effects.

23. Disabilities • Plenty of guidelines exist • http://www-03.ibm.com/able/guidelines • Following them makes websites more useful to disabled people, probably helps normal people as well • Helps mobile access in particular • Just need to make the effort!

24. Accessibility Guidelines • The W3C has provided a set of web content accessibility guidelines • Now accepted as ISO/IEC 40500:2012.

25. Legal Aspects • Increasing legal requirement that websites be accessible to disabled • Especially for (quasi-)government sites, such as Aberdeen University • E.g., the Jodhan decision in Canada. • Good business sense as well • Biggest disabled group is elderly, and they have lots of money to spend

26. Legal Aspects (UK) • UK Equality Act. E.G. The RNIB says it may be unlawful for a website to: • ``have links on that are not accessible to a screen reader • have application forms (for instance, for bank accounts or job application forms) in a PDF format that cannot be read by a screen reader • have core service information (for instance, timetables on a public transport website) that is not in a format accessible to screen readers. • use text, colour contrasting and formatting that make the website inaccessible to a partially sighted service user • change security procedures (for instance, on an e-commerce website) without considering the impact of blind and partially sighted customers that use screen readers.’’

27. Internet For All • Developers (us) have moral duty to make our products available to all • People with limited English • People with disabilities • Also legal duty, sensible business • Tools exist, we need to use them!

28. Recap: Helping Everyone • Internet should benefit everyone. • Essential for fair society!

29. Helping Everyone • How should Internet be used in third-world countries? • Bangladesh vs India vs Chile • Much use via mobile devices now. • How can Internet help people at “bottom of heap” in UK? • Will growth of Internet hurt people who cannot or will not use it?

30. Helping Everyone • How can we make websites universally useful? • Non-English speakers • disabled • How should the Internet be controlled (governed)? • So that it helps everyone!