My Life in IT

Madrid Java Users Group (Madrid JUG), Meeting of

2011-09-30T18:04:00.000+01:00

Go to university campus here in Madrid for the (second? third?) meeting of the Madrid JUG. Two presentations, "Groovy for Java programmers" by Alberto Vilches, organizer of the upcoming Greach event for Groovy people, and "Architecure for a scalable vertical search engine with Hadoop" by Iván de Prado Alonso of Datasalt.

Oracle Enterprise Java Developer Day Madrid

2011-09-22T17:06:00.001+01:00

The Java Developer's Day event consisted of two "community" speakers, and three from Oracle Spain. The community participation was first by Alvaro Sánchez Mariscal from Cuore, the Spanish Oracle Users forum, and then by Alfredo Casado of the online forum javaHispano. I wonder why they do their presentation slides in English when they speak in Spanish. found this rather confusing, especially when they skip from one slide to the next. Enrique Martín of Oracle evidently knows all about in-memory data grids, but it seems a difficult subject to bring to life for an audience. There were two "hand-on" sessions using Oracle VirtualBox. Yesterday I spent an hour downloading the massive amounts of data needed for this and installing the system on my laptop, only for DVDs to be handed out during the session so people could install it on the day, and then to find that the sessions were so rushed that there was hardly time to follow it on the speaker's screen let alone get any hands-on experience.

The room was cramped with twice the number of people it should have accommodated, and most people had to use their laptops, yes, on their laps, many sitting in the aisle. There were no partner trade stands in the lobby. It seemed a rather half-hearted affair, like Oracle was trying to avoid being seen to do nothing rather than showing any enthusiasm. The real action lately has been around the newly-formed Madrid JUG which is planning a meeting again this month after the summer break.

Workshop on Agile Project Management, Madrid

2011-09-14T20:04:00.001+01:00

Attended a workshop here in Madrid on Agile Project Management, given by Ángel Águeda Barrero of QRP Management Methods International. After so many years now of the trend towards agile development, I still hear so many people here in Madrid complain about clients' reluctance to embrace it. I wonder whether it's a cultural thing, about Spanish corporate culture, or whether it's the same elsewhere. Interestingly, Ángel mentioned that some Spanish government ministries have done projects using agile methodologies. He also mentioned it's use for some defence projects in the UK. The talk covered the different methodologies especially DSDM Atern and Scrum, but not much about Lean, or Extreme Programming, though, as it was more about methodologies with a wider scope. QRP offer training courses in Agile Project Management.

Reading Java Peristence with Hibernate

2011-07-08T09:29:00.005+01:00

I just read the first chapter of this book. The field has become much more complex since I read the previous edition, Hibernate in Action way back in 2006. Now there it covers EJB 3.0 and Java Persistence API. And twice as long. And I think I need to read it all again, as so much has changed, and now with annotations. What with the new third edition of Spring in Action winging or sailing its way across the Atlantic I won't be short of summer reading this year.

Spanish Software Company Caught Up In Fraud Investigation

2011-07-05T10:08:00.000+01:00

One of Spain's leading software development companies, Microgénesis, has been caught up in action by Spanish anti-corruption investigation. The Spanish performing rights, royalties collection and anti-piracy body SGAE saw its board of directors arested and taken away for questioning and their files seized during a raid on their headquarters in Madrid last week. The president of the SGAE was taken away in handcuffs by the police but later released pending charges. Microgénesis, which boasts many large and well-known clients, was part of a network of companies run by the organisation and members of the directors' families, which received funds from the SGAE. According to reports in online newspaper Público the directors of the firm, which has been operating for 19 years, and is well known for open-source solutions and use of agile methodologies, were arrested as part of the investigation.

Blog Resuscitated

2011-07-05T09:18:00.002+01:00

After three years of silence I feel the urge once again to communicate through the medium of this blog. Once more I have something interesting to say, and I'm free to say it. At the time of the last post it was the management of my then employer, Fundosa Technosite who obliged me to desist from writing anything more. That decision was symptomatic of the increasing "dumbing down" of the Accessibility Department, and the drift away from any kind of innovation, into an endless run of monotonous and not very useful reports on website accessibility, and the loss of the pioneering spirit that had motivated the team in the preceding years. In the end I was glad to have been given the push earlier this year, and the opportunity to move into more interesting fields.

