The Access Guide  for Dublin City will be formally launched by the Lord Mayor of Dublin Councillor Eibhlin Byrne at the Oak Room, Mansion House, Wednesday September 24th at 6 pm.

What is it? It is an on-line directory which will provide information on access to 100 venues across Dublin City, for people with disabilities.  The service is designed to assist anyone who would like to know more about access to venues and service providers in Dublin.

It is all part of Dublin City Councils initiative in making services universally accessible by 2015.  To find out more read (Issue 2 Volume 1) of Access Matters in English or in Irish

Access Matters is a Dublin City Council publication that keeps you informed of the progress.

You can download your invitation to the launch on the Dublin City Council Web site. I’ll be there so if you pop along be sure to say Hello

We are looking for a developer with the following skills:

• db/front-end development
• Java workflow
• XML on document level
• JavaScript

Our client, a traditional publishing business, who are looking to shift from document based system into a JAVA/XML based system.

The position is a temp contract and based in London. If you fancy a change in location (unless you live in London already) then please get in touch with me adrian@segala.com

Maire Boran wrote a great piece on accessibility in the business section of todays Irish Independent. I’m delighted to say that Segala’s CEO, Paul Walsh was interviewed for the article. Actually, it was quite a spread. I think Paul will love the fact that his mug shot is the centre piece (the actual photo used was modified, replacing the Segala logo with the W3C. The editors probably thought it was a little over powering).

The article is a great promotion piece for accessibility, we have received a few enquiries today just because of it. Thanks Marie.

I have pasted the full article below but you can always read it on the Irish Independent Web site.

If someone told you that your shop or business property was so badly designed that 10pc of your customers had great difficulty finding your products or services, would you consider a better layout or just watch them leave in frustration?

Nowadays, your website is just as much a port of call for the average customer as your physical premises. If you have not considered accessibility as part of its design, then you are excluding the 8.3pc of the Irish population with a disability of some kind, be it physical, visual or cognitive.

Simply put, this amounts to an estimated €3.3bn in spending power that is out of your reach.

The spending power of the 10 million-plus disabled community in the UK was estimated to have been worth £50bn sterling in 2005.

Having a website that is accessibility compliant is not only about opening up your business to those with disabilities, it can also add value to your business, says Paul Walsh, founder and CEO of Segala.

Segala helps website owners understand the commercial benefits of adopting accessibility best practices.

One website that uses the services of Segala is O2.com, which was completely re-designed to comply with accessibility guidelines laid out by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), an organisation under the directorship of founder of the web, Tim Berners-Lee.

The benefits are undeniable, says Walsh. When O2 decided to change the colour scheme of part of its site, because it had adhered to W3C standards, this involved changing one simple piece of code in what could otherwise have been an arduous task.

Because many companies are not fully accessibility compliant, Walsh says they tend to shy away completely, fearing an entire tearing down and rebuilding of their website.

“You don’t have to change your entire website overnight. It’s about making ongoing changes, letting the user know you are aware of accessibility and doing something about it.”

The major problem is the misconception surrounding accessibility. Many believe it will be exorbitantly expensive to build this into their site, while others assume it will render their website ugly or leave it with less functionality.

Some businesses are even afraid it will affect revenue by discouraging banner or Flash advertising, and this is simply not the case, says Brendan Spillane, co-founder of Dublin-based accessible design firm Ilikecake.net.

“Irish businesses and government organisations are doing better than they used to.

“With any government tenders placed on the eTenders website, it is very rare to see one that does not specify accessibility and to the correct level, which is more important,” says Spillane.

Vivienne Trulock, co-founder of Ilikecake.net, carried out research on the level of accessibility among Irish websites and tested 152 different websites — all tested three years previously — to check their progress.

“There is an improvement in the level of knowledge that guidelines for accessibility exist, but not the same amount of improvement in the actual level of change,” says Spillane.

It is also interesting to note that structuring a website to work with the navigation software used by the visually impaired or blind makes that site easier to be listed and found on Google, Walsh says.

“Somebody once said that Google is the web’s most important blind man. If we make content accessible to people with disabilities, whereby a complete text alternative is made available in the background, then the search engine can read it and rank it accordingly.”

