Site for youth ensures easy access to all

As part of their commitment to creating a community for every young person in Qatar, the organisers of TEDxYouth@Doha, an annual event where youth-driven ideas are exchanged, are ensuring that their website can be accessed by everyone. The site, launched this week, is designed to meet international e-accessibility standards. The team has worked diligently to make sure all the content can be enjoyed by visitors without barriers created by lack of vision or reading difficulties. Uzair Mohamed, co-curator of TEDxYouth@Doha, said: “By working with Mada (Qatar Assistive Technology Center), the TEDxYouth@Doha web development team had been able to design a website, which allowed people with different needs and abilities to access the content. “Our desire is for TEDxYouth@Doha to become an intrinsic part of the Qatari society. That is why we are ensuring that all of our communication channels, including our website, are accessible to people with disabilities, according to our communications strategy. All our marketing materials reflect this primary goal - to reach out to all the youth in Qatar,” Mohamed explained. Among other things, having an easily accessible website means that users who rely on technologies such as screen readers or Braille displays, are able to navigate the content easily. E-accessibility experts at Mada provided the necessary advice that was required to ensure that the TEDxYouth@Doha website was universally accessible to all. David Banes, CEO of Mada said: “We are pleased to see popular initiatives such as TEDxYouth@Doha making such a strong commitment to e-accessibility. The fact that the event and all of its content is organised by young people, is a sign that Qatar is making real progress in building an accessible ICT environment in the near future.” The Digital Development team at TEDxYouth@Doha is mainly comprised of students. Many of these young people attended a workshop on e-accessibility organised by Mada. The day-long session is regularly offered by Mada, free of charge, to web developers and content managers, covering a wide range of topics on how to build accessible digital platforms. Nazar Salim, lead web developer for TEDxYouth@Doha and a student at Qatar University, said: “The Mada e-accessibility workshop enabled our team to envision a website that balanced aesthetics and functionality in a way that we had never thought of before. Our innovative design will include several accessibility features, and will hopefully be a trend-setter in the Qatari digital sphere.” The impact of building an accessible website will be felt beyond the success of the event. Many of the young people working on the project are on a career path in the world of web development and will use the skills they have gained through TEDxYouth@Doha and Mada in their adult lives and jobs, whether in Qatar, or beyond. A student at Doha’s Ideal Indian School, 18-year-old Shaikh Farhan, was one of the young volunteers who attended the Mada-run workshop. “I learnt so much about designing websites that I hadn’t even thought about before, not just from an e-accessibility perspective, but otherwise as well. A lot of the lessons our team learnt at the Mada workshops are displayed on the website. “I would never have had a chance to learn these skills without TEDxYouth@Doha. It has been a really worthwhile effort in which to get involved. I find that my friends are really interested in what I am doing and a lot of them also want to involve themselves in it next year.” Farhan and the rest of the team have ensured that their website takes into account issues such as colour contrast, enabling low-vision and colour-blind users to access the site. The website will also include alternative text, which is essential for blind users who depend on assistive technology to access the site. For its part, Mada has acknowledged the level of accessibility achieved by the TEDxYouth@Doha website by awarding it the “Access Committed” badge as part of the National Web Accreditation Programme. Through this programme, websites across Qatar are recognised for different levels of commitment made towards ensuring that their platforms are accessible to people with disabilities. As a result of this recognition, the TEDxYouth@Doha website joins a small group of websites in Qatar that have been able to achieve this level of accessibility. “We are really honoured to be recognised by Mada for our work in the area of e-accessibility. Working with them has enabled us to fulfil our commitment to creating an event that is relevant and accessible to all,” added Florent D’Souza, director of communications at TEDxYouth@Doha. TEDxYouth@Doha will be held on November 17, 2012, in Doha, and is being organised entirely by young people, for young people. The TEDxYouth@Doha website is available in both Arabic and English and can be found at www.TEDxYouthDoha.com. From GT