Browsing without the hurdles
2012-06-27
(Press-News.org) For companies in Germany, web accessibility has never been a compelling issue until now – this was also confirmed by a series of tests conducted in 2011 by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT in Sankt Augustin. The scientists at the Web Compliance Center used their analysis tools to test the "web compliance" – or adherence to international web standards – among the Internet sites of German companies listed on the DAX. The outcome: 90 percent of the websites exhibited substantial flaws. For instance, important data could only be found after much effort, the websites took too long to load, or they were deficiently displayed on mobile devices. "'Web compliance' not only means optimizing websites so that they can be used by disabled and older persons," explains Dr. Carlos Velasco of the Web Compliance Center at FIT. "Search engines such as Google also have considerable problems with faulty sites. This may make the sites impossible to find or prevent them from ranking high in search requests. That is why this issue actually deserves a high priority."
Economic advantages through accessibility
An increasing number of companies have since realized that accessibility also comes with major economic advantages. Hewlett Packard Italia, Public-I Group and Polymedia, for example, are participating in the EU research project, "Inclusive Future-Internet Web Services (I2Web)." Coordinated by FIT, the project has a budget of EUR 2.7 million for a 2 and half years. The partners include the University of York (United Kingdom) and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), as well as the National Council for the Blind of Ireland and the Foundation for Assistive Technology (FAST). Participating companies offer Internet television, Video On Demand (VOD), online banking services and content management systems. These sites will soon be barrier-free.
Monitoring social networks for illegal activities
To enable site operators to monitor their sites efficiently, the FIT computer scientists had already developed the "imergo Web Compliance Suite" back in 2004. It is comprised of a series of tools that can be integrated into content management systems. They review websites for adherence to certain rules, and these not only cover accessibility: for instance, one could monitor a social network such as Facebook for certain word groups that point to illegal activities. A company could also verify if the corporate design standards were being met on all their pages. "Typically, several content editors take care of large websites," says Velasco. "The suite tests whether the logo is located in the right spot on every page, for example."
The EU project "I2Web" launched in 2010 is a kind of progression from the "imergo Web Compliance Suite." The prototype contains, for instance, a development environment for an Expert Viewer. Not all accessibility guidelines can be checked automatically by a software program. For instance, photographs on a website should have a suitable alternative text. While a test tool can detect whether a text exists, it cannot determine if it also "suitably" describes what can be seen in the image. So the Expert Viewer offers a list of all relevant image texts that editors can review for the correctness of content. One important part of the EU project is conformity with interfaces, such as when customers wish to use Video On Demand or Internet TV on their televisions. "I2Web" ensures that the websites work seamlessly on all devices (if possible), and can be operated with complete accessibility.
Given the rapid pace of the Internet's evolution, the researchers at FIT will not soon run out of things to do: they will consistently have to adapt their tools to new browsers, the latest mobile devices and additional interfaces. But their work pays off: Open Text, a leading provider of content management systems, successfully markets the "imergo tools" as an additional option on its products.
INFORMATION:
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2012-06-27
Physicists investigating a recent crowd disaster in Germany found that one of the key causes was that at some point the crowd dynamics turned turbulent, akin to behaviour found in unstable fluid flows. The study, led by Dirk Helbing from the Risk Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, Switzerland, is published in EPJ Data Science¹.
Never before have crowd disasters been studied by relying on a qualitative analysis of large public data sets. These include media and public authority reports, YouTube videos, Google Earth maps, 360˚ photographs, ...
2012-06-27
Aircraft turbulence guidelines should be rewritten after new research revealed thunderstorms could produce unexpected turbulence more than 100km away from storm cells.
The research by University of Melbourne and the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science researcher, Dr Todd Lane, has highlighted the impact of atmospheric gravity waves caused by thunderstorms and how air safety guidelines have not taken them into account.
"It is likely that many reports of encounters with turbulence are caused by thunderstorm generated gravity waves, making them far more ...
2012-06-27
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Online shoppers would rather receive an offer for a product or service than make their own offer, according to a study led by a Michigan State University scholar that has implications for the fast-growing e-commerce industry.
The findings may come as a surprise given that shopping online is an anonymous process that seemingly can give consumers more confidence to drive a hard bargain, said Don Conlon, Eli Broad Professor of Management in MSU's Broad College of Business.
But the study found that participants who made their own offers were less successful ...
2012-06-27
Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia scientists have discovered a new flu-fighting role for a well-known component of the immune system. Kimberly Klonowski, assistant professor of cellular biology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and her colleagues found that administering a cell-signaling protein known as IL-15 to mice infected with influenza reduces their peak viral load by nearly three times.
"We gave the IL-15 intranasally and found that it enhanced the movement of the immune system's natural killer cells and CD8 T cells into the lung airways," said ...
2012-06-27
The energy generated from our oceans could be doubled using new methods for predicting wave power. Research led by the University of Exeter, published (27 June) in the journal Renewable Energy, could pave the way for significant advancements in marine renewable energy, making it a more viable source of power.
The study was carried out by a team of mathematicians and engineers from the University of Exeter and Tel Aviv University. They devised a means of accurately predicting the power of the next wave in order to make the technology far more efficient, extracting twice ...
2012-06-27
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Cooling systems that use a liquid that changes phase — such as water boiling on a surface — can play an important part in many developing technologies, including advanced microchips and concentrated solar-power systems. But understanding exactly how such systems work, and what kinds of surfaces maximize the transfer of heat, has remained a challenging problem.
Now, researchers at MIT have found that relatively simple, microscale roughening of a surface can dramatically enhance its transfer of heat. Such an approach could be far less complex and more ...
2012-06-27
From Earth, observers use telescopes to look and learn about the distant luminous spheres. But the telescope often isn't the only instrument used. Karl Gebhardt, professor of astrophysics at The University of Texas at Austin and one of the principal investigators for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) project, makes revolutionary discoveries about dark matter by combining deep-space observations with the powerful Lonestar supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).
Dark matter exerts a gravitational pull on matter in a galaxy, ...
2012-06-27
Athens, Ga. – People love social networks. That's the obvious conclusion from Facebook's 900 million active users and its current standing as one of the most visited sites on the web, second only to Google. New research from the University of Georgia finds what people may really "like" about social networking are themselves.
"Despite the name 'social networks,' much user activity on networking sites is self-focused," said Brittany Gentile, a UGA doctoral candidate who looked at the effects of social networks on self-esteem and narcissism.
According to the research, ...
2012-06-27
Ann Arbor, Mich. — Many hospitals offer residency programs for doctors in training, allowing them to complete the education needed to become practicing physicians. Hospitals find those residents using National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) rules, but a new study finds wide variation in the interpretation of those rules.
The NRMP rules are intended to minimize pressure on residency candidates, says lead author Diana S. Curran, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., residency program director for the U-M Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. But her study, published in the Journal of ...
2012-06-27
New data released by the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) to coincide with World Spirometry Day today has revealed a worrying lack of understanding and concern among the public about the world's biggest killer - lung disease, which now claims the lives of almost 4 million people a year.
Despite the high incidence of lung disease, research conducted by YouGov across four continents revealed that people are far more worried about cancer, heart disease and stroke . This lack of concern is even more striking as data shows that while the other major diseases ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Browsing without the hurdles
