A Community-Centred Design Approach for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)

There are a number of emerging standards and guidelines which help the web developer or learning technologist produce inclusive static and dynamic internet–based applications which will meet the needs of users, regardless of their special needs or individual requirements. These standards and guidelines typically assume that the needs of the individual user are well defined, that the function of the web application is clear and that appropriate adaptations can be readily applied. However this also puts a heavy burden on the skills and knowledge of the developer and fails to utilise the expertise of tutors and other members of the community for what is potentially a very wide range of users and individual needs and requirements. Consequently this research suggests an approach which combines the benefits of using formally specified standards-based components in the form of W3C Widgets and Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) with a Community–Centred Design approach based on the UK JISC funded projects WIDE (Widgets for Inclusive Distributed Environments) and WIDGaT (a Widget Authoring Toolkit). This work forms part of a wider research topic on adaptable personal e–learning and e-media.