[LINK] Beijing Games Website Discriminates Against the Disabled

[Tom Worthington]

At 09:54 PM 18/08/2008, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>Tom Worthington wrote:
> > The E-Access Bulletin: Issue 104, August 2008
> > <http://www.headstar.com/eab/ > reports "Beijing Games Website
> > Inaccessible On Multiple Counts". ... presentation to BOCOG in 
> Beijing in 2003, with recommendations for accessibility: 
> <http://www.tomw.net.au/2003/bws.html>.
>... Any particular thoughts why they did not take your advice? ...

It may well have been that BOCOG adopted the recommendations, but 
they got lost somewhere on the way to the marketing people doing the 
web site. BOCOG had the People's Daily state controlled newspaper 
doing the editorial content for the web site. They were very familiar 
with accessibility issues, having to put out a newspaper web site in 
multiple languages for hundreds of millions of people each day. But 
the Olympic web site design was to be done by a separate more 
marketing orientated company, who would likely be less familiar with 
these issues.

The same sort of thing happened with the Sydney Olympics. In theory 
IBM did the web site and they were very aware of accessibility 
requirements (I used IBM's own guidelines to test the web site, which 
failed their tests). But I don't think IBM staff designed the site. 
Several groups claimed to have designed it, but I never found who 
actually did it.

>BTW, are the accessibility "rules" for the internet different from 
>those that might apply to say TV, radio, film or print media?

In Australia it is a matter of interpreting a general legal 
requirement for accessibility as well as some specific laws and 
industry codes. There are some specific provisions for TV and print 
media. As an example, closed captions are provided for TV and print 
handicapped radio are permitted to read out print publications.

The web was specifically developed with accessibility in mind and it 
is easy to do. So this makes it harder for organisations to find 
excuses than in other areas.



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