Powering dissemination Accessibility IT tools Other interesting topics

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Powering dissemination : Accesibility, IT tools ...1

Powering dissemination

• Accessibility • IT tools • Other interesting topics

European Statistical

Training

Programme

Disseminating statistics: Internet and Publications

Madrid, 3-5 March 2008

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The movie goes … For your eyes only But what about websites? For your … eyeseyes only?

AccessibilityEST

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Evolution

Some definitions and a fact

Norms and laws

Possible approaches to increase accessibility

INE website accessibility improvements

Some useful links

Index

Accessibility comparison results

Accessibility testing tools

Conclusion

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Evolution

First, humanity evolved ... to the Internet age

Then the evolution of statistics dissemination in the web began

· To disseminate SOME statistical information

· To disseminate MORE statistical information

· To disseminate ALL statistical information

· To disseminate FREE statistical information

· To disseminate SORTED statistical information

· To disseminate BILINGUAL statistical information

· To disseminate ATTRACTIVE statistical information

· To disseminate COMPLETE statistical information

. To disseminate ‘SWIVELized’(Civilized?)statistical information

And now, it may be the moment to increase the dissemination of ACCESSIBLEACCESSIBLE statistical information

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Some definitions and a fact

Wikipedia: Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality

W.H.O. : E-Accessibility, is the ease of use by people with disabilities of information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet. Web sites need to be presented so that disabled users can access the information

European Union Site: eAccessibility is about: - using ICT to overcome traditional barriers,

- making sure that ICTs are not creating barriers themselves

The Fact:”Worldwide, over over 750 million people are people are affected by some type of disability”affected by some type of disability”

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More about ‘The fact’

“The Mission of ReadSpeaker (founded in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1999

is to make the "miracle of the Internet" accessible for accessible for dyslexics, people with learning disabilities, low literacy dyslexics, people with learning disabilities, low literacy

level, people with English as a second language, elderly with level, people with English as a second language, elderly with impaired vision and othersimpaired vision and others that like to listen as well as read.

These groups represents more than 20% of the populationmore than 20% of the population in most European countries and are also an untapped part of the market for online commerce, online banking, etc.”

http://www.readspeaker.com/

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Norms and laws

1.- Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) http://www.w3.org/WAI/

4.- Americans with Disabilities Act http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p70-107.pdf

3.- Communication from COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES to the Council, the European Parliament, the economic and social Committee, and the Committee of Regions. Brussels, 13.09.2005 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/docs/access/cec_com_eacc_2005.html

2.- UNITED NATIONS to focus on improving web access, technology standards for persons with disabilities http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/iddp2006.htm

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Testing Google homepage (1)Testing brightness, and contrast (colour difference)

(http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html)

Tested website

Results

Brightness is OK, but not

enough contrast

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Testing Google homepage (2)

Testing contents with http://www.tawdis.net/taw3/cms/en

Results.(lower) Priority 1=A

2=AA(higher) 3=AAA

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Testing our sitesour sites (using same test)

5 Sites with those 3 pages accessible

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Dissemination Statistics : Internet and Publications

A AA AAA A AA AAA A AA AAA

1 0 11 1 2 6 2 0 7 12 21 339 101 5 7 1 2 6 13 0 24 7 0 22 6 0 15 54 0 0 14 0 1 11 0 1 105 16 155 19 6 39 76 2 2 5 0 11 4 0 2 27 2 24 2 Not available8 0 59 3 0 54 3 52 158 99 4 44 5 4 17 3 5 17 310 0 158 9 0 123 7 0 129 711 4 42 17 2 45 18 1097 3752 44212 3 112 12 2 61 11 3 57 613 17 545 149 16 526 136 16 669 12514 3 7 0 1 37 9 1 63 1615 46 215 42 25 92 23 24 99 2316 4 24 13 4 25 9 4 23 817 0 0 6 0 4 2 0 3 018 2 41 1 1 11 1 5 10 119 1 892 78 1 750 53 1 1145 5020 2 202 21 1 80 14 2 81 1421 43 154 78 31 125 68 43 175 7122 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 74 6

Total: 22 32% 9% 5% 33% 5% 5% 35% 0% 5%

Google.com 0 18 3 'A' in Home+Search+Map: 5 (22) = 23%

Not available

Not available

SITEMAPHOME SEARCH ENGINE ( 'CPI' )WEB

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Possible approaches to increase accessibility (1)

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiproyecto:Wikipedia_grabada

•“Blind or visually-impaired persons can use screen readers, but these programs are still far from being as accurate as human reading” ( and very expensive too).