Andrew Arch of W3C Visits Technosite

2008-04-30T10:53:00.003+02:00

On the way back from giving a paper at the Workshop on Cognitive Ergonomics and the Web in Granada (also attended by my Technosite colleague Nacho Madrid) Dr Andrew Arch visited Technosite HQ in Madrid. Andrew now works with the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at W3C. He is their WAI-AGE Web Accessibility and Ageing Specialist and visited Technosite to learn more about the needs of the elderly regarding Web accessibility in Spain.

Technosite's Sociology Research Group, lead by Luis Miguel Bascones as part of the Inredis project, together with our colleague Antonio Jiménez Lara, informed him about the results of their research and the “focus groups” they have carried out with elderly people about their use of the Internet together with researchers José Gimeno and Mercedes Turrero. We then went on to a meeting with Carlos Martínez Ozcáriz and Paca Tricio of the Unión Democrática de Pensionistas (Democratic Union of Pensioners and Retired People), who informed us about the needs and demands of their more than one million members.

Andrew Arch is carrying out a Literature Review and Analysis of Comparative Needs regarding the needs of people who have Web accessibility needs related to ageing as part of the WAI-AGE (Ageing, Education, and Harmonisation) project at W3C for the European Commission.

Farewell Witty

2008-04-14T09:05:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I received the sad news that Witty, Lourdes' guide dog passed away on Saturday. When they first told us someone was coming to work at the office with a dog it seemed such a strange idea, but Witty was so amiable, fun and well behaved that she won us over right away. All of us enjoyed her being with us in the office. I just hope that the process of being assigned a new dog by ONCE won't take too long. Apparently it can take 18 months to a year.

On a happier note, we have a new colleague with us, Sara, who is guided by Jep, a black Labrador. Even Jep was in danger recently having swallowed three socks but I'm glad to say that he seems to have recovered now after his operation.

How People with Mobile Phones Use the Web

2008-04-03T12:43:00.005+02:00

Lately the WAI Education & Outreach Working Group and the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group have been working on ways to help their respective stakeholders better understand the relationships between Web content accessibility for people with disabilities and mobile-friendliness. We have produced a draft of a good by rather lengthy document, but it has become apparent that we need something shorter, less detailed and easier to understand. There is what we call the “shared experiences” document, Experiences Shared by People with Disabilities and by People Using Mobile Devices that illustrates that the barriers experienced by people with disabilities are often paralleled by those imposed by the design features of mobile devices but I think that there is a need for an even more high-level introductory document that would help people understand the mobile Web experience from the user's point of view. This would be for accessibility people and for inexperienced mobile Web developers. It is something that is often misunderstood.

There's a document produced by the EOWG (still an internal draft after all these years) called How People with Disabilities Use the Web. It has three main sections:

For the mobile context the first two translate into:

Scenarios of people using the Web on mobile devices
Different aspects of the mobile Web context that can affect the user experience

The third doesn't seem to have an equivalent as there isn't normally much the user can do about the barriers caused by web content. But then again perhaps they can plug in alphanumeric keyboards or use plug-in large screens.

Mobile scenarios might include:

Bill lives in a developing country, his family has a shared mobile phone that he uses to browse the Web. There are no fixed Internet connections or computers in his village. It has a small black and white screen. Connection charges are high so he can only use it occasionally
Ben is a frequent flier who uses his top-end smartphone to keep up with business news in airports. It has a large color screen and an alphanumeric keyboard. He carries another phone for voice calls. His company pays all his connection charges.
Jill is blind and uses her mobile with a screen reader to catch up on the news during her one-hour commute to work. She doesn't care about the visual layout of Web pages as she can't see them, but does appreciate a simple layout with clear structure.

The section "different aspects of the mobile Web context that can affect the user experience" would analyze the aspects covered in the scenarios, and relate them to the Mobile Web Best Practices. For example:

Small screen
High network charges
Numeric keypad

This document would link to the “shared experiences” document which would provide a link between the Mobile Web Best Practices and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines recommendations.

