ICANN76 continues its work, and on March 14, Irina Daneliya, Deputy Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and Deputy Chair of the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) Standing Committee on Strategic and Operational Planning (SOPC) took part in the ccNSO: National Registry News session. During the session, representatives of various country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries shared the latest news from their organizations, talked about the steps taken by registries to improve the comfort and safety of users, and presented the latest technical and marketing developments.
Irina Danelia shared with colleagues from national registries the experience of the Coordination Center in creating a special module of the "Study the Internet & Govern It!" project for visually challenged users and thereby attracted the attention of colleagues and the public to the problems of the most vulnerable category in the digital environment - people who are blind, and called evaluate the availability of digital resources for them and start making changes.
In 2021, the co-organizers of the "Study the Internet & Govern It!" project - the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and Rostelecom - as well as the experts of the Space of Equal Opportunities project, which takes an active part in the lives of people with disabilities and helps them adapt to modern society, analyzed the structure, layout and semantic markup of the pages of the "Study the Internet & Govern It!" website and mobile app and realized that they contain many interactive elements and are not suitable for use by people with visual impairments. Therefore, it was decided to develop a new module compatible with screen readers. As a result of development and testing, a certificate of compliance with all accessibility requirements for people with disabilities was obtained.
Inclusion implies the possibility of active participation in society of people with disabilities on an equal basis with everyone. In relation to Internet services, this means providing access to all users, including those who have any restrictions. Irina talked about how to make an online project inclusive and what exactly makes it so, and also outlined the three main steps that should be taken when adapting a site for blind users: accessibility audit, adaptation and testing with the help of the target audience.
“The new module was launched in December last year, and now we want to know the opinions of its first users. Of course, this project will not help the blind to see the light, but we hope that it will be able to make the Internet more friendly and accessible for them,” said Irina Danelia.
The presentation evoked a great response from the audience, who not only asked questions, but also expressed their desire to cooperate with the Coordination Center and take advantage of its experience. For example, the national registries of Brazil and Hong Kong are currently working in the same direction, which have proposed organizing an exchange of experience in the development of inclusive projects.
The conference continues to work - follow our publications!
