Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The agenda included a series of 8 webinars based on the preferences collected during the 7th WADEX meeting.
The sessions took place every 2 weeks (holidays excluded) between 26 January and 18 May 2021.
Please find below the calendar of webinars, the minutes of each session and the relevant material (presentations, links, and documents).
8th WADEX Meeting – Webinars calendar 2021 (.pdf)
8th WADEX Meeting – Minutes of webinars 1 to 8
The recordings of the 7 sessions (the last one was an internal discussion and was not recorded) are available in Futurium for WADEX members only.
1. Tuesday 26 January 2021
Web application for collecting accessibility statements online
AGID – Italy
The Agency for Digital Italy (AGID) has developed a web application that helps reach a large number of public sector bodies and at the same time helps the public sector bodies draft and publish a WAD-compliant accessibility statement on their websites. The speakers presented their web application for collecting accessibility statements on line. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session.
Relevant documents for this meeting:
2. Tuesday 9 February 2021
How to define and harmonise accessibility scales?
BOSA – Belgium
The representative from BOSA, the Belgian Office for Web Accessibility, set up the stage for a lively discussion around two issues: finding the best way to assess and quantify the level of accessibility, and expressing compliance levels in (dynamic or static) percentages, paving the way for formal EU labelling. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session.
Relevant documents for this meeting:
3. Tuesday 23 February 2021
A metric for monitoring
DIGS / DIGG / Inklusio – Denmark / Sweden
The Danish Agency for Digitisation, Inklusio and the Swedish Agency for Digital Government shared the "website accessibility scoring system" developed as a tool for monitoring public websites in Denmark, and preliminary findings and conclusions. The aim of the presentation was to invite contributions and discussions from other EU member states to plan the further development and utilisation of the scoring system.
Speakers:
- Agency for digitization, Denmark
- Inklusio, Denmark
The presentation was followed by a Q&A session.
Relevant documents for this meeting:
4. Tuesday 9 March 2021
Update from the European Commission + WAI-Coop project + Review of WAD / Next steps
European Commission/ WAI-CooP / PWC
The European Commission updated the WADEX members on the New Disability Strategy, adopted on 3 March 2021, and on the WAI-CooP project, the Digital Accessibility Observatory to support MS and stakeholders in implementing the Directive. An update on the review of the Web Accessibility Directive was also presented, in collaboration with the consortium in charge of the study supporting the review of the Directive, in which the Member States will be directly involved.
Speakers:
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Web Accessibility Directive team — European Commission
-
W3C
-
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
-
Funka
Each presentation was followed by a Q&A session.
Relevant documents for this meeting:
- Presentation by European Commission - WAD team
- Presentation by the Consortium in charge of the study supporting the review
- Presentation of the WAI-CooP project
- Minutes
5. Tuesday 23 March 2021
Resources on accessibility of digital publications + Reading disability and document access
Publications office of the European Union
The Publications Office of the European Union (OP) is in charge of the production and dissemination of legal and general publications in paper and electronic formats. It manages a range of websites providing EU citizens, governments and businesses with digital access to official information and data from the EU, including EUR-Lex, the EU Open Data Portal, EU Publications, TED (Tenders Electronic Daily), and CORDIS. As the publishing service provider of the EU Institutions, it has an important role in the field of inclusive publishing.
In the first part of the webinar, the OP presented to the WADEX members the e-learning package on accessibility of digital publications, freely available to any interested person inside and outside the EU institutions. The e-learning includes motivational resources, key concept elements of accessible digital content, and practical guidelines for using tools to create digital publications (MS Word, InDesign) in different formats (PDF, HTML, EPUB, mobile apps and audio-visual publications).
The OP has also been mandated by the European Parliament to run the pilot project ‘Reading disability and document access, a possible approach (RDDA)’.
In the second part of the webinar, the two phases of the project were presented: 1) assessment of user needs, accessibility of resources by the European Institutions, tools and solutions for enhancement of accessibility, and 2) the Proof of Concept using solutions identified.
More info: RDDA PoC Website
Each presentation was followed by Q&A sessions.
Relevant documents for this meeting:
- Presentation by the Publications Office — 'Resources on Accessibility'
- Presentation by the Publications Office — 'Reading disability and access to documents'
- Minutes
6. Tuesday 20 April 2021
Web accessibility indicators (DESI)
European Commission
The unit “Digital Economy, Recovery Plan and Skills” of the European Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG Connect) is responsible for tracking and monitoring progress of Europe’s digital transition at EU level and across Member States.
In this webinar, DG Connect presented the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), a composite index that summarises relevant indicators on Europe’s digital performance and tracks the evolution of EU Member States in digital competitiveness. The focus was on Digital Public Services DESI’s dimension and the eGovernment Benchmark with special reference to the web accessibility pilot.
The aim of this webinar was to discuss about potential approaches/indicators to measure web accessibility for the mid-/long-term future. This will not lead to immediate action but was intended to start the discussion on the topic.
The presentation was followed by Q&A session and a discussion.
Relevant documents for this meeting:
7. Tuesday 4 May 2021
AI for accessibility monitoring
By BOSA – Belgium
The speaker from BOSA, explained how automated accessibility checking tools typically only scan for and detect about 20-30% of actual accessibility issues, limiting the scalability of accessibility monitoring. This project was set up to test AI-based approaches to increase coverage of automated accessibility monitoring to issues typically only covered in manual testing. Specifically, the checks already implemented are testing for contrast issues beyond the simplest cases and the detection of incorrect language-tagging of content. Further work is planned to detect bad alternative descriptions for images and distinguishing between decorative and non-decorative page elements.
Implementation of the Web Accessibility Directive: what do users think?
By European Disability Forum (EDF)
This presentation by EDF provided a quick overview of the results of a European Disability Forum survey carried out during the second half of 2020. This survey was conducted with a self-selected sample of 90 end users with disabilities in 19 Member States.
Each presentation was followed by Q&A session and a discussion.
Relevant documents for this meeting:
8. Tuesday 18 May 2021
Post-WADEX meetings open discussion
MIRRI – Slovakia
This eighth webinar was organised on the initiative of the Slovak WADEX member, the Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization (MIRRI).
The open informal discussion developed around the following topics, and was moderated by the Slovak Monitoring team:
- Strategies for adopting ETSI norms in the monitoring and reporting process
- Real-life experiences from simplified and in-depth testing
- Dissemination and awareness-raising activities
Relevant documents for this meeting:
Downloads
Author
DG Connect - Web Accessibility Directive Team