ONCE International Research and Development Award in New Technologies for The Blind and Visually Impaired

2008-03-31T11:50:00.002+02:00

ONCE has announced the Fifth International Research and Development Award in New Technologies for The Blind and Visually Impaired. Held every two years, the award aims to promote technological developments that make a substantial contribution to facilitating the integration and normality in the lives of blind and visually impaired people.The prize money (€240,000) is intended to contribute to the development of quality projects that are proven to be viable and likely to promote significant advances in engineering, artificial intelligence, computing, telecommunications, micro-technology and nanoelectronics, particularly in the fields indicated in the announcement. Entries should be received before 5 September 2008. Previous winning projects were from Spain (4th year), United States (3rd year), Sweden (2nd year) and the UK (1st year). Detailed information is published in English on the ONCE website: The 5th ONCE International Research and Development Award in New Technologies for The Blind and Visually Impaired

ONCE and Fundosa Group Serving Hospitals

2008-03-31T10:05:00.003+02:00

ONCE and Fundosa Group (of which Technosite is a part) seem to be thriving. I went to the hospital this morning for a checkup. As I went in the door people were buying their lottery tickets from the ONCE seller. In the hall there's a small shop selling newspapers and magazines and gift items for people to take when they go to visit patients on the wards. The shop is run by Galenas, a chain that's part of the Fundosa Group. As I leave the building and cross the street, a van goes by, “Sistemas Integrados Sanitarios” another Fundosa company that provides services for processing and disposal of health sector waste.

Easter Week in Spain

2008-03-17T13:53:00.003+01:00

It's Easter Week (Semana Santa or Holy Week in Spanish). It's a holiday here on Thursday and Friday. For the other three days hre at Technosite we work a continuous timetable (like in Summer) from 8am through till 3pm, and then go home for lunch. Traditionally this allows everyone to get ready for the religious processions, but I have my doubts about how much that still holds true. I'm off to London this afternoon for the Powder Stakeholder Event tomorrow where I'll be speaking about the Powder Accessibility Use Cases and the MobileOK Pro meeting on Wednesday. You can find more information on what's on in Madrid this week at the Madrid City Council's Easter Week page.

Election Rally with Disability Sector

2008-02-28T20:11:00.005+01:00

Spain is in the throes of a general election campaign. Elections are on 9 March. As with previous elections the ONCE and its Foundation has organised rallies with the two main parties for them to present their policies to the disability community. Today we were supposed to hear the current incumbent José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on behalf of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), but he was unable to attend and the Minister of Work and Social Affairs, Jesús Caldera came instead, accompanied by secretaries of State Amparo Valcarce for Social Services, Families and Disability, and [?].

In addition to individuals attending in a private capacity, there is a considerable effort to ensure participation by everyone from the extensive ONCE “family” including the companies in the Fundosa Group. About twenty staff from Technosite attended. We hired a coach to take us there and back. The rally was held at the sports hall of the ONCE School in Madrid. National television and radio were in attendance.

At the start of the meeting Mario García, president of Spain's leading disability organisation, CERMI, the Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities reminded us of what happened the last time around, four years ago, when the day after the rally a series of bombs on suburban railways killed 191 people and injured many more, some of whom are now disabled.

Jesús Caldera gave a good speech outlining all that the outgoing administration has done for people with disabilities in Spain, including laws on sign language, accessibility and provision for people in situations of dependency. Whatever one's political sympathies, nobody can deny that the government has done rather more than most for people with disabilities in the space of just four years. He then went on to say what the party plans to do in the next legislature, although having done so much already they have a hard act to follow. The plans include bigger quotas for companies to employ people with disabilities, reform of the system for disability certification, and universal anti-discrimination legislation including discrimination on the grounds of disability. Next week there should be a rally with the leader of the conservative opposition party, Partido Popular.

Discapnet Observatory Recognises Achievement in Web Accessibilty in Spain

2008-01-18T10:32:00.000+01:00

The "infoaccessibility" observatory managed by Discapnet (ONCE Foundation's disability web site) staged a public event yesterday at the city hall of Pamplona, Navarra.

