This paper talks about need for web accessibility and what Yahoo! is doing; presented at Techshare India 2010 on 16th February, 2010

1. Need for Web Accessibility in Developing Countries Yahoo! Initiatives By Srinivasu ChakravarthulaAccessibility Manager

2. Internet and its usage Applications Education Research Business Travel Shop Entertainment Social Networking Music Matrimony Users: Student, parent, teacher, professionals, government, senior citizens… and everyone!

3. Users of internet also includes people with special needs

4. Statistics…

5. Some facts… As per WHO, there are about 600 million people with disabilities across the world In India alone, there are about 70 million There is a rapid development in the area of assistive technology industry!

6. Disability and types of disabilities Unable to perform a particular task It can be a temporary or permanent Can occur either by birth or by accident Situational Disability Oops! My mouse stopped working Text is too small on this webpage Functional Disability Visually impaired Mobility impaired Hard of hearing Learning disability Autism, CP

7. How People with Disabilities Use Computer Screen readers Screen magnifiers On-screen keyboard Track ball Switch Ergonomic Keyboard Refreshable Braille Display

8. Web is more useful to people with disabilities

9. Deepa Narasimhan, Graphic Designer, EMC As far as I use the On screen keyboard, its easy on all website. Maybe we need a better voice recognition software which can use on computers for typing & browsing websites. Which would help people with sever conditions, as few people with no hands (amputees) will find this great way to browse the internet.

10. Case studies continued… Artur Ortega The internet allows me as a blind person to get access to services and information without any help by anyone which wouldn't be even be possible or very difficult in a physical world. The internet creates new opportunities and creates a full new independency for persons with disabilities. I really miss the approach of a great part of the private sector to embrace accessibility. Only some very innovative companies like Yahoo! are taking the first steps to even make web 2.0 applications accessible and breaking into new dimensions of accessibility. I would love if more and more companies would follow this great example.

11. Yahoo! Initiatives

12. Why Yahoo! cares for accessibility? Yahoo! is a global web company Around 600 million users visit Yahoo! Approximately 200 million world wide and 76 million from India visit our properties related to Emerging Markets. Yahoo!’s presence include

13. Our mindset… We think for all! We sensitize our teams We train our teams in the area of assistive technology and accessibility

14. Accessibility Lab Accessibility Labs at Sunnyvale and Bangalore are equipped with different assistive technologies such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, Track ball, Refreshable Braille Display, Big Twist Switch, Voice Recognition software etc.

15. Our Team Alan Brightman, Sandeep Datar, Victor Tsaran, Srinivasu Chakravarthula and Artur Ortega

16. Accessibility Task Force and SIG Core Accessibility team Accessibility Task Force includes members from User Experience Design Quality Engineering Front End Engineering SE & O Learning and Development

17. Accessibility is considered right at the design stage

19. What we do? Conduct user studies Involve people with disabilities in our accessibility testing Develop Accessibility Guidelines and Checklists for Yahoo! Evangelize about accessibility in and outside Yahoo! Run a public mailing list (coming soon)

20. With full effort to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Use of ARIA for dynamic modules like Yahoo! Search Closed captioning for videos YUI components that are accessible, like ARIA enabled Drop down menus etc. Audio CAPTCHA in Yahoo! Groups We Design…

21. Accessibility Testing - Automated Internal Automation Open Source Tool Yselinium to test for high level accessibility issues WAVE – http://wave.webaim.org/toolbar Firefox Accessibility extension Add-ons of Mozilla Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=accessibility&cat=all

22. Manual Testing Screen Readers NVDA – http://www.nvda-project.org JAWS for Windows – http://www.freedomscientific.com Screen Magnifiers ZoomText Xtra – http://www.aisquared.com Dolphin Supernova – http://www.yourdolphin.com Alternate Input devices – Track ball and switch – http://www.ablenetinc.com Dragon Naturally Speaking http://www.nuance.com Talks – a screen reader for mobile S60 phones http://www.nuance.com/talks/

23. Outreach… Present in Accessibility Workshops around the country Part of awareness programs for other organizations Evangelize through Hack days

24. Thank You