[LINK] Beijing Games Website Discriminates Against the Disabled
Tom Worthington
Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au
Mon Aug 18 09:22:22 AEST 2008
The E-Access Bulletin: Issue 104, August 2008
<http://www.headstar.com/eab/ > reports "Beijing Games Website
Inaccessible On Multiple Counts".
The item mentions the accessibility case for the Sydney 2000
Olympics. A summary of my expert evidence on the accessibility of the
SOCOG site for the human rights commission is
available <http://www.tomw.net.au/2000/mvs.html>. I summarized this
in a presentation to BOCOG in Beijing in 2003, with recommendations
for accessibility: <http://www.tomw.net.au/2003/bws.html>.
>The website for the Beijing Olympics is not accessible to people
>with disabilities, a leading accessibility expert has told E-Access Bulletin.
>
>With the games in full swing this month, their official website
>which include a full results service could be among the most visited
>sites in the world (http://en.beijing2008.cn/). But Henny Swan,
>senior web accessibility consultant at the RNIB, said the service is
>inaccessible in
>a number of key ways.
>
>"There are.no text alternatives for multimedia which means many
>people, including mobile users, will be locked out of content. New
>windows also seem to open from within Flash movies, which is not
>only an accessibility but also a usability issue." Other findings
>include instances of animation that fails to stop moving after three
>seconds, she said. "This can be a distraction for people with
>reading problems or people with low vision.
>
>Last year Swan undertook an initial advance study of the
>accessibility of the Beijing Olympics site, then still under
>development. While the findings of her work were not all negative,
>the indications at that time were that various improvements were
>needed before the website would
>meet even the basic level of compliance with international Web
>Content Accessibility Guideline.
>
>Returning to the site this month, she said there had been some
>improvements, although "where one issue may have been fixed, others
>have taken its place." Overall her findings indicate that the
>organising committee for the Beijing games seem not to have
>developed a clear accessibility plan for the website.
>
>Olympic websites have a mixed history in terms of accessibility. The
>site for the 2004 games in Athens raised few complaints, but the
>organisers of the 2000 Sydney Olympics were successfully sued for
>failure to make their website comply with accessibility standards.
>
>NOTE: For our full report on the accessibility of the Beijing 2008
>Olympics website see section three, this issue. ...
From: E-Access Bulletin: Issue 104, August 2008
<http://www.headstar.com/eab/ >
Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617 http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
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