Federal and state mandates now require the accessibility of web applications, services, and sites to people with disabilities. In the Spring/Summer of 2003, the Commonwealth's Office of Administration/Office of Information Technology (OA/OIT) launched an effort to increase accessibility of Commonwealth web sites.

This session review provides a review of effort and resulting key findings, measured results, and recommendations for enhancing the sites for accessibility.

Presenter:

Michael Paciello
President
The Paciello Group (TPG)

Mr. Paciello has more than 18 years experience in the area of assistive technology and interface design, including 10 years as Program Manager for Digital Equipment Corporation’s Vision Impaired Information Services (VIIS) office. At Digital, Paciello produced the computer industry’s first mainstream CD-ROM containing computer documentation that was accessible to the blind and visually impaired (VIOLD).

Mr. Paciello is the creator of WebABLE, the first commercial portal addressing web accessibility. His book, “Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities” was an industry first. The second edition is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2003.

In 1997, Mr. Paciello received recognition from Tim Berners-Lee and President William Clinton for creating the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in behalf of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the White House.

In 1999, Mike received recognition from the U.S. Access Board for his “Outstanding Contribution” in the development of the Section 508 standards for electronic and information technology.

He is co-founder of the International Committee for Accessible Document Design (ICADD), and a former member of the FCC Telecommunications Act Advisory Committee (TAAC) that developed the standards for Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act.

Mr. Paciello has served as Chief Accessibility Consultant to the Telecommunication Industries Association (TIA) and the Electronic Industries Foundation (EIF).

Mr. Paciello currently serves on a number of University, Government and International advisory and standards committees, is a public speaker at several international conferences and contributes a number of articles to technical journals.

Mike is a member of the Internet Society (ISOC), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Society for Technical Communication of Boston (STC-Boston).