Commemorative silver plaques were awarded to the web sites with the highest compliance and those that had done the most to improve since the previous edition of the report. The awards were presented by Vice President of the ONCE Foundation, Alberto Durán. Blanca Alcanda, managing director of Technosite was also present.

The event was also an opportunity to present the Observatory's newly-published inter-sector Web accessibility report. The previous eight reports had covered different sectors including Spanish universities, national government online services, regional government, city and town councils, travel agencies and transport, banks, and online newspapers. The latest study was carried out by Technosite evaluators and covered 19 websites and 93 pages (hardly big sample when you're giving out prizes). An interesting aspect is that the overall accessibility score has not improved since the last report, and that while some sites have improved significantly, this has been counterbalanced by a deterioration in others that previously had done well. In spite of recent legislation that mandates accessibility of government websites, seven of those that had deteriorated were government-owned.

Those awarded for their efforts were: Seguridad Social (Spanish national social security), Generalitat de Cataluña (Catalan regional government), Bankinter (a leading Spanish bank), Pamplona City Council. Of course it is rather ironic that two of these were only doing what they are obliged to do by law.

The worst performers were Ceuta city Council (the Spanish city enclave in north Africa), and the regional governments of the Basque Country, Murcia and Madrid.

Discapnet, is the leading Spanish-language disability web portal. It is jointly funded by ONCE Foundation, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF). It started its Infoaccessibility observatory in 2004. The observatory uses a methodology developed by Technosite that integrates W3C/WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and usability tests with people with disabilities. The latest report is available (in Spanish) and there is an English translation of the introduction (not by me). Previous reports are available from the Observatory section of Discapnet.

Technosite Ten Years Young

2008-01-15T13:22:00.000+01:00

It's just ten years since Fundosa Teleservicios started life on 15 January 1998, with just four employees. While existing initiatives to create employment for people with disabilities had focussed on areas such as crafts, secretarial and administrative work, it had become increasingly evident that there was a growing number of people with technical qualifications that could benefit from the greater accessibility of the computerised work environment.

The company had been formed as a collaboration between ONCE Foundation's Fundosa Group and the Spanish telephone giant Telefónica, and its first contracts reflected this emphasis on telecommunications: managing the call centres for the 112 emergency service; managing tele-assistance and home help services for the elderly and disabled; telemedecine research projects; consulting for small and medium-sized enterprises on teleworking, and with a view to how our strategy would develop in the coming years, services to help businesses use the Internet for marketing.

You can see our first web site at the WayBack Machine, complete with a text-only version. Web accessibility did not become a line of business until several years later, when I joined the company around 2002.

In 2006, to reflect its changing strategy, Fundosa Teleservicios changed its trade name (but not company name) to Technosite, and its domain name to technosite.es.

Social library networking site LibraryThing

2008-01-09T16:16:00.001+01:00

Although it's been in existence for some time this site was new to me. LibraryThing is intended as a social networking site based around books; not e-Books but real good old-fashioned paper ones. I catalogued our humble library of web development, usability and accessibility books. On the subject of bibliography, here at Technosite we maintain the Discapnet bibliography database of disability-related books, in Spanish.

Unfortunately it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of accessibility (main content in a a frame with no description, for example). On the other hand I can't pretend there isn't room for improvement in the Discapnet bibliography.

As I say, our catalogue is on the site now if you want to take a look: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/technosite.

Spain sets Penalties for Discrimination Against People with Disabilities

2007-12-28T08:21:00.000+01:00

People with disabilities in Spain have had a welcome gift The Spanish government has recently published the Law 49/2007, of 26 December, which sets out “a regime of infractions and penalties relating to equal opportunities, non-discrimination and universal accessibility for people with disabilities”. Properly applied by plaintiffs and judiciary this could give real teeth to the different pieces of legislation passed in recent years.

The law complements any penalties at the regional level (Spain has an increasingly decentralised structure of government) as the nation's constitution assigns to national government the responsibility for “basic conditions for ensuring the equality of Spaniards in the exercise of their rights and the fulfilment of their constitutional duties.” It sets out the general guidelines for penalties at the regional level. It is also based on European Community provisions that require national governments to implement penalties for non-compliance with anti-discrimination legislation. Since the 1982 law on the integration of people with disabilities there has been a succession of laws. The latest provisions are intended to change the approach from that of protecting a minority in need of special care, to that of people who have difficulties in exercising their rights and obligations under the constitution.

The law provides for fines of 301 up to a million Euro, classifying violations as slight, serious and very serious. In the four years following the passing of the law the government is required to present a report to parliament on actions taken and plans for the following year.

The text of the law is available in Spanish in the online version of the Boletn Oficial del Estado, LEY 49/2007, de 26 de diciembre.

Postgraduate Diploma in Accessible Technology for the Information Society

2007-10-23T14:23:00.000+02:00

The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, an online distance teaching university and Technosite will jointly offering this postgraduate diploma course “Accessible Technology for Information Society Services” starting next 10th November. For 33 ECTS credits study over two years. Reflecting current demand, the curriculum emphasises Web content, but covers a wide range of other important areas from cash dispenser and information terminals, street maps, digital libraries, mobile applications, assistive technology, to comprehensive "info-accessibility" plans and legislation, all in the context of general design-for-all principles.

For disabled students who are unemployed, ONCE Foundation and the European Social Fund will provide grants and ONCE will provide grants for blind students eligible for vocational training. More information about student grants (in Spanish) in Technosite press release. The course will be taught in Spanish. More information (in Spanish) on the UOC information page.

I would be interested to know of any similar courses in other countries.

MWeb'07 Event in Zaragoza

2007-09-13T11:57:00.000+02:00

On 12 and 13 of this month of September my colleague José Montes and myself have been attending MWeb'07, a conference on the Mobile Web. As it might not get all the coverage it deserves beyond the Pyrenees, I'll post this summary in English. It's one of a week-long IT-fest in Zaragoza, Spain, the second CEDI Congress, a series of twenty-seven conferences on diverse areas of ICT. I thought it was a sign of the maturity of the Spanish ICT sector: a conference for Spanish computer people in their own language. The MWeb'07 sessions were attended by about 30 to 40 people, all, with the exception of invited guest Rotan Hanrahan, apparently from Spain. The city of Zaragoza is presently engaged in lots of building works for next year's Water and Sustainable Development Expo and the developments surrounding the AVE high speed train terminal.

MyMobileWeb is an open-source Java-based application for dynamically generating content tailored to different mobile devices, as a seperate mobile channel (not the One Web approach). MyMobileWeb was the subject of a paper by José Manuel Cantera of Telefónica R&D the second day. The first paper was about another project based on MyMobileWeb that uses RDF to allow the provision of information for form auto-completion, by authors from CTIC Foundation, Telefónica R&D, and Politécnica University, Madrid, given by Diego Berrueta. Filling out form fields is especially onerous for users of mobile devices with their limited keyboards. The data can be provided both server-side by site owners using what they have learned about the user, and client-side by users themselves.

Our friend Samuel Martín gave a talk on work he has been involved in at the Politécnica University, Madrid on developing methodologies for evaluating the accessibility of mobile Web applications.

Server-side monitoring of Web traffic can be used to select from among alternative strategies for adapting content for diverse mobile devices and to analyse the quality of service provided to them. Alberto Mijares of Fundación CTIC gave the talk about it. He also discussed the evolution CTIC's TAW automated tool and the extension from accessibility to MobileOK Basic.

Zaragoza City Council has been a pioneer in Spain in providing a single Web experience for users of its Web site. María Jesús Fernández and Ignacio (“Nacho”) Marín described the Zaragoza authority's long-term collaboration with CTIC Foundation. Nacho continued the second day, describing the way the work in Zaragoza is based on the proposed W3C Mobile Web Best Practices recommendation.

At the University of Salamanca a team has been developing a server-side adaptation application using open-source software and a Java-based mobile client to access the ClayNet e-Learning system, adapting content to suit the m-Learning environment for students on the move. The talk was by Miguel Ángel Conde.

