(page 1) January-February 1997 OPEN LINE The Technology Policy Newsletter of the World Institute on Disability (page 5) Open Line, the newsletter of the World Institute on Disability's Technology Policy Division, is published six times a year to inform recipients of significant developments regarding accessibility for disabled people to telecommunications and information t echnologies. Information, comments and suggestions from the readership are most welcome. World Institute on Disability 510 16th Street, Suite 100 Oakland, CA 94612 Betsy Bayha, Editor Phone (510) 763-4100 Fax (510) 763-4109 TTY (510) 208-9496 (page 1) ::Access for Everyone is Theme of International World Wide Web Conference Set for April in California:: Access, with a capital A, is the theme of what is projected to be the largest and most significant gathering of webmeisters from around the globe, to be held April 7-11 in the convention center at Santa Clara, California. The sixth International World Wide Web Conference, or WWW6, is coming to the San Francisco Bay Area after previous annual meetings in Geneva, Chicago, Darmstadt, Boston and Paris (next year, Brisbane). The five-day event (Monday through Friday) will also incorporate WEB ACCESS 97, focusing specifically on access strategies for people with disabilities. (Formerly known as the Graphical User Interface or GUI Conference.) "This as an excellent opportunity to bring the attention of the mainstream World Wide Web community to the computer accessibility needs of disabled users and others," said Betsy Bayha, acting director of WID's Division of Technology Policy. Daily programs of speeches, workshops, papers and panels will address such topics as the impact of multimedia and graphical user interfaces, creating accessible Web pages, and using text-only or non-visual interfaces. An abundance of interactive demonstr ations and displays of access technology for disabled computer users will occupy the main exhibit hall. The process for submitting papers for WEB ACCESS 97 began in November and those whose abstracts were accepted are now busily polishing their papers to meet the January 15 deadline for inclusion in the conference program. (page 5) Confirmed speakers as of this writing include Howard Rheingold, the author of several popular books, including "Tools for Thought" and "Talking Tech: A Conversational Guide to Science and Technology," and Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Futu re. "WWW6: The Theme is Accessibility . . . Everyone Everything Connected" is the title bestowed on the conference by its organizers at Stanford University and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. They stress their intention to include not only people wit h disabilities but also the poor and those living in geographically remote communities around the world who could benefit from Web access. For more information: WEB ACCESS 97, Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115; (415) 723-8456. Information on the general WWW6 conference can be found at: http://www6conf.slac.stanford.edu/. (page 1) ::Survey Seeks Info On Integration of Disabled Students Into Internet Use:: What are schools doing to include disabled students in advanced telecommunications activities and how well are they doing it? A survey is being conducted by WID under Gallaudet University's Research and Engineering Rehabilitation Center (RERC) on Universal Telecommunications Access to learn the answers. All who have an interest are invited to participate in the survey: "Internet Access for Disabled Students: Strategies and Barriers." Tanis Doe, research director of the project, said the object is to collect information about successful strategies to get disabled students onto the Internet at schools and to identify barriers where they are not included. Findings will be studied by th e RERC advisory committee sponsors of the research and others to determine how to best ensure that all students have access to the Internet in classrooms across the country. "We will not only gather information, but will also provide information to survey respondents, especially those who are facing barriers and problems integrating disabled students into telecommunications programs," said Doe. She said respondents may want to seek the help of special education coordinators or technology experts in answering some of the questions. The first phase of the study, a pilot sampling, is now under way. The larger survey, seeking 500 responses, will take place in February and (page 4) March. The third phase will be a follow-up on 15 of the most successful and 15 of the most problematic s ituations, seeking qualitative data and conducting in-depth interviews with respondents. Researchers say the questionnaire is designed to be completed on the computer using whatever system and software the respondent normally uses. The first part of the survey asks for general information about the school and its telecommunications program. The second part seeks more specific information about students with disabilities, such as: --The extent to which are they fully integrated into Internet usage compared to other students. --Successes that have been achieved at integration, including specific examples of technology, software or activities employed. --Specific barriers faced, including specific examples of technical, physical, financial or attitudinal barriers. --Resources used to successfully integrate students with disabilities, including favorite sites or resources (e.g., URL addresses, WEB sites, gophers or email contacts). Open Line readers interested in participating in the survey, or who know someone else who should be, are invited to get in touch with Robin Andrae, research assistant, at: robin@wid.org or to phone her at WID (510) 251-4302. (page 2) ::A Message from the Director:: (photo of Betsy Bayha) Increasing competition in