SERW 2012 - symposium on easy-to-read on the Web

This symposium brings together researchers, practitioners, content authors, designers, developers, and users with disabilities to share research-based experiences, including examples, tools, concepts, and ideas, on how to make information on the Web easier to understand by different audiences. The symposium aims to explore the user needs and state of the art in research, development, and practice to contribute to a common understanding of easy-to-read on the Web. It is intended to encourage the development of better guidance, support, and tools for developers, designers, and users, and to inform researchers, standards developers, and policy makers on how to better address easy-to-read on the Web. In particular, it is intended to analyze how to better connect, elaborate, and integrate the user needs in web accessibility guidelines and techniques.
Dates
Submission deadline: 12 October 2012
Registration opens: 20 November 2012
Symposium: 3 December 2012, probably 15:00-17:00 UTC
Background
Providing information in a way that can be understood by the majority of users is an essential aspect of accessibility for people with disabilities. This includes rules, guidelines, and recommendations for authoring text, structuring information, enriching content with images and multimedia, and designing layout to meet these requirements.
This domain is commonly referred to "Easy to Read". Considerable work has been done in this field and different approaches, tools, and heuristics have emerged. This includes the development of different guidelines, rules, and recommendations such as those listed in European Standards for making information easy to read and understand.
However, more research is needed to better understand the accessibility needs of the users, to analyze the different approaches, and to propose a way forward in providing more comprehensive access to language on the Web.
In parallel, other research fields share similar goals or include complementary development. For example, research in usability on the Web contributed to the concept of Plain Language and the development of different methods and tools to measure readability. This domain also provides a wide spectrum of guidelines and methods to make the Web easier to use, such as design guidelines for homepage usability and international user interfaces. These invite investigation regarding overlap with the needs of users with cognitive disabilities.
The domains of linguistics and language technologies, including Natural Language Processing (NLP), have made significant progress in grammar & style-checking (sometimes called Controlled Language), translation, annotation, enhancement, and summarizing. Compelling research and sophisticated tools have been developed to support content authors and users, and there is apparent mutual benefit of further investigating the deployment of these tools in the domain of easy-to-read.
Finally, research and development in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) provides a related set of resources on user requirements, guidelines, methods, techniques and tools for the use of language, including the use of symbol systems and symbolic languages. While this primarily addresses a more specific group of users the research, experience, and tools from this domain could benefit easy-to-read for a wider audience.
But still easy-to-read on the Web today is first of all driven by day to day practice of translating information (on demand). More research is needed to better understand the needs of the users, to analyze and compare the different approaches, to come to a common definition, and to propose a way forward in providing more comprehensive access to language on the Web.
Further background is available on the RDWG wiki page on easy-to-read.
User Group
People with cognitive disabilities related to functionality such as
Memory
Problem solving (conceptualizing, planning, sequencing, reasoning and judging thoughts and actions)
Attention (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - ADHD) and awareness
Reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension (Dyslexia)
Visual Comprehension
Mental health disabilities
People with low language skills including people who are not fluent in a language
People with auditory disabilities that impact reading of written language
Objectives
The main objectives of this symposium are to:
Outline and share a definition of easy-to-read
Describe, define, and compare the needs of different user groups regarding easy-to-read
Analyze the current state of the art (guidelines, examples, tools, concepts, and ideas) in the field of easy-to-read on the Web and to propose how to make information on the Web easier to understand as well as discussing easy-to-read as an aspect of mainstream, design for all or individualized adaptations
Integrate easy-to-read into web accessibility guidelines and standards
Provide guidance to standards developers and policy makers on how to better consider and address the user needs
Encourage the continued development of tools, techniques, and implementations to support people with disabilities
Identify lack of research and encourage further research on easy-to-read on the Web
Beyond these core objectives the symposium welcomes contributions addressing questions like tool support, research and development in linguistics, language technologies, and natural language processing as well as concepts and models for implementation of easy-to-read in practice.