Scientific and technological reports

TelecomForAll

No 3, July 1999

The New Millennium and New Opportunities

telecommunication is already, and mobile communication is soon, offering us simultaneous transfer of voice, text, pictures and video. Automatic conversions between some of these modes are already available. The user will, in many cases, have the possibility to use the mode or modes he prefers. And the terminals are becoming more accessible thanks to the competition in the market. Some big manufacturers have already started to consider the needs of disabled and elderly people when developing new products.

Blind people have found an unexpected support in the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which makes it possible to read web information using a mobile phone. Now all web servers have to become accessible for people preferring text or voice; pictures and videos just take too much time to download. The new universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) will again make pictures and videos easier to download by offering higher capacities and bandwidth on demand especially near the base stations.

In order to ensure that services and devices will take full advantage of these technological possibilities and ensure a maximum of accessibility in the future we have to continue our efforts. Research, implementation, standardisation, legislation as well as political measures are needed. COST 219bis pursues this, for instance by developing guidelines and making recommendations.

Jan Ekberg COST 219bis Chairman

Mobile Rescue Phone

The total MORE system contains a phone, a service centre with a reference station and is based upon the global system for mobile telecommunications (GSM), the public switching telephone network (PSTN) and the global positioning system (GPS).

The MORE phone forms the core of the system and enables elderly and disabled people to communicate effectively with public and private service centres and to integrate them into modern mobile telecommunications society. This phone can be adapted to the specific needs of a wide range of elderly and disabled people.

The GPS data are received from satellites, decoded in the phone and sent to the service station in case of an emergency situation. The service station requests the precise localisation co-ordinates of the person who sends the emergency call. The precise local data are calculated within the reference station and are transferred to the service station thus enabling the service station to launch an appropriate rescue action. Special hook-ons, for example for hearing impaired people, will be added to the phone.

The project internal user club will test and evaluate the usability of the system in six test sites within four European countries and with about 800 disabled and elderly people.

Website Accessibility Contest Result

The best accessible site in the website contest organized by the Include project has now been chosen. The winner is http://www.braillenet.org/ and the designer of this site receives 1000 Euros. The primary goal of this contest was to raise awareness about accessibility issues relating to the internet.

The evaluation of the participating sites was done by a user test group made up of four persons with different kind of disabilities - two of the persons were blind, one mobility impaired and one dyslexic. The justification for the choice of the winning website is that it is a very good site without any major accessibility problems. The links are described with short and easy explanations, the layout is good and well organised and the graphic elements have a text description with clear information. The site also has good navigation possibilities and the information is clear and precise.

The test group also pointed out that the winning site has some weaknesses. Examples of this is that there is a mix of French and English pages, there are many levels until you reach actual information and that it is not possible to find the result from the visitor counter.

What is web accessibility?

The internet has strongly increased the possibilities of communication and information gathering for many persons with disabilities. However persons with disabilities often experience difficulty using the web due to barriers in the information on web pages. It can also be barriers in the "user agents" such as browsers or assistive technology devices such as screen readers, Braille displays or voice recognition. It is mostly persons with physical, visual, hearing, and cognitive/neurological disabilities that encounter these barriers.

The term "accessible" designates sites which all users are able to explore in a similar way whatever way they access the internet. For a site to be fully accessible, it has to be designed according to a number of guidelines. Most guidelines are simple, like for example adding alternative tags to images, using clear navigation tools and a simple design. An accessible site does not have to be boring. Most often it simplifies navigation and increases the clarity for everybody. The evalutation of the contest participant sites was based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines from W3C, and they can be found at: www.w3.org/wai

How was the evaluation done?

The test group judged the websites mainly for their accessibility, but also for their appearance. They answered questions regarding problems they had with imagemaps, frames, tables, forms and headers. They also described their opinion about the design, layout, the use of colours, buttons, fonts and size.

It is important to note that accessible websites do not have be restricted to text only. There are a number of strategies that can be used to allow the use of graphics, buttons, banners, frames and sounds and still maintain accessibility.

Hearing Aids and Mobile Phones

The ever-increasing use of digital mobile phones has created a serious problem for the millions of people in Europe who wear hearing aids. The mobile phones, due to the nature of the radio signal that they use, cause interference to hearing aid wearers, particularly when they want to use a mobile phone.

Current production hearing aids are largely immune to mobile phones being used in their vicinity but are not able to deal with the very high radio signals present when they are used close to the phone.

In order to be able to specify the immunity of a hearing aid to these radio signals it is necessary to know how to measure them. At the same time it is necessary to be able to measure and specify the level of signals coming from the mobile phones.

A practical solution to the problem is to remove the phone from the proximity of the hearing aid by the use of an add-on device such as a "hands free kit". A great lack of awareness exists of the problem and the possible solutions, and the project aims to make available information to promote better awareness.

