The message below is from Iris Xie, Ph.D. Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Please contact Iris Xie, Ph.D. at https://sites.uwm.edu/hiris if you have any questions or are interested in participating in this project.
The Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) is serving as a partner for the IMLS-funded project "Digital Library Accessibility and Usability Guidelines (DLAUG) to Support Blind and Visually Impaired Users." With your support, the project is completed. We have conducted user studies, created the guidelines based on the problems that BVI users encountered in their interactions with DLs, conducted the survey with three groups of stakeholders for the draft of the guidelines, had DL developers assessed the existing DLs based on the guidelines, ran focus groups, implemented the changes for the guidelines based on suggestions from consultants, users, scholars/experts, and developers. You can find the DLAUG on the project site.
Last year, we submitted our preliminary proposal "Universal Accessibility and Usability of Digital Libraries in the Mobile Environment: Developing design guidelines to support blind and visually impaired users" for the next stage of our work to the mobile environment. We are extending the research from PC to the mobile environment and incorporate guidelines to support BVI users in their interactions with digital libraries via mobile apps or mobile interfaces. Recently, we were informed that our proposal was selected for the final proposal submission for the next stage of the project.
Please let me know if their are any members of your section who are interested in serving as a partner or an advisory board member for the project. The main role of the partner/advisory board member is to help the project team to promote and disseminate the accessibility and usability guidelines for the design of digital libraries in the mobile environment.
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Brooke Morris-Chott
Advocacy and EDI Program Officer
Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures
American Library Association
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