ACCESSIBILITECH project, led by Fundación ONCE, has published its results after two years of work. The project findings will contribute to advance accessibility in technologies for telework, e-learning and telecare.
One of the project’s main conclusions is that there is still a need to design effective strategies to raise awareness among technology developers and other professionals about the importance of conforming to EU legislation by applying accessibility requirements to their products and services.
ACCESSIBILITECH’s objectives included the development of a state-of-the-art search engine based on artificial intelligence to detect accessible technologies designed for telework, e-learning and telecare.
The tool identified over 50,000 solutions. However, results from the analysis carried out showed that less than 10% of these technologies included accessibility functions that would allow people with disabilities to use them. The rests were inaccessible or did not properly inform about their accessibility.
Given this situation, the ACCESSIBILITECH project created a series of recommendations aimed at those responsible for developing accessibility policies and standards to raise awareness among technology developers and other professionals about the need for and importance of complying with accessibility rules.
These recommendations include a list of accessible solutions identified in the analysis carried out that could help companies, organisations and other stakeholders to comply with accessibility rules.
Additionally, a toolkit containing simple and easy-to-read information about accessibility was made available on the website. Specifically, this toolkit offers information on the most basic needs of people with disabilities and recommendations about how to apply basic accessibility requirements, most common accessibility errors, and accessibility in mobile technology, among others.
The toolkit includes a repository of resources created by external organizations that are experts in technology and accessibility.
Also, as part of the project’s objectives an international Hackathon was organised featuring technology students and budding developers who created solutions to improve the accessibility of technologies created for telework, e-learning and telecare.
ACCESSIBILITECH results are available on the project’s website.