On the subject of “Desktop Web or device independent design: starting points for the mobile Web” we finished off the afternoon, with an open discussion with an invited panel including former Technosite chief Enrique Varela, now independent consultant and head of R&D at ONCE Foundation.

A series of mobile applications used by government to reach out to citizens and to employees was the subject of a talk by Joan Borrás. My impression was that many of the applications for the public are push systems based on SMS messaging (pollen count alerts, bus wait times), while those that used Web technologies were stand-alone systems for employees rather than the real Web.

Telefónica is a member of the mTLD (.mobi) consortium, and Fernando Soriano gave a talk on the benefits of the .mobi top level domain.

Rotan Hanrahan of the Mobile Web Initiative gave an invited talk on Standardisation Efforts for the Ubiquitous Web which I thought was laudably clear and easy to understand.

The event ended on Thursday with a panel discussion on "Is One Web Possible?". María Jesús Fernández of Zaragoza City Council led the debate, with myself among the the panel members. The discussion drifted rather from the original subject, towards why the Mobile Web isn't being as successful as it might, and when one of the panel asked for a show of hands for "Who browses the Web on their mobile phones?" there was an embarrassing lack of movement.

Generally the two days gave us a good overview of what is happening in Spain at the moment. Although the large operators, with the exception of Telefónica, were conspicuous by their absence, as sponsors and participants, there are evidently a number of small and medium-sized companies and universities working on innovative applications, with many already successfully in production. Congratulations to Encarna Quesada Ruíz (W3C Spanish Office), Ignacio Marín (CTIC Foundation) and María Jesús Fernández (Zaragoza City Council) for organizing the event which was (I think) the first of it's kind in this country.

Green Light for Inredis R&D Project

2007-09-10T13:55:00.001+02:00

The INREDIS Project (INterfaces for Relations between Environment and people with Disabilities), led by Technosite, has been approved for funding by Spain's Ministry of Industry (August 2007). The Project will develop basic technologies for communication and interaction channels between people with special needs and their technological environment.

The third call of the CENIT Programme approved funding for 16 projects, of which INREDIS was the only one in the ITC field. The CENIT Programme provides “subsidies for projects that develop stable public-private cooperation in research, development and innovation, in areas of strategic importance for the [Spanish] economy through the creation of strategic national consortia for technical research”.

The Project will be managed by a business partnership led by Technosite, and which also includes a number of other companies (all of them Spanish), La Caixa, Bankinter, Vodafone, Sabia, Alma Technologies, Ibermática, Inabemsa, Fundosa Accesibilidad, Moviquity, Mediavoice, Code Factory, TMT Factory, Iriscom, Smart Business and Ihman. The partners together are a diverse mix of large corporations, banks, technology companies, and public sector R&D bodies. The project has a budget of €24.1 million, funded half-and-half by the Spanish government and the partners themselves, and will be carried out 2007 to 2010.

The Project will carry out research on devices, security, interaction channels, communication protocols and systems interoperability and applications in several fields related to disability and inclusion of users with disability in the information society, including home and building automation, mobile communications, urban and local mobility, shopping, banking, and digital TV. The Project will develop protocols for interaction between assistive devices and technologies and the environment (interfaces based on psychology and physiology, emotional agents, haptic interfaces and smart textiles); a reference architecture for development of accessible software; integration of new television-based technologies; development of an adaptive universal interface for the digital home and the incorporation of new haptic technologies for cash dispensers.

The different technologies the project intends to produce should be an important advance in accessibility and improve the quality of life of people with disabilities.

MobileOK and Accessibility

2007-07-20T13:13:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday (19 July) I gave a short talk to the W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group in London on the parallels and synergies between mobile Web best practices and accessibility. I also covered the parallels between the needs of users with disabilities and those using mobile devices and explained that knowledge of one W3C Recommendation (WCAG or Mobile Web Best Practices) can encourage adoption of the other. As a result the working group approved creation of a task force to produce a document about it. This post contains the presentation slides, mainly for the benefit of those present at the meeting.

