Deque Systems' Amaze technology, the 21st Century Achievement Award winner for innovation, is an overlay that fixes inaccessibility issues in real time, without having to reprogram source code.
The Web promises to deliver information to all, but those with disabilities are often unable to access the content on many websites.
Deque Systems
developed Amaze as a way to more easily make websites accessible to
people with disabilities. The technology works by looking for patterns
inside an application and replacing pieces of the code in real time with
HTML code that is accessible or that makes the application accessible
to a variety of assistive technologies.
Deque Systems uses the
following example to explain how it works: A website has a "Submit"
button that is invisible to a customer who is blind and using a screen
reader. The traditional approach to correcting this problem would entail
pulling up the source code, reprogramming the form and then testing to
confirm that the bug has been fixed. Even after testing, the correction
might not happen until the website is scheduled for a revision. This
means the organization that owns the website would remain noncompliant
with accessibility guidelines, while disabled users would continue to
have problems accessing information on the site or using its functions.
Further complicating the situation, many organizations use third-party
content and applications on their websites and wouldn't have access to
any faulty source code, meaning they wouldn't have the ability to fix
inaccessibility issues.
But with Amaze, users can create an accessibility overlay that fixes bugs on third-party content or applications immediately, without having to reprogram a single line of source code.
Moreover, the Amaze Accessibility Overlay can be
used as a guide to update source code when making scheduled revisions to
a website.
Amaze provides real-time remediation on a massive scale without impacting load times, and it is capable of complying with stringent security requirements without impeding effectiveness. It is a fully developed software tool that Deque Systems has offered to clients since its launch in November 2012.
Amaze is already being used as part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' compliance program. The VA is using the Amaze Accessibility Overlay to make all VA Web content, including all of the third-party content it uses on its websites, accessible while code is being remediated. The VA's use of Amaze will directly help more than 50 million disabled individuals who use VA services by ensuring that the agency's website is accessible.
Source : Computer World , 3rd june 2013
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