1. W4A 2017: The Future of Accessible Work PEAT Webinar for Global Accessibility Awareness Day – May 18, 2017

2. Logistics Audio is also available over a phone line:
Dial in number:
Conference Code:
Submit questions at any time during the presentation:
Type directly into the Chat window on your screen
using #PEATTalks
Captioning is available:
ntID=

3. But first – how well do you know GAAD?
Poll: What inspired accessibility expert Jennison Asuncion to start Global Accessibility Awareness Day over six years ago?
His colleagues encouraged him to do it
He got the idea while attending an accessibility conference
He read a tweet that piqued his interest

4. What we would like to cover today:
What is W4A?
What was this year’s W4A theme and why?
General highlights and insights from this year’s conference?
Spotlight on keynotes, papers and events relating to this year’s theme
Q&A

5. What is W4A?
The “Web For All” conference has been co-located with the World Wide Web (WWW) conference for 14 years, usually including at least one joint session – this year it was the Accessibility Hack
Started in 2004 as a workshop aiming to make the internet more accessible for people with disabilities
W4A/WWW is considered the top conference for web accessibility research, attracting scientists, students and practitioners
Each of W4A’s 364 papers has been downloaded an average 360 times and with 4.20 citations
Each year’s conference theme reflects emerging trends in web accessibility and encourages researchers to look for innovative solutions

6. 2017 Theme: The Future of Accessible Work
Inclusive work environments have the potential to greatly improve the ability of people to obtain and maintain meaningful employment.
Organizations and employers are also embracing the benefits of being more inclusive in their human resource management.
W4A received 32 submissions from 13 countries covering a wide range of topics. 5 technical papers and 16 communication papers were selected for inclusion into this year’s program.

7. Some highlights and insights to check out
Working from home and the need for a shift in management style
Considerations for implementing a holistic organizational approach to accessibility
Web standards to enable an accessible and inclusive IoT
Cross-cultural web design guidelines
Evaluating the Accessibility of the Job Search and Interview Process for People who are Blind and Visually Impaired

8. Spotlights on keynotes, papers and events
Keynote Address #3 – David Masters
Creating accessible local government: the process
The crowd work accessibility problem
Gaze the web: a gaze-controlled web browser others
Accessibility Hack

9. 1. Keynote Address #3 – David Masters
“Microsoft’s journey towards inclusion”
Abstract:
This paper details Microsoft's Journey towards inclusion and how Microsoft is evolving its culture to be more inclusive, which is driving a wave of innovation at the company focused on supporting people of all abilities
Points:
Recruiting top talent and engaging with disability community and partners
Targeted recruiting approach at universities for PWDs
Disability scholarship for college-bound students to encourage them to go and stay in college and establish a pipeline for future Microsoft candidates

10. 1. Keynote Address #3 – David Masters, cont’d.
Inclusive integration – making sure everything is ready on day 1, and the accommodations are US-based and centralized so no manager has to pay for the accommodations
Writing material for managers to educate and employer them to be the best managers for all staff
Creating an inclusive culture
Incorporated accessibility into “Standards of Business Conduct” which every employee takes every year
Allow for networking within employee resource groups
New innovations: Learning Tools that assist students with learning difficulties, Skype Translator’s live transcript function for the deaf and Seeing AI would all not have happened if we did not have both employees with disabilities and greater disability awareness across the company culture

11. 2. Creating accessible local government: the process
Key Success Factors
Accessibility should be addressed/made priority in City planning documents
Identify issues via feedback and a technical audit
Initiate a formal procurement process for replacement website
Choose a developer who understands accessibility
Train developers and content providers in accessibility
Develop a project plan with accessibility checkpoints in place
Identify issues and find solutions
Determine the success of the project
Plan next steps and projects
Rather than evaluating the websites of local government, this paper examines the process involved in developing an accessible local government website, which forms an integral part of the plan for local government to be truly inclusive
The City of Cockburn (in Western Australia) employs numerous people with disabilities and wanted this approach to be reflected in their websites. 
The paper points to specific key success factors required to update a website to be inclusive while also keeping in mind the constraints on both time and budget
Applies to both the external-facing website as well as Intranet for staff use

12. 3. The crowd work accessibility problem – nominated for best communication paper
Looked at the growing popularity of crowd work and why it would be attractive to people with disabilities – largely because of its flexible nature
People with disabilities are often unable to gain access to the work because the tasks are posted in an inaccessible way
Looked at Amazon Mechanical Turk and tested 120 different tasks from several common types
Outlined research directions that could have an impact on the problem

13. 4. Gaze the web: a gaze-controlled web browser – winner of Judge’s Award – TPG Challenge
A web browser and open source (on GitHub) framework which adopts web interfaces for gaze interaction and where input events (mouse/keyboard interactions) are revised to eye movements
Previous attempts rely on gaze emulation of the mouse and keyboard to operate the browser and results in low usability for web browsing
Supports all browsing operations such as search, navigation and bookmarks
Currently in clinical studies for Neuromuscular disease, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s Disease patients.

14. 5. Accessibility Hack
Hosted at Bankwest and sponsored by the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT), with prizes donated by Microsoft and The Paciello Group (12 X-box sets for winner and runner-up participants)
Hack Target: TAO® TAO Website
Participants were divided up according to skillset with participants from each skillset on every group
We only had the afternoon for the Hack, which was short, but very intense
Judges: W4A Hackathon
Exciting and hopefully will assist TAO with accessibility improvements with code contributed to the TAO code repository

15. Hard at work in great surroundings

16. Thank you – do you have any questions?
You can get further information on our services at our website, Web Key IT at You can me: You can ring me direct on
Dr Vivienne Conway, Director

17. It wasn’t all hard work…Looking forward to meeting up again in Lyon in 2018

18. Join us for next month’s PEAT Talk!
PEAT Talks: Why Jobseekers Need a Digital Brand
When: Thursday, June 15, 2pm-3pm ET
Speaker: Ted Drake, Principal Accessibility Engineer, Intuit
Topic: Today, eRecruiting dominates all aspects of hiring & recruiting, and a successful job search starts by investing in a digital brand. For students with disabilities in particular, strategically shaping an online persona can open many career doors. In this webinar, Intuit’s Ted Drake will profile how several people with disabilities leveraged social media to start successful careers.
Register at