the telecommunications industry raises unprecedented challenges for everyone concerned about ensuring widespread and equitable access to technology. There is no doubt that greater competition will result in a plethora of new prod ucts and services. But it is an open question whether everyone will benefit from this new technology. The stakes are particularly high for traditionally marginalized communities such as ethnic minorities, rural residents, the poor and people with disabili ties. Consumer groups representing many of these constituencies have united to articulate a set of principles aimed at ensuring that all communities reap the benefits of new telecommunications products and services broadly. (See article in this issue.) One unfortunate development we see in bellweather states such as California is the move by regulators to focus only on bottom line results, without giving enough consideration to the delivery of high quality service. This kind of thinking could be disast rous for telecommunications customers with disabilities. Because accessible telecommunications products are often only available through specialty vendors, and because they often require a certain amount of training to use-for example a late-deafened cus tomer learning the idiosyncrasies of the Teletypewriter or TTY-bottom line thinking that sacrifices service on the altar of savings could compromise access. While we welcome the new opportunities presented by competition, it is critically important that all players in the telecommunications realm rise to the challenge of ensuring that these technologies are widely available and can serve to benefit everyone. Betsy Bayha, Acting Director Division on Technology Policy ::BOOK REVIEW: 'Kyoyohin'-the Japanese Word for 'Universal Design':: (picture of book cover in Japanese) Barrier-Free no Shohin-Kaihatsu 2-A New Concept for the Aging Society by the E&C Project Publisher: Nikkei (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc.), Tokyo Koji Yanagida, chief designer for Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., in Osaka, who brought this book to our attention, told us it is all about "Kyoyohin" in Japan-that being the Japanese word closest to Universal Design. We're grateful to him, since the book hasn 't yet been translated into English. The E & C Project (for Enjoyment and Creation) is a voluntary group working in Japan to promote the concept of Kyoyohin. E & C says the 318 page-book covers: Difficulties encountered by people with physical impairments (including expectant mothers and the elderly), the concept of Barrier-Free design and manufacture, E & C's new Kyoyohin proposals, a guide to "hot" Barrier-F ree products, and a vision and plan for the 21st century. Yanagida, who attended the InfoRamps '96 conference in Washington, DC, last summer, contributed a Universal Design report from the U.S. to the book. (page 3) ::Info Kiosk Focuses on Access for All Brings Government to the Shopping Mall:: (photo of an Info Kiosk with a sign that says "Road Safety, It starts with you, Ontario") Imagine never again standing in line for hours to register your car. What if you could apply for a building permit while running errands at the shopping mall? And suppose a host of other routine government services were available through an interactive kiosk open 24 hours a day and available at your convenience. Just to sweeten the deal, the kiosk would offer cutting edge accessibility to people with disabilities. That vision has motivated a team of engineers and government ministers to develop a state of the art self-service kiosk just coming to the American market. The kiosk, made by IBM, provides a range of access features. For example, it integrates "talking touch screen" technology developed at the Trace Research and Development center so that if the user is visually impaired or has trouble reading, the choices on the screen can be read out loud over two external speakers. Or, if the user is concerned about privacy, he or she can listen through a telephone handset that mutes the external speakers. For users with hearing disabilities, the handset has volume amplification and is hearing-aid compatible. The kiosk is built so that a short person or a wheelcha ir user can easily reach the slots for inserting a transaction card and getting a receipt. How did all this happen? Thank the Canadians, or, more precisely, the provincial government of Ontario. "They are very forward thinking in the area of access," says IBM's Peter Vanderheyden who adds that IBM has worked with the government of Ontario sin ce 1993 to develop the kiosk. Two converging trends have created the perfect environment for this development. First, governments, like businesses, are downsizing. That means fewer people to staff government service counters to handle routine transactions. Second, governments are i ncreasingly concerned about providing services that are accessible to all members of their communities. According to Sandra Ludwig, an IBM executive in charge of worldwide government service delivery, the vast majority of over-the-counter transactions-- almost 80% -- could be done just as easily via kiosk, or over the Internet, or using a touch tone telephone. She adds that designing for disability access is probably the best way to ensure that the kiosks are intuitive, user friendly and easy to understa nd so that non-techies, regardless of whether they have a disability, will find the technology easy to use. In addition to making the kiosks user-friendly, IBM has also tried to make them government friendly by offering innovative financing options that allow governments to set up the kiosk for free. IBM makes its money by charging nominal service fees for each transaction. While Ludwig says kiosks with all the access features built in currently cost 25-30 percent more than a comparable "stripped" kiosk with