Spillane says his own firm’s website is proof of the pudding because it comes up as No 1 in its category when searched for on Google.

The internet should be the perfect enabler for those with disabilities, says Walsh. “When a blind person enters a supermarket for the first time, they have no way of knowing what kind of chocolate biscuits, for example, are on the shelf.

“But when they enter a website for the first time, there is the opportunity to have this information at their fingertips.”

© Silicon Republic Ltd 2008

All content copyright 2008, Silicon Republic Ltd — all rights reserved

Email: editorial@siliconrepublic.com

© Silicon Republic Ltd 2008

- Marie Boran

The Mobile Web Best Practices working group has just published a first public working draft of their guidelines for developing and delivering mobile web applications.

If you already build and deliver mobile web applications or plan to then your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Just a quick note to say that the Mobile Web Best Practices has been rubber stamped as a W3C Recommendation and now officially known as Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, offering practical advice on creating mobile friendly content.

“Mobile Web content developers now have stable guidelines and maturing tools to help them create a better mobile Web experience,” said Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, W3C Mobile Web Activity Lead. “In support of the W3C mission of building One Web, we want to support the developer community by providing tools to enable a great mobile Web user experience.”

Well done to the working group for all their efforts in getting this approved.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the new serach engine cuil (rubbish name btw), developed by ex-google employees and claiming to be the worlds biggest web search engine. Some people like it, most people don’t and a  lot of fuss is being made over the images that are displayed along with search results.

Personally, i can think of at least one CEO who will be happy with Cuil. Do a search for O2 and who’s logo gets displayed? None other than your’s truly. Great work cuil, chock up one for the little guy

I had a recent inquiry from a deaf internet user (a potential student), something I can relate to. During school I only had 40% hearing. My hearing problems were picked up in junior school during a routine health check. Initially the examiner thought I was playing around. Only an operation would solve the problem, but I was too young and would have to wait until I was 17.

Right up to my leaving cert I had to struggle. The front row was for swots, one I was not. So I opted for the back row. Class mates thought I was mad - it appeared as if I always ignoring teachers’ requests and roll call. I was able to keep up and with a gentle nudge from a mate (Darren Woodings), I’d know when the teacher had called my name.

When teachers turned to write on the board, that was a whole different ball game, almost a black out. I could no longer make out what they were saying, as I couldn’t see them speak and I’d loose a huge chunk of the lesson. I got into a bit of trouble from time to time, with a few close calls of flying objects to get my attention. To quote one school report “Very smart, but in a world of his own”. I got by and it wasn’t until my final PTA did my mother break her silence about me being half deaf. That was my fault, I told her if anyone found out I’d get picked on and I’d never go back. The penny dropped with the teachers and one apologised for not picking up on it.

It’s now 2008, we have the Web and all the benefits it brings to people with special needs. A lot of people think accessibility is about helping the blind, but its not, there is more to it.

Below is an extract from a recent enquiry we received

I am deaf and I am heavy internet user. I am interested to apply for online MBA programs from either IE Business School or Thunderbird Business School. The challenge I am facing nowadays is that these schools are not compliance either with ADA or DDA given the fact that at least 20% to 50% of the learning method is based on live online participation and streaming videos. They do not come with Closed Captioned or with English subtitles. And thats provide an obstacles for me to learn.

What answer should we provide?

I suggested that he contacts each school and ask if they have anything in place to support his needs. We know they do not provide closed caption or English subtitles but maybe (and this would not be to difficult to implement) the school provides a hosted chat room to convey a live text transcript of the audio and live online participation. This would benefit not only deaf students but also users whose PCs don’t support audio, or those who are not in a noisy environment.

Another option as seen on TV (News) would be to provide a translator to do sign language. Signing for such is likely to be very tiring and they couldn’t support all online participation, but they could convey the really important stuff.

The school could also provide a post video download of each session and test transcripts. Although this is not the same as live participation - it would benefit not just users with special needs but also any student who may have missed a session.

If you have had a similar experience or know of an alternative school for a course supporting users with special needs, please leave a comment or email me directly.