WIKI ON ACCESSIBILITY Completion report March 2010 By Nirmita Narasimhan Programme Manager Centre for Internet and Society Project Title: Wiki on “Accessibility, Disability and the Internet in India” Page | 1 REPORT Accessibility wiki: accessibility.cis-india.org The wiki project was envisaged and funded by the National Internet Exchange of India (www.nixi.in) and has been executed by the Centre for Internet and Society (www.cis-india.org), Bangalore. Project Start date: May 2009 End date: February 2010. Background India has a large percentage of disabled persons in its population— estimated to be over seven per cent as per the Census of 2001. Even this figure is believed to be a gross under representation of the total number of disabled persons residing in this large and diverse country. Taken in figures, this amounts to roughly 70-100 million persons with disabilities in the territory of India. Out of this number, a mere two per cent residing in urban areas have access to information and assistive technologies which enable them to function in society and enhance their performance. There are several reasons for this, one of them being that there is a deplorable lack of awareness which exists on the kinds of disabilities and about ways in which one can provide information and services to disabled persons. Parents, teachers, government authorities and society at large are all equally unaware about the options which exist in technology today to enable persons with disabilities to carry on independent and productive lives. Barring a few exceptions, India is still trapped in an era where a white cane and a Braille slate symbolises the future for blind people, while the world has progressed to newer forms of enabling technology such as screen readers, daisy players, the Kindle and so on. The same is the situation in the case of other disabilities. This wiki hence, aims to become a resource for disabled persons, their parents, care-givers, family and friends, teachers, employers, technical developers, non- governmental organisations and policy makers on different kinds of disabilities, assistive technologies, computer software and hardware, alternate platforms for access, as well as legislations and policies which would help to create an accessible environment for persons with disabilities. Page | 2 Objective The wiki is intended to spread awareness about disability and the needs of disabled persons with respect to accessing information. It strives to emphasise that persons with disabilities can function independently and productively if they are given access to the right kind of assistive infrastructure. The wiki also serves to raise awareness about the need for designing the Internet and IT and electronic products on the principles of universal design so that they can be accessed by all persons, irrespective of disability. Finally, the wiki gives examples of accessibility legislations in a few countries to serve as a guide to policy makers for integrating ICT accessibility within mainstream activities. Project implementation All the articles in the wiki (except for the section on policies for nations) have been written by persons with disabilities who are themselves users of assistive technologies. The articles have been written over a period of ten months beginning from May 2009. However, some of the articles which were there in the initial proposal have not been carried in this report due to non-availability of writers willing to right on those topics and instead additional articles have been filed. So at present we have a total of 125 articles as against the proposed 120 articles initially presented in the project proposal. The details regarding the same have been enclosed as a separate entry in Annexure B of this report. The list of contributors is given in Annexure A. There are a total of 125 articles which have been divided into the following sections: • Background • Accessibility for users • Accessibility for developers • Accessibility for the organisation • Developments in India • Accessibility for Nations The list of articles with the word count and urls is given in Annexure B. The expense statement for the project is given in Annexure C. Page | 3 The articles are reproduced in Annexure D. About the organizations National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) NIXI is a not for profit organization under section 25 of the Companies Act 1956, and was registered on 19 July 2003. NIXI was set up for peering of ISPs among themselves for the purpose of routing the domestic traffic within the country itself, thereby resulting in better quality of service (reduced latency) and reduced bandwidth charges for ISPs by saving on international bandwidth. NIXI is managed and operated on a neutral basis, in line with the best practices for such initiatives globally. It is managed by a Board of Directors. The Directors are drawn from the Department of Information Technology, from the academic communities at various institutions (such as the IITs and ISPAI), and from among the peering ISPs. Page | 4 The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) Founded in 2008, CIS is a Bangalore based independent, non-profit, research and advocacy organisation which is involved in research on the emerging field of the Internet and its relationship to the society. CIS brings together scholars, academics, students, programmers and scientists to engage in a large variety of Internet issues like governance, privacy, and freedom of expression, etc. CIS works in the areas of histories of the Internet, digital natives, and a reader on the Wikipedia, enhancing higher education for the downtrodden, and accessibility for the disabled, openness, telecom and Internet governance. Log on to our website at www.cis-india.org to learn more about our work. Please also visit http://www.cis-india.org/events/workshop- for-web-developers-on-web-accessibility . Project Coordinator: Nirmita Narasimhan Page | 5 Annexure A List of Contributors Sr No Name E mail 1 Mukesh Sharma [email protected] 2 Namrata Mehta [email protected] 3 Pranav Lal [email protected] 4 Prashant Naik [email protected] 5 Prashant Ranjan Verma [email protected] 6 Preetam Pereira [email protected] 7 Rebecca Schild [email protected] 8 Saurabh Malav [email protected] 9 Vikas Kapoor [email protected] 10 Rahul Gonsalves [email protected] 11 Srinivasu Chakravartula [email protected] 12 Dipendra Manocha [email protected] 13 Neeti [email protected] The designing and layout of the Wiki page has been done by Rahul Gonsalves, Independent Researcher. Page | 6 Annexure B List of articles Sr No Article title Words Url 1. Accessibility – An Overview 554 http://accessibility.cis-india.org/index.php/Accessibility_- _An_Overview 2. Disability and the Family 495 http://accessibility.cis-india.org/index.php/Disability_and_the_Family 3. The Need for Alternative Solutions: 755 http://accessibility.cis- Hardware and Software Solutions and india.org/index.php/The_need_for_alternative_solutions:_hardware_an Alternate Formats d_software_solutions_and_alternate_formats 4. Disabilities and the Internet 2650 http://accessibility.cis-india.org/index.php/Accessibility_for_Users Assistive Technologies 5. Overview 1487 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies_Overview 6. Alternative Input Devices 1047 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Alternative_Input_Device s 7. Electronic Pointing Devices 816 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Electronic_Pointing_Devi ces 8. Sip- and- puff Systems 368 http://accessibility.cis-india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Sip- and-puff_Systems 9. Wands and Sticks 289 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Wands_and_Sticks 10. Joy Sticks 206 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Joysticks Page | 7 11. Trackballs 317 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Trackballs 12. Touchscreen 420 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Touchscreens 13. Making Text Based Materials Accessible 949 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Making_Text- based_Materials_Accessible 14. Vaachak 6132 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Vaachak 15. Refreshable Braille Displays 362 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Refreshable_Braille_Displ ays 16. Screen Enlargers 946 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Screen_Enlargers 17. Screen Readers 234 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Screen_Readers 18. Free Screen Readers 268 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Free_Screen_Readers 19. Braille Embossers 1586 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Braille_Embossers 20. Keyboard Filters 88 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Keyboard_Filters 21. Speech Recognition Software 668 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Speech_Recognition_Soft ware 22. Speech Recognition Software and 866 http://accessibility.cis- Productivity india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Speech_Recognition_Soft ware_and_Productivity 23. Text to Speech Synthesisers 833 http://accessibility.cis- india.org/index.php/Assistive_Technologies:Text-to- Page | 8 speech_Synthesizers 24. Talking and Large