no access features at all, that cost pales in comparison to the potential cost of litigation that gover nment entities could face. The kiosks were deployed last year in Washington State and in Illinois. Arizona has just announced plans to deploy the kiosks in that state. Ludwig says given Arizona's large population of older retirees, many of whom may not have much familiarity with self service kiosks or other advanced technologies, Arizona may become an interesting test case of the access and usability features of the kiosk. "This will give us a good idea of how older people will interact with this technology," says Ludwig, and c onsidering that the elderly population is one of the country's fastest growing demographic groups, that information should have a significant impact on technology design for the future. (page 4) ::Consumer Summit Takes Statement of Principles To Utility Regulators:: The 1996 Consumer Summit, an ad hoc coalition of public interest leaders, is vigorously pressing its campaign to ensure nationwide, affordable access to advanced telecommunications services that will be available in the deregulated marketplace. The principles were released in San Francisco at the annual conference of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) in November. Now Summit participants are reaching out for all organizations they can find that have positions similar to theirs and can endorse the telecommunications policy principles presented to the regulators' meeting. WID's Betsy Bayha represented the Summit at the NARUC conference and distributed a "Statement of Principles" adopted by the 1996 Consumer Summit and offered "as a public interest guide for regulators at the federal and state level as they implement the Te lecommunications Act of 1996." The principles include: --Affordable access to the network by all people in the U.S. --A new definition of universal service to include advanced network services. --The obligation of all users -- individuals and companies -- to contribute adequately to the network. --Regulatory incentives to ensure that advanced network services are available in all parts of the nation. --Support for training and community and economic development. In a preamble to the statement, the Summit declared: "The rights of universal access to free speech and important information are as essential as the right to vote if our democracy's people are to make informed decisions that advance their own development as responsible members of the society, advance the w ell-being of their families, advance the quality of life in their communities, build and strengthen communities, and advance the justice, liberty and prosperity of all of the society." Several Consumer Summit organizations already are involved in legal actions in support of the principles, and the Summit has issued a call for support and suggestions for other actions. Organizations interested in supporting Consumer Summit activities are encouraged to contact any of these Summit participants: Alliance for Public Technology, American Foundation for the Blind, Connect Missouri, Douglas Policy Institute, Massachusetts Assistive Technology Partnership, National Council for Technology in Education and Training, National Council of La Raza, National Urban League, Universal Service Alliance, World Institute on Disability. (page 5) ::Blind Federation Offers 'Newsline for the Blind' Reachable by Phone:: Thanks to its exploitation of the latest technology, the National Federation of the Blind is now providing an online daily newspaper reading service that blind and visually impaired people can reach with their touch-tone telephones. Blind readers can even use their keypads to skip from paper to paper (The NY Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today and others), or from section to section within a paper, or to slow down the reading or speed it up. The newspapers provide the daily news in appropriately formatted text to the NFB's Newsline for the Blind Network, which employs a DECtallk voice synthesis system to produce the recording relayed by modem to local centers. "It takes the technology about 20 minutes to read the entire Sunday New York Times and get it into the Newsline system," says Betsy Zabarowski, a spokesperson for NFB. Such efficiency enables the system to process an extraordinarily large volume of news. For more information: Newsline for the Blind, National Federation of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, MD 21230; Telephone (410) 659-9314. Cartoon: Courtesy of RAESIDE, Victoria Times Colonist Five Caucasion-appearing, formally dresssed individuals standing around with drinks in their hands. Woman #1: "http://wwwbob.com/!... How are you?" Man #1: "Just fine http://Judy @b.c.com. How are you?" Woman #2: "...So they named the new baby http:// wwwbuffy.com. Isn't that cute?" Man #2: "Has anyone seen http://al@comm/ this week? Man #3: "My wife has decided to keep her maiden e-mail: http://wwwalice.com/ (page 6) The Technology Policy Division of the World Institute on Disability gratefully acknowledges the following companies for their support: Adobe Interactive Services Association American Express MCI Foundation Ameritech Microsoft AT&T Minitel USA Bell Atlantic Motion Picture Association of America Bellcore NEC Foundation BellSouth NYNEX CTIA Pacific Telesis Group Citibank Southwestern Bell Electronic Industries Association Sprint Ericsson United Technologies GTE U.S. West Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. The Walt Disney Company WID World Institute on Disability Technology Policy Division -- FIRST CLASS POSTAGE -- 510 16th Street, Suite 100 Oakland, CA 94612 Address Correction Requested (510)763-4100 (510)763-4109 Fax (510)208-9496 TTY e-mail: OpenLine@wid.org Staff: Betsy Bayha Acting Director, Division of Technology Policy Shelby Jones Department Assistant .