•“Spoken articles make the Wikipedia accessible to persons who understand a language but are unable to read it.”

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European Commission site: Listening to the screen texts, saving an audio file, and a special printable layout

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Selecting visual styles (colours, contrast)

http://www.seg-social.es/inicio/?MIval=cw_usr_view_Folder&LANG=6&ID=40247

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Spain’s Organization for the Blind ( www.once.es) Changing colours and contrast

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CEAPAT (site only in Spanish) http://www.ceapat.org/accesibilidad.do Accesskeys or keyboard shortcuts

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GOOGLE Custom Search Engine (http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ )

‘Reading’ numbers for people with disabilities

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Possible approaches to increase accessibility (7)Scottish Statistical office, Statistics Denmark, ...

Easy fontsize change

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INE website. Accessibility improvements (1)

Accessible common header

Toolbar

Accessible common

footer

Content section

Customisable toolbar for every section in our site

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Different sections but same header and footer, and different toolbars (buttons, icons, logo, background colour) in order to increase our

website accessibility and usability

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Listening option under implementation

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Main options ( contact, favourites, sitemap) accessible by clicking on an icon

Listening option accessible via icons and accesskey

Easy fontsize change

Accessibility page displaying keyboard shortcuts ( accesskeys)

Search engine and language options available for most of our pages

Easy page printing

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New tool developed using SAPI 5

Two languages using two different voices

Possibility of generating .flv, .wav, .mp3 files

Manually and automatically converting different kinds of files, especially text files, into sound files

Two dictionaries containing the correct pronunciation for special

words, symbols or acronyms

The original voices can be tuned to achieve a more ‘human’ sound

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Some recommended links

• Complete List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools

http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete

• WAI: Strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities

http://www.w3.org/WAI/

• Audio contents (links ordered by product price H -> L) :

Loquendo http://www.loquendo.com/en/demos/demo_tts.htm

Readspeaker http://www.readspeaker.com/

Cepstral http://www.cepstral.com/demos/

Sodeslscot http://www.sodelscot.com/

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For your … eyeseyes only?

Accessibility

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• IT Tools

• Other interesting topics

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Our principles with regard to online dissemination

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Guidelines for designing and maintaining INEbase (common to our entire website) (1)

• Our products are free of charge.

• Availability of the maximum amount of information possible.

• Immediate publication on the website of disseminated information.

• Our information is bilingual, with this option existing on almost all INEbase pages (with certain restrictions).

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• Navigability (bookmarking) of our web pages.

• Accessibility of our web pages (as far as is possible).

• Dual-purpose in terms of target-audience (general public and experts).

• Compatibility with main O.S. and browsers.

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• Adherence to a corporate image common to all our products.

• Concentration of information (details, calendars, methodology…) on an operation on the same webpage.

• Inclusion of the search tool throughout almost all of INEbase.

• Minimise the number of ‘clicks’ necessary to reach an item of information, and time taken to load webpages.

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Users our data is aimed at

Spanish English Observations

Non-expert user YES YES

More straightforward

text and tools

Expert

YES YES

Adding methodologies and statistical tools

People with disabilities

Work in progress Accessible content

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• All the information produced by the INE in electronic formats, organised by subject

• Up-to-date and highly-detailed data. Also summaries. Annual data and data in series format

• A wealth of methodological, descriptive data, …. accessible from the menu for each operation.

• Data from other bodies (Statistical System)

• European data (Eurostat)

• Aimed at all kinds of users (general, specialised)

Storage system for online INE statistical information

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INEbase Structure. Directories and files of which the system is composed

Different software applications browse the thematic tree structure

The ‘Jaxi’ program is the data file and results screen viewer.

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“Phishing is an IT term referring to a type of criminal activity group with fraud, and which is committed by using the type of social engineering which by

nature attempts to fraudulently obtain confidential information (such as a password or detailed information regarding credit cards or

other banking-related information). The fraudster, known as a phisher, masquerades as a trusted person or company in what appears to be an official electronic communication, usually in the form of an email, or an instant messaging

system, or even via telephone calls”

Trying solutions against phishing

1.- Informing... 2.- Detecting downloads from ‘suspicious’ IP’s

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NOTE: We endeavour to tackle phishing

As highlighted at http://www.internautas.org/html/4077.html

Our webpage The ‘phisher’s’ webpage

The following message was being sent:

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Summary of part of what was highlighted

At the INE, by the nature of how we work, we mainly use …

1. Two ways of storing data in our INEbase system

• as Series: previously in Tempus, now in Tempus 2 (Oracle)

• as Tables: PC-Axis files

2. Two ways of presenting/viewing (disseminating) stored information on the website

• in Series: previously in Tempus with a CGI script, now in Tempus 2 (Oracle) with a special software application (jsp)

• in Tables: by means of a common “Jaxi” (JSP) development for PC-Axis tables and for tables formed by Tempus 2 series.

NOTE: Information could quite easily be stored only as series, and displayed only through tables.

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Development of applications

In online software applications, we use:

• J2EE Technologies

• Data storage in an Oracle RDBMS

• Platform used as a web server is Apache

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Elements (methodologies, frameworks, libraries...) used

Online software applications :

• Struts (is a support tool for developing Web applications under the VCM template under the J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) platform. Struts was developed as part of the Apache Software Foundation Jakarta project, but is currently an independent project known as Apache Struts)

• JSF (JavaServer Faces (JSF) is a framework for Java applications based on a website which aids user interface development in Java EE applications. JSF uses JavaServer Pages (JSP) as the technology enabling the layout of webpages, but it can also accommodate other technologies such as XUL)

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Elements (methodologies, frameworks, libraries...) used

Other elements used

• POI (The POI project consists of APIs for manipulating several file formats based on the Microsoft OLE 2 compound document format, using pure Java). We use it for exporting to Excel.

• PDFlib (PDFlib is an extensively-used program library, which enables the programmer to generate and manipulate files in Adobe format). We use it to generate .PDF files

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Tools used

Software applications for internal use (Intranet)

Applications of this type are developed using Visual Studio .NET

We currently have the 2005 version at the INE

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Tools usedInternet/Intranet Applications.

Jbuilder for programming applications (Jbuilder is a Borland Java IDE –Integrated Development Environment). This software was created in 1995

Toad for handling and designing data models. TOAD is an SQL and database administration software application, regarded as a useful tool for Oracle DBAs (database administrators). TOAD is available for the following databases: Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, and MySQL

Paessler Webstress for stress and load testing applications. This tool is designed to realistically simulate several browsers requesting websites from a web server. It may be used to gather information on the functioning and user stability of a Web application, firing requests from a single machine

XMLspy as an editor and generator of XML applications

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A look at some sophistications to round off this subject

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Eye tracking

This is a hot topic which has been the subject of many recent international meetings. In summary we will look at some conclusions from one of the studies carried out: (http://www.alt64.com/eyetrackingmedia/patron_de_navegacion.php ).

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking) “Eye tracking consists of measuring the point being focused on, or eye movement in relation to head movement”

According to ( http://www.xperienceconsulting.com/servicios.asp?ap=27 ), 'Eye Tracking' is a non-intrusive, yet highly accurate means of analysing pupil movement

It is a sophistication, but we can also design our website with prior knowledge of which parts of it our users look at, concentrate on, and those parts they don’t bother reading

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Eye tracking

Different scanning patterns, by sex of persons, or by order of loading of page elements

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Eye tracking

If a title (without white space) is followed by the content or news summary (lead), the users reads it all, whereas if a space is left between both sets of content, the user skips over that section. Also the catchiness of the initial words of the aforementioned title determines whether or not the person reads on.

(http://www.alt64.com/eyetrackingmedia/entradillas2.php)

The majority of subjects looking at advertisements looked, among other things, at the banner at the top of the page, where there was one

Keywords: certain words attract the attention of certain users. These words are not read in the context of the article, but are perceived through lateral vision. Detection of those words halts the scan for the person to decide whether or not the subject is of interest.

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Eye tracking

Useful links

1. Wikipedia article:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking

2. Website of a Spanish company dedicated to this subject (very interesting study and conclusions):

• http://www.alt64.com/eyetrackingmedia/

3. Previously mentioned comprehensive study:

• http://www.alt64.com/extras/Eyetracking_Media_Espana.pdf

4. An English-speaking company:

• http://www.eyetracking.com/

5. Another English-speaking company:

• http://www.enquiroresearch.com/

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Natural Finder http://www.bitext.com/natural-finder.asp

Statement by the manufacturer: “NaturalFinder is the essential complement to any Internet or intranet search facility: it enables natural-language look-ups (Spanish or English), without the need to use operators only suitable for advanced users (Boolean, wildcards...). Thanks to linguistic technology, the user concentrates on writing the look-up in his or her own language, as if asking another person”

Search text examples:

• I want information regarding transportation of dangerous goods by road

• I need data on exchanging one position for another

• I want information regarding high technology public examinations

• Current law on rural leases

• I want information on public works in Majorca

• Information on taxes in Poland

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Natural Finderhttp://www.bitext.com/natural-finder.asp

Our verdicts after trying it out:

• We managed to change the search tool, adding ‘empty’ words (some verbs, prepositions, adverbs...) for them to be removed before searching the index. For example: ‘I want the national cpi’ would return the same links as ‘national cpi’

• Natural Finder would not be able to search any of the important areas of our site, for example Tempus2

• The cost(time and money)/benefit relationship was not to our advantage

• Users have grown accustomed to searching in computer-speak, in other words, not using perfect Spanish: ‘General National CPI’ rather than ‘I want to know which was the General National CPI’. This means that they would obtain the same thing by typing fewer words.

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Other issues to be aware of and investigate (1)

• AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) :

1. a new term to describe two browser capabilities which have been around for years, but overlooked by many web developers:

• The ability to query the server without needing to reload the page.

• The ability to analyse and work with XML documents

• http://developer.mozilla.org/es/docs/AJAX:Primeros_Pasos

2. It stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, which is a web development technique for creating interactive applications. These are executed on the client side, in other words, in users’ browsers, and run asynchronous communication with the server in the background. In this way it is possible to make changes on the actual page without having to reload it. This means an increase in page interactivity, speed usability

• Web 2.0 http://www.internality.com/web20/ “when we talk about the term Web 2.0, we mean a series of applications and Web pages which use collective intelligence to provide interactive network services giving the user control of his or her data”. Example of statitical web2.0 experiences on following slide:

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-An extremely interesting application with OECD data and using the SDMX format http://stats.oecd.org/nawwe/csp/default.html

-Curious example of SVG graphics for the British population pyramid: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/populationestimates/svg_pyramid/uk/index.html

-Curious and overloaded clock with a whole host of indicators :http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

-Well-presented page with names in the Swiss canton of Zurich : http://www.statistik.zh.ch/vornamen/vorname.php?nam=&M=&F=&year=9999

-Appealing and useful European atlas from the Swiss : http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/international/02/statatlas_europa.html ( pinchar 'statatlas' )

-Interesting Swiss tool: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/international/laenderportraets/spain/blank/kennzahlen/comparator.html

-Automatic website translation, by Google: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

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The wayback machine (http://www.archive.org/)

Old version ( 1998) Current version

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Other possibilities for improving the performance of a website.

Akamai Servers

According to one distributor: “it is a revolutionary online content and application delivery service which transforms the Internet from an unreliable transfer medium, into a high-performance network.

The service makes it possible, with a simple change in the DNS, to download at speeds between 2 and 10 times faster than the times stipulated as normal, also guaranteeing a secure and reliable download. It is based on the simple concept of replicating client server content on replicating client server content on AkamaiAkamai and distributing it from the latter on the basis of certain criteria, such as: geographical location, server availability, etc.”

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When on site : navigation and indices*

Up to 30% use the web site navigation to find the information they are looking for.

As nearly 80% of all visitors come to a website by using search engines, every page (not only the “Homepage”) becomes a landing page. Consequence: A clear, context oriented navigation is needed and shows users the way. Indices may foster orientation.* Armin Grossenbacher FSO

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Things are moving faster than ever in dissemination*

Official Statistics • has to make up its mind in disseminating, explore

new paths and opening new paths to users• should never forget to manage its treasures, which

are not only high qualitative data but also big trust gained over centuries

• needs an additional code about the usage of new technologies and interacting

* Armin Grossenbacher FSO

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Powering dissemination

• Accessibility• IT tools • Other interesting topics

Disseminating statistics: Internet and Publications

Madrid, 3-5 March 2008

Thank you very much for your attention. Any questions, please?

European Statistical

Training

Programme

Powering dissemination Accessibility IT tools Other interesting topics

Documents

Transcript of Powering dissemination Accessibility IT tools Other interesting topics