Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011
Andrea Saks, Convener
ITU-T Joint Coordination Activity on Accessibility & Human Factors (JCA-AHF)
Cynthia Waddell, Juris Doctor and Executive Director
International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet (ICDRI)
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011
Committed to connecting the world
International
Telecommunication
Union
1

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
 Adopted by the UN General Assembly 13 December 2006
 Entered into force 3 May 2008
 Signed by 147 States Parties and ratified by 98 (as of
January 2011)
 Contains many accessible ICT provisions throughout the treaty
 Article 9 refers to accessibility and ICT’s
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
2

What is Universal Design
 UNCRPD Definition: The design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. It does not apply to assistive devices for particular groups of persons with disabilities where this is needed.
 9(2)(h) “to promote the design, development, production and distribution of accessible ICTs and systems at an early stage, so that these technologies and systems become accessible at minimum cost.”
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
3

Who does the technical work?
ITU-T Study Groups & Questions
ITU-T Study Group 2 Operational aspects of service provision and telecommunications management
 Question 4/2 Human factors related issues for improvement of the quality of life through international telecommunications
 Question 4/2 studies the needs of children, persons with age-related disabilities, and persons who may or may not have a disability
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
4

Who does the technical work?
ITU-T Study Groups & Questions
ITU-T Study Group 16 :
Multimedia coding, systems and applications
Lead study group on Accessibility
 Question 26/16 addresses Accessibility to Multimedia
Systems and Services for persons with disabilities
 It assists standards writers to include accessibility features in their standards
 It encourages standards writers to use Universal Design from the beginning of the standards process
 It reviews other standards developed in other study groups to see if additional accessibility work is needed
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
5

ITU-T Joint Coordination Activity on
Accessibility and Human Factors
(JCA-AHF)
 Coordinates the work between Question 4 and Question 26
 Helps the rest of ITU, including ITU-R and ITU-D, on accessibility and human factors
 Invites organizations and individuals with experience in accessibility and human factors and persons with disabilities to attend its meetings and to share best practices
 Meets twice a year and is open for outside participation
 For more information: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/jca/ahf/index.html
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
6

Examples of ITU Standards in Use in the World Today for Persons with Disabilities
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
7

ITU-T V.18: ITU’s First
Accessibility Standard for Deaf
Telecommunications
 Consented in 1995 and unified 5 different types of text telephones so that they would work back to back
 Text Telephones:
 Convert typed characters into tones that are sent through the telephone lines so that deaf people can read them in real time
 Used with a "relay" service enabling deaf people to communicate with hearing people
(an operator reads what a deaf person types and types back to the deaf person what a hearing person says)
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
8

ITU-T E.161: The Tactile
Identifier
• To help people who are blind & visually impaired to use the telephone keypad
• The “Bump” on key “5” is the tactile identifier
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011
Committed to connecting the world
International
Telecommunication
Union
9

ITU-T F.703
”Total Conversation”
 Puts user in the center of the communication society
 Is an audiovisual conversation service providing real-time transfer of video, text and voice between users
Users with Total
Conversation
Real-time text
Devices
Text, Sign
& Captioned
Relay Services
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
Emergency services
Outreach 112
, 911,...
10

How a deaf-blind person uses multimedia communication
Example: A deaf-blind woman in a Total Conversation call, producing sign-language and receiving text by using assistive technology/Refreshable Braille Display
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
11

Video/Text Relay Services
Video/Text relay service
Operator translating sign language, voice, text
3-party
Signing user
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011
Talking, Voice and Text
Committed to connecting the world
12

ITU-T Y.1901: Making IPTV accessible
 Audio description describing to the blind the visual action on the screen
 Captions enabling people with hearing loss to understand the dialogue
 Supplementary video to display sign language interpretation
 Many other tools such as the ability of the user to record accessibility features
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
13

Sign language and lipreading via video
•ITU-T Supplement 1 to
H-series consented in 1999
•Establishes a minimum of
25 frames per second to be usable for sign language and lip-reading in real-time
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
14

Captioning
• Real-time transcript of speakers on screen
• Mandatory for hearing impaired participants
• Useful for persons whose native language is not being spoken
• Captioning service can be provided on site or remotely
• Allows remote participation as captioning can be viewed on an URL on the web
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
15

The latest ITU Accessibility
Landmark PP10 Resolution 175
 The first ITU Plenipotentiary Resolution on
Accessibility is consented in Guadalajara,
Mexico October 2010:
 “Telecommunication/information and communication technology accessibility for persons with disabilities, including age-related disabilities”
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
16

Conclusions
 International Standards are important for accessibility because without them we do not have Interoperability
 Standards are not enough because without
Implementation by Industry , we do not have
Accessibility
 Without Universal Design being used from the very beginning of the standard making process,
Accessibility implementation becomes expensive with retro refitting
 ITU-T has opened opportunities for academia, research bodies and persons with disabilities to participate in the accessibility standards work
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
17

Thanks for your attention
Additional information slides are attached; For more information on
ITU Accessibility see: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/accessibility http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/jca/ahf/index.html
Email: Andrea.Saks@ties.itu.int
Cynthia.Waddell@icdri.org
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
18

Additional Information
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
19

ITU Accessibility Events in 2010
 Joint WIPO-ITU Accessibility Workshop
Geneva, Switzerland, 2 - 5 February 2010
 ITU workshop on Accessibility to ICTs
Expo-10, Shanghai, China, 23 July 2010
 DCAD workshop on “From Athens to Vilnius: beyond the
UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities”
IGF, Vilnius, Lithuania, 14 – 17 September 2010
 DCAD - EBU workshop on “Can mobile ‘Apps’ create a new golden age of Accessibility?”,
IGF, Vilnius, Lithuania, 14 – 17 September 2010
 World Standard Cooperation (ITU, ISO, IEC) Workshop on
Accessibility and the contribution of international
standards, Geneva, Switzerland, 3 – 5 November 2010
 Joint ITU-EBU Workshop “Media access to all”,
Geneva, Switzerland, 23 – 24 November 2010
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
20

ITU-T’s Accessibility
Landmarks
 First international standards body to address accessibility issues - in 1991
 1994 the international text telephone standard,
Recommendation ITU-T V.18, was published
 A major landmark tying together text telephone protocols allowing different - previously incompatible – text phones in different countries to communicate
 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly 2008
(WTSA-08): first ITU Resolution addressing accessibility
 World Telecommunication Development Conference 2010
(WTDC-10): Resolution
 14 October 2010: World Standards Day:
“Standards make the world accessible for all”
 First Plenipotentiary Accessibility Resolution PP10 2010
Resolution 175
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
21

Some ITU-T Standards on
Accessibility
 ITU-T V.18 for text telephony
 ITU-T T.140 as the general presentation protocol for text conversation,
 ITU-T T.134 for text conversation in the ITU-T T.120 data conferencing environment,
 Annex G to ITU-T H.323 for text conversation in ITU-T H.323 packet multimedia environment.
 Annex L to ITU-T H.324 for text conversation in low bit-rate multimedia applications
 ITU-T F.703 – Multimedia conversation service description.
Includes definitions of the accessible conversational services
 H-series Supplement 1 – Application profile – Sign language and lip reading real time conversation using low bit rate video communication
 ITU-T F.790 – Telecommunications accessibility guidelines for older persons and persons with disabilities
 ITU-T Y.1901, Requirements for the support of IPTV services
 Technical Paper: Telecommunications Accessibility Checklist
Seminar on ITU-T Standardization and other key ITU Activities
Havana, Cuba
8 – 9 February 2011 Committed to connecting the world
22