Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy

1. Introduction to Accessible Technology2. The History of Access Technology 3. The Discriminatory Impact of Digital Inaccessibility4. Technical Standards for Accessibility5. U.S. Laws and Lawsuits6. International Disability Law7. Regulations8. Evaluation Methods and Measurement9. Compliance Monitoring Policies and Procurement10. Case Studies of Success11. The Need for Culture Change and Looking Ahead to the Future

Jonathan Lazar is a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University and has served as director of the Undergraduate Program in Information Systems since 2003. He also founded the Universal Usability Laboratory at Towson University and served as director from 2003 to 2014. In the area of human-computer interaction, Lazar is involved in teaching and research on web accessibility for people with disabilities, user-centered design methods, assistive technology, and law and public policy related to HCI. He has previously authored or edited 10 books, including Ensuring Digital Accessibility Through Process and Policy (coauthored with Dan Goldstein and Anne Taylor), Disability, Human Rights, and Information Technology Accessibility (coedited with Michael Stein), Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations, and Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach. He has published over 140 refereed articles in journals, conference proceedings, and edited books, and has been granted two US patents for his work on accessible web-based security features for blind users. He frequently serves as an adviser to government agencies and regularly provides testimony at federal and state levels, and multiple US federal regulations cite his research publications. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR); American Library Association; and TEDCO. He currently serