[LINK] Beijing Games Website Discriminates Against the Disabled

[Tom Worthington]

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