The project has the following aims:

to produce a draft IEC standard, based on the draft ANSI C63.19 standard, which will specify the method of measuring and specifying the immunity of hearing aids to GSM, UMTS and other similar RF signals in the near field;
to produce, as part of the above standard, a method of measuring and specifying the interfering radiation from mobile phones;
to establish the basis of a complementary standard describing methods of measurement and specification of performance of devices that provide coupling between digital mobile phones and hearing aids that have insufficient immunity to digital mobile phone radiation to permit adjacent operation (ie most hearing aids in current use);
to promote the need for the above standards and to raise awareness of the potential value of a standardised interface to facilitate connection of add-on devices to mobile phones.

The HAMPIIS Consortium consists of Royal National Institute for Deaf People (UK), Delta Acoustics and Vibration (Denmark), Teledanmark Laboratories (Denmark), and The Mike Martin Consultancy (UK). The project is supported by the European Commission as part of the DG III ISIS (Information Society Initiative for Standardisation) Sprite 2 programme.

For further information, please contact Mike Martin, Wildwood, Ifold, Loxwood, West Sussex RH14 0TY (Tel:/Fax: +44 1403 753 489, Email: mikemartin@haslemere.com).

The Future of Telephone Numbers

Over recent years, as the number of subscribers has increased, telephone numbers have increased in length; in some countries domestic phone numbers are already 11 digits. Users would like easy to remember numbers, the ability to keep the same number, and have just one number for all personal telecom services.

One possibility is to use names instead of numbers, as is already the convention with the internet. With the convergence of telecommunications and computing, there will be increasing pressure to use a common system for addressing. However the standards bodies, such as ETSI and ITU, would like to know how such a change would affect disabled people. Please send your comments to knut.nordby@Telenor.com

Remote Interpretation

Deutsche Telekom have set up a sign language interpreting centre in Munich to improve communication between the deaf and hearing community. The videoTelephony system uses T-ISDN which it is claimed permits lip reading as well as sign language communication. Handicapped persons in Germany are charged lower rates for ISDN facilities.

Update from Australia

The Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF) is an industry body established to maintain self-regulation within Australia. It has a primary role of developing and administering technical standards and industry codes of practice that promote both the long-term interests of end-users and the efficiency and competitiveness of the Australian communications industry.

A draft Disability Standard has been developed for fixed, cordless or mobile customer equipment used for the provision of the standard telephone service. This will be submitted to the Australian Communications Authority (AustraliaÆs telecommunications regulatory body) after public comment has been received and reviewed. ACIFÆs Disability Advisory Body comprising representatives from disability organisations provides professional advice to ACIF regarding various levels of implications for disabled consumers of ACIFÆs proposed codes and standards.

Web Accessibility in France

In France, the BrailleNet Association and the National Institute for Healthcare and Medical Research (INSERM) have launched a campaign to make the public and website authors aware of the accessibility problems encountered by visually impaired people on the internet. Webmasters of sites which are not accessible are contacted by Email:. Also BrailleNet and INSERM have been working together with the website designers of several governmental bodies such as the French Parliament and the Prime Minister, to make their sites more accessible.

BrailleNet has published a green paper "Better Access to the Web for Blind and Partially Sighted People" which has been disseminated on the web (http://www.braillenet.org/) in French, English and Spanish; a paper version of this leaflet is also available in French and Spanish. Also, BrailleNet and INSERM organised a conference in Paris, in cooperation with the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie of La Villette, on the topic "implications of the internet for people with visual impairment".

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe has set up a committee of experts on the impact of new technologies on the quality of life of persons with disabilities. Further information www.coe.int

Publications

Design for All

Many people have heard about the concept, but only a few know more about it. This 15-page informative and easy-to read brochure with illustrating photos introduces the concepts. It is published by the Swedish Handicap Institute on behalf of the INCLUDE project. It also provides useful addresses and websites where more information can be found on the subject. Copies can be obtained free of charge from The Swedish Handicap Institute, Box 510 SE-162 15 Vällingby, Sweden (Tel: +46 8 620 1700, Fax: +46 8 739 2152, Email: eva.ingemarsson@hi.se).

Human Aspects of Telecommunications for Disabled and Older People

COST 219bis, June 1999, 75 pp.

Copies available from Prof Julio Abascal, Laboratory of Human-Computer Interaction for Special Needs, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, M Lardizabal 1, E-20009 Donostia, Spain (Email: julio@si.ehu.es).

Selecting Cards by Touch

The report describes an investigation on methods to help blind people differentiate cards which have no embossing (eg loyalty cards, telephone cards, utility cards). It includes a recommendation for possible standardisation in this area. Copies can be obtained free of charge from

Dr John Gill
Chief Scientist
RNIB
105 Judd Street
London WC1H 9NE
Fax: +44 20 7391 2318
Email: john.gill@rnib.org.uk

or at www.tiresias.org/reports/tdiff.htm

Forthcoming Conferences

Gerontechnology

10^th - 13^th October 1999, Munich, Germany.

Further information: www.uni-bamberg.de/~ba6usl/g99-1.htm

AAATE

Fifth European Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technology, 1^st - 4^th November 1999, Düsseldorf, Germany.

Further information: www.fernuni-hagen.de/ftb/aaate99