Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy - Softcover

Lazar, Jonathan; Goldstein, Daniel F.; Taylor, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0128006463 ISBN 13: 9780128006467

Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann, 2015

Synopsis

Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy provides readers with a must-have resource to digital accessibility from both a technical and policy perspective. Inaccessible digital interfaces and content often lead to forms of societal discrimination that may be illegal under various laws. This book is unique in that it provides a multi-disciplinary understanding of digital accessibility. The book discusses the history of accessible computing, an understanding of why digital accessibility is socially and legally important, and provides both technical details (interface standards, evaluation methods) and legal details (laws, lawsuits, and regulations). The book provides real-world examples throughout, highlighting organizations that are doing an effective job with providing equal access to digital information for people with disabilities. This isn’t a book strictly about interface design, nor is it a book strictly about law. For people who are charged with implementing accessible technology and content, this book will serve as a one-stop guide to understanding digital accessibility, offering an overview of current laws, regulations, technical standards, evaluation techniques, as well as best practices and suggestions for implementing solutions and monitoring for compliance. 

This combination of skills from the three authors―law, technical, and research, with experience in both corporate, government, and educational settings, is unique to this book, and does not exist in any other book about any aspect of IT accessibility. The authors’ combination of skills marks a unique and valuable perspective, and provides insider knowledge on current best practices, corporate policies, and technical instructions. Together, we can ensure that the world of digital information is open to all users.

• Learn about the societal and organizational benefits of making information technology accessible for people with disabilities
• Understand the interface guidelines, accessibility evaluation methods, and compliance monitoring techniques, needed to ensure accessible content and technology
• Understand the various laws and regulations that require accessible technology
• Learn from case studies of organizations that are successfully implementing accessibility in their technologies and digital content

About this title

About the Author:

Jonathan Lazar is a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University and has served as director of the Undergraduate Program in Information Systems since 2003. He also founded the Universal Usability Laboratory at Towson University and served as director from 2003 to 2014. In the area of human-computer interaction, Lazar is involved in teaching and research on web accessibility for people with disabilities, user-centered design methods, assistive technology, and law and public policy related to HCI. He has previously authored or edited 10 books, including Ensuring Digital Accessibility Through Process and Policy (coauthored with Dan Goldstein and Anne Taylor), Disability, Human Rights, and Information Technology Accessibility (coedited with Michael Stein), Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations, and Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach. He has published over 140 refereed articles in journals, conference proceedings, and edited books, and has been granted two US patents for his work on accessible web-based security features for blind users. He frequently serves as an adviser to government agencies and regularly provides testimony at federal and state levels, and multiple US federal regulations cite his research publications. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR); American Library Association; and TEDCO. He currently serves on the executive board of the Friends of the Maryland Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and the State of Maryland Work Group on Increasing the Teaching of IT Accessibility Concepts in State Universities. He has served in multiple roles in the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI), most recently, adjunct chair of public policy (2010-15) and Digital Accessibility Chair (CHI 2014). Lazar has been honored with the 2017 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Research, the 2016 SIGCHI Social Impact Award, given annually to an individual who has promoted the application of human-computer interaction research to pressing societal needs, the 2015 AccessComputing Capacity Building Award (sponsored by the University of Washington and the National Science Foundation) for advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities in computing fields, the 2011 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Public Service, and the 2010 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award from the National Federation of the Blind, for working towards achieving the full integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality. In 2012, Lazar was selected to be the Shutzer Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where he investigates the relationship between human-computer interaction for people with disabilities and US disability rights law.

Daniel F. Goldstein is a leading disability rights lawyer, who has been involved in most major legal cases about IT accessibility in the United States, including the landmark National Federation of the Blind vs. Target case, which established for the first time in case law, that the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to commercial web sites.

Anne Taylor is one of the world’s preeminent experts on assistive technology for blind users, and she has personal experience working with a number of top companies on improving accessibility, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

Review:

"Lazar, Goldstein, and Taylor are a uniquely qualified trio, combining expertise in legal accountability, human-computer interaction, and the perspective of corporations regarding accessibility. Together they offer theoretical and pragmatic insights into why and how the digital world should be accessible, as well as the cultural changes that need to occur to precipitate full inclusion." --Michael Stein, Executive Director, Harvard Law School Project on Disability; Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School; Extraordinary Professor, University of Pretoria Faculty of Law, Centre for Human Rights

"Information technology has enormous potential to make our society more inclusive. Realizing that potential takes a lot of hard work, not just on the technology itself, but also on the legal and policy framework within which it operates. This book lets us learn from those who have been doing that work, a rare opportunity!" --Clayton Lewis, Professor of Computer Science and Fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado, Boulder

"Ensuring Digital Accessibility is a comprehensive yet easy to follow guide to a fast-moving area of the law.  It will be of great use to lawyers, software and web developers, CIOs, and policymakers." --Michael Waterstone, J. Howard Ziemann Fellow and Professor of Law, Loyola University Law School

"This book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding what it means for technology to be fully accessible to individuals with disabilities.  The book will be invaluable to a broad audience because it is chock full of technical and legal resources but describes those resources in a way that is understandable to a lay audience.  I will rely heavily on this book when I next update my teaching materials in the field of disability discrimination and look forward to its publication." --Ruth Colker, Distinguished University Professor and Heck-Faust Memorial Chair in Constitutional Law, Ohio State University

"Ensuring Digital Accessibility is a wonderful explanation of why accessibility to all kinds of technology including computers, smartphones, e-books, and web sites, is so beneficial to society.   Certainly the recipients of access benefit, but so do the providers of the information by reaching a wider and more diverse audience.  Providing access to users with disabilities is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do." --Richard E. Ladner, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington

"The authors of this book represent a team that can take a unique perspective on digital accessibility. Dr. Lazar is one of the few academics I know who has taken the time to write multiple books that take academic knowledge about accessibility and organize it into clear and accessible guidelines for the design of digital artifacts. Dan Goldstein is a civil rights lawyer with on the ground experience about what it takes to enforce and create accessibility standards thanks to his leadership in multiple successful lawsuits. Anne Taylor has hands on experience guiding others in the design and use of accessible technologies. Together they are sure to present a practical and grounded perspective on what it takes to ensure digital accessibility." --Jennifer Mankoff, Associate Professor, Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

"...an excellent work by two IT experts and one legal expert...an outstanding book for readers who are interested in the fundamentals of accessibility in the digital world. It is a badly needed book for the general audience." --Computing Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0128006463
• ISBN 13: 9780128006467
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 246