The Bartiméus Accessibility Foundation provides information, consultancy and training to businesses, (local) governments and other organizations concerning the accessibility of the Internet for everyone, including people with a disability. In addition, Bartiméus Accessibility has a review service for the accessibility of websites and other web based products.
The mission of the Bartiméus Accessibility Foundation is to improve the accessibility of Internet and other digital media for all people including the elderly and people with disabilities. The Foundation is closely related to the Bartiméus Institute for the blind in the Netherlands (with 1400 employees and three schools) but focuses on all people with disabilities and the elderly. Our expertise includes all accessibility features of all multimedia formats used by W3C and other consortia.
Accessibility is technical helpdesk and project partner of the Dutch National Accessibility project 'Drempels Weg'. For this project we have performed thematic benchmarking of Web sites and we have evaluated and supported over 80 of the Dutch top-100 companies on the accessibility of their Web related products and services. Within this project we also provide the training for Web developers and policy makers.
Together with all relevant stakeholders, we recently started an internationally used ongoing 'design for all' evaluation of Websites to support organizations who want to make their website accessible. We are currently working on a large government funded project aimed at a more official quality mark for accessibility of Websites.
Our foundation is project leader of the Quality Mark drempelvrij.nl. On March 22, 2006 the Commission of Accreditation has conferred us accreditation for the inspection of web sites for the Quality Mark drempelvrij. As from today all Quality Mark certificates will be awarded under an accredited scheme. It is our aim to have other accredited inspection bodies installed as soon as possible.
Accessibility is part of the Dutch National Center of Excellence and member of the EU eAccessibility interim Expert Group. In 2003, we advised the EU on techniques and methodologies for evaluating Web accessibility. As a member of W3C we participate in activities for the Web Accessibility Initiative (EOWG and WCAG).
We are co-founder of a leading European initiative aimed at harmonisation of the evaluation methodologies and interpretation of standards in the field of accessibility. Together with Wolters-Kluwer and CGEY, we have done extensive research into user profiling for GIS implementations.
We recently developed a usability lab and testing protocols for specialised usability testing with users with disabilities together with the University of Twente and other stakeholders. See our projects page for projects in this field.
Apart from that, we have built up extensive expertise in evaluating and benchmarking the accessibility of educational software and E-learning. We have also produced guidelines for the accessibility of educational software for visually impaired students. These standards are accepted by all of the Dutch institutes and are also implemented within the guidelines for accessible educational software for special needs in the Netherlands and Belgium. We are testing educational software and place the results in an interactive online database for use by the target groups. The database is also implemented in the educational software database for Dutch and Belgian mainstream education.
We are partner in two European projects aimed at accessibility benchmarking and harmonization of Evaluation. In addition, we are managing a cluster of three projects aimed at European harmonization of benchmarking and evaluation.
In 2003 we launched the sound game Drive in cooperation with the Utrecht School of the Arts, where we are implementing accessibility as an integral part of the curriculum. Drive was a research project on the adaptation of a game experience into sound. This project was followed by Demor, an audio augmented reality shooter for the blind, which uses GPS location tracking as well as 3D surround sound in combination with a headtracker.