About Web Accessibility

Access to Web content and services regardless of ability or disability, or assistive devices used
Sensory: Vision, Hearing
Motor: Use only keyboard; only mouse; touch screen
Cognitive
Ageing-related (in ageing population but also children)
Technological: old computer, slow connection, mobile device

Other considerations

Assistive devices
Services and applications
Mobile-enabled accessibility services
Mobile Text
Cost issues
Multicultural issues?

What Disabled Mobile Users Do

Blind or low vision: Screen reader (eg, Talks, http://www.nuance.com/talks/); screen magnifier (eg, Code Factory Mobile Magnifier)
Motor disability: Large keyboard (antiquated second-hand phones; DDC?)
Hearing: Captions, visual cues for events
Cognitive: more time (turn off auto refresh); text easier to understand annotated with images (adaptation);

Parallels

Disabled users have involuntary disability
All mobile users have voluntary “disability” due to mobile context that parallels innate disability
No mouse (motor disability)
No colour on monochrome display (colourblind)
Small view area (restricted vision and screen maginfier)
No sound, in public place (deafness)
No tactile feedback – device put away

Regulatory context

Law, eg. Disability Discrimination Act in UK
Required for mobile content, too
European objectives, Lisbon agenda; Information Society for all. EC Mandate M.376 (public procurement requirements; will be developed by ETSI and CEN/CENELEC) and others under drafting
MobileOk not yet (but look at regulation of TV for mobile devices)

What Do Stakeholders Need?

Users: Non-discrimination (mobile and disabled users share common cause)
Content providers: Advice on how to leverage investment (synergies):
- in mobileOk compliance to be accessible
- In accessibility to improve mobile OK-ness

Gaps and Problems

Developers may see WCAG and mobileOK as separate and disjoint, missing the synergy and the overlap between them
Many similar content development and evaluation processes in both; leads to duplication of effort

What Can MWI (and WAI) Do?

Descibe relationship, overlaps and differences (mapping) between MWBPs and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Explain synergies in implementing WCAG and mobileOK together

Benefits for All

Save cost, effort
Integrated strategy
If you understand one set it's easier to learn the other
Organization aiming to create accessible Web site may also go for mOK
Partial compliance with “other” set: “While you're at it and designing mobileOK site, you could also consider some additional provisions and be WCAG compliant too...”

Three Primary Deliverables

Mapping: annotated mapping between MWBP and WCAG
Techniques: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Techniques specific to mobile context
Gap analysis: in the wider and more modern perspective? May be part of the first deliverable? Including Mobile Web/Internet enabled accessibility applications?
Three documents or one?

MobileOK to WCAG Mapping

Which mobileOK provisions map to which WCAG provisions?
Which WCAG provisions map to which mobileOK provisions?
If I comply with some specific mobileOK provisions, which additional provisions do I need to implement to also comply with WCAG (A, AA, AAA)?

Mobile Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

How to implement mobileOK provisions in a way that also complies with WCAG provisions at the same time?
How to implement WCAG provisions in a way that also addresses the mobile Web context at the same time?

Wish-list (1 of 2)

Once two primary documents are more stable
Business case (not just for accessibility)
Education & outreach resources (not just for accessibility)
Explanation of how each Mobile Web Best Practice affects disabled users
Investigate accessibility of Web content on mobile devices
Investigate special needs of mobile users with disabilities

Wish-list (2 of 2)

Describe assistive technology used by disabled users with mobile devices (for example screen readers and screen magnifiers).
Customised content adaptation for user accessibility preferences.
Describe special use cases relevant to disabled users (how disabled users get special benefit from mobile devices).
Business benefits of accessibility in mobile context

Participation

Mobile Web BP WG members
WCAG WG members
Disabled users, groups
Government
WCAG WG
Not a priority for vendors (not necessarily true!)

Possible Problems

WCAG WG tied up with GLs work
Can't publicly call for participation until MWBP WG launches TF
BPs not stable yet
WCAG 1.0 out of date, 2.0 not stable
People too busy with other things
Percieved as unnecessary
Already done elsewhere

Summer timetable at Technosite

2007-06-25T00:21:00.000+02:00

Any normal year we would be enjoying the warm weather but until a week ago there didn't seem to have been more than a couple of days without cloud cover. But at last the summer seems to have finally arrived here in Madrid, and the summer holiday season has begun.

