Accessibility of Events: Introduction

Bachelor students in media informatics of LMU Munich wrote "Practices for Accessible Events" reports. I present here an overview, and I publish their reports.

Website Accessibility

Websites are nowadays very popular to tease, present and provide details about an event. If your event website is not accessible, it will reduce per see the participation of people with impairments and the accessibility of your event.

To summarize the accessibility features:

• provide caption, transcript and even sign language translation for audio (audio files and videos with sounds), as well as sound controls (e.g. volume)

• provide a written or an audio alternative to visual information: images, frames, checkboxes, etc. You can use visual impairments simulators to verify the visual access to your website.

• support easy navigation: the user should be able to navigate in your website entirely using shortcuts and keyboard (e.g. tab, enter) including pop-up contents. Moreover, the organization should remain logical even when the content is serialized (e.g. text only and screen reader). As well, make sure the elements are easily clickable with the mouse. Finally, avoid to require a timing to perform a task

• ensure your registration form is accessible.

• using social networks, some features help to make the published content accessible. Share a guide with your contributors to help them in publishing accessible content.

To read the report of Annika Voß, Petra Laboda and Sigrid Klinger, you can download this document:

Accessibility to reach your event location

You should ensure the accessibility to your event location. You may think, at first, that you can not add a elevator or to change the public transportation system. So, what are we talking about?

• The navigation and accessibility information: a lot of people with impairments prepare their journey in advance, to reach a place and to navigate inside a building. The key is to provide a complete and up-to-date information on the mainstream apps (e.g. google maps with opening hours, accessibility information, contact) and on the specialized apps. For the later, you can contact the local organizations of people with impairments. They can guide you to know what are the apps used by the community, inform you about the specialized transportation societies, and even to do an accessibility diagnose of the facilities before the event (for crowdsourcing apps, and your website). You can verify where the local public transportation society provides accessibly information. Then, you can publish the list of the up-to-date sources on your event website or any information media.

• The navigation inside the event facilities: Multiple solutions exist. The first one is a human solution. You can both offer the participants to visit in advance the event facility, and train volunteers to guide people that ask for it (knowing and describing the accessible paths, the spatial organization of the event, training to guide techniques). Technical solutions with beacons exist, and may be relevant for large facilities.

• Publish all the information on the event information media: applications, on-site solutions.

To read the report of Egesa Vrapi, Jenny Huang and Ludwig Glückstadt, you can download this document:

Sensory substitution of visual information

A lot of elements are visual during events: movies, poster, slides, demonstrations. One of the solutions to make it accessible is sensory substitution. For vision, audio and tactile modalities are often used to provide an equivalent of a visual information.

Before describing further this topic, I would like to start with an important information: most of people with visual impairments use vision (and, for instance, if you are sighted, you use your "low vision" by night instead of closing your eyes). Indeed, most of people with visual impairments have low vision (90% if we do not consider colorblindness), and most of people that are blind can perceive light or color in some form. Thus, there is no rational to avoid visual information at all prices. You can improve the access to visual information as well: use appropriate font (e.g. luciole: https://www.luciole-vision.com/luciole-en.html), use good contrast, send the visual media in advance etc.

Here some uses of sensory substitution using smartphone apps or accessible graphics (see the reports below for some references):

• Describing of scene, for instance the presence of people, objects, recognizing coins. It can be done by artificial intelligence applications.

• Reading out loud a printed text, using optical character recognition to transform an image in text. It can be used to read signs, but: the organizer should (1) ensure a logical organization of the signs, so the users can find them, and (2) let the users know about this information in order to use it. It can be done by artificial intelligence applications

• Organizing audio-description services, for the guide tour, the videos, shows and demonstrations. It generally requires an organization in advance, as audio description should not overlap with the original audio information. Thus, dynamic audio description can be difficult to implement.

• Provide a tactile information for maps, graphics and drawings, using relief printings (raised line graphics, 3D printed) or relief tablet

• Use and communicate about the accessibility features of the tools you use, including social networks and document editors.

It can be applied to multiple use-cases:

• Navigation, providing in another sensory modality the visual information related to the space and wayfinding

• Information, providing in another sensory modality the visual information on signs, images and printed medias

• Communication, providing in another sensory modality the visual information related to visual non-verbal cues.

In order to make such use optimal, the organizers of the event can:

• Provide the link to install the apps or to contact the organization on the event information media (e.g. the website)

• Provide the practical information: how will be located the information, what and where to search

• Get the necessary hardware if relevant

• Be sure the network is sufficient if a connection is required by the system, including indoor with a high number of attendees

• Train their team to create accessible contents with their tools

• Design and try in advance the solution, if possible with end users.

To read the two reports of Anna Milena Papanakli, Kathrin Schnizer, Selina Tauscher, and of Michael Huber, Simon Jäger and Anh Nguyen, you can download these documents:

Sensory substitution of audio information

During events, a lot of unexpected and spontaneous information are provided by audio: questions, answers, alarms, announcements. Moreover, during the presentations, the main points are often written on slides and videos, while details and explanations are spoken information.

Before describing further this topic, just like people with visual impairments: most of people with hearing impairments use audio. Thus, there is no rational to avoid audio information at all prices. You can improve the access to audio information as well: clear audio transmission without background noise, volume control etc. Moreover, it is important to know that people with hearing impairments may have difficulties to read, for two reasons: (1) if the language of the person is the sign language, the written language will not be his or her native language, and (2) writing is often a visual transcription (called grapheme) of audio information (phoneme), thus reading is harder to learn with hearing impairments.

Here some uses of audio sensory substitution:

• Audio-to-text, for instance for presentations and videos captioning or live captioning. It can be done by artificial intelligence applications and velotype transcribers. It often requires a microphone close to the speaker. The same microphone can be use for video recording, audio-to-text and audio transmission to the users that need it.

• Sign language interpreters, that you can hire for the event in person, or you can hire online and remote interpreter (e.g. with VerbaVoice)

• text-based platforms to exchange, including questions and answers, or sharing information and announcements.

• Provide an alternative to audio alarms, for instance visual feedback vibrations patterns equivalent to emergency alarms (e.g. the app Sound Alert)

In order to make such use optimal, the organizers of the event can:

• Provide the link to install the apps or to contact the organization on the event information media (e.g. the website)

• Provide the practical information: how will be organize the audio substitution, where to ask interpreters

• Get the necessary hardware if relevant

• Be sure the network is sufficient if a connection is required by the system, including indoor with a high number of attendees

• Train their team to create accessible contents with their tools

• Design and try in advance the solution, if possible with end users.

To read the report of Alexander Kobler and Felix Zenz, you can download this document: