On November 23rd, EBU participated in the concluding online seminar of the UPowerWAD project held in Cyprus. Co-hosted alongside the Swedish company Funka, the Technical University of Dortmund and the Synthesis Center for Research and Education, the event gathered around 40 people across Europe and served as an excellent forum to scale up the initiative’s results in the area of improving digital accessibility of public bodies web sites.
After two years of research, the consortium found out that users with disabilities across Europe barely use feedback mechanisms to report about issues on websites and mobiles applications. To cover that gap, the project partners presented a methodological toolkit focused on how to capture that feedback, as well as a repository of good practices with examples on how to properly design these tools to fulfill that purpose. In line with this, they also underlined the importance of reporting digital accessibility issues as a mean to promote accessibility in the development of public institutions’ webpages.
Following the presentation of the above resources, the UPowerWAD partners also presented a Model Curriculum aimed at empowering users with disabilities by providing them with guidance on how to give actionable feedback. This source also covers the process of designing training programs, emphasizing the need to adjust them according to the target group’s needs.
In order to scale up the results obtained over the course of the initiative, the webinar’ speakers gave more details on the project’s practical guidelines for disseminating its main outputs at a European level. During the discussion, our Project Officer, Amandine Guillemois, presented the consortium’ strategy for spreading the word on their findings, counting on organisations such as the European Disability Forum or universities across Europe to accomplish this objective. Overall, the consortium aims to increase engagement among persons with disabilities in order to empower them in the process of improving digital accessibility of websites and mobile applications of public authorities and institutions.
During the activity, attendants contributed to the discussion with interesting and insightful questions. In order to revise what was discussed over the course of the session, they, as well as people who registered to the event but couldn’t attend the meeting (the event had over 200 registrants), will receive a recording of the seminar by e-mail.
As a concluding remark, the UPowerWAD project will end on January 2024. We encourage you to stay tuned to our channels to find out more about its results and latest updates. You will find more information about its findings and next steps on the following link.