We all look forward to the months of July and August, because we change to the summer timetable, known as jornada intensiva or intensive day. Traditionally in the warmer parts of Spain it was too hot to work in the afternoon, and the way to work comfortably was to get up early in the morning, while it was coolest and to work through until it became too hot in mid afternoon, then stop for lunch and a sleep until the sun went down and the temperature dropped again. Of course now in our modern air-conditioned offices in the Antalia Building we tend to suffer more from cold draughts than from heat, but we have to keep up our traditions...

During the months of July and August we work from 8am through until 3pm, then go home for lunch and siesta. So if you're working and call us at Technosite after 3pm and we're not there, it's because we're at home having lunch, asleep or at the pool.

Another less beneficial feature of it is that we're obliged to take a lot of our holiday allowance in these two months of high prices and overbooked resorts. These two issues also affect our attendance at meetings and W3C conference calls that tend to happen for us Europeans in the mid afternoon, so there may be more than usual (not too sincere) regrets.

ONCE goes to the polls

2007-06-11T12:21:00.000+02:00

Every four years the Spanish National Organisation of the Blind (ONCE) holds elections. These are elections in the commonly-understood sense of the word with parties, manifestos, campaigns and meetings. This year the election took place on May 14th. The winner was again, as usual, UP (United Progressives). After the election the winning party formed its government in order to put into practice its manifesto. Forming the new government of the ONCE also means reorganising the governing bodies of among others, ONCE Foundation and its business unit Fundosa Group.

The changes that will be brought in by the new ONCE General Council affect the strategy and organisation of the Fundosa Group. One of these is a greater emphasis on accessibility. Previously the sole administrator of Technosite, Enrique Varela Couceiro had two roles, he was also in charge of accessibility technology and R&D at ONCE Foundation. Now he has given up his role at Technosite to dedicate all his efforts to R&D.

While thankfully Blanca Alcanda continues as our Managing Director, Technosite now reports directly to the General Manager of the Fundosa Group, Nacho Tremiño. Other moves further up the hierarchy are that Alberto Durán continues as CEO of Once Foundation, Luis Crespo as General Manager of ONCE Foundation and José Luis Martínez Donoso as CEO of Fundosa Group.

Moving offices again

2007-06-11T11:17:00.000+02:00

Today we did the second part of our move. Still at calle Albasanz 16, but back up to the third floor, where we were before. All our stuff was upstairs on the third floor, and we spent a couple of hours unpacking books and connecting equipment. There's no room for Witty under the new desk so she has to lie on the the floor where we can all see her. I feel better about being closer to the window but fear that blinds will soon start being pulled down again. Work was only disrupted for a couple of hours, which is quite good, I think. It's good having management and all the admin people close at hand. The best thing about the new arrangement is that all of us in the accessibility department are in one block of desks. On the other hand several of us don't work in the office any more, with Rafa in Valencia, and Marisol and now Jesús working at home here in Madrid.

Launch of Euracert label at last

2007-06-08T11:35:00.000+02:00

It looks like it's finally happened, everything is more or less ready for the launch of Euracert, the European Web accessibility quality mark. BrailleNet has sent out a press release. It's taken about four years, but I'm sure it will have been worth the wait. Although the Web site may seem quite modest, it's been a long road and a lot of work to get to where we are now. The other European organisations currently in Euracert are ONA of Belgium, us Technosite of Spain and the BrailleNet Association of France. Some organisations from other countries are waiting in the wings, but there's no timetable for them to officially join yet.

With Euracert, a Web site can be labelled by a partner organisation in one country and get recognition in the others. So a Web site labelled in Spain can get a label that's also recognised in France and Belgium. But first it has to get the local label. This should help businesses operating in multiple countries have a single label, and allow free movement of goods and services, and ultimately (we all hope) lead to more accessible Web content in Europe.

There's more information on the Euracert Label website. Technosite is the first of the partners to award a Euracert label, and the site is Spanish bank Bankinter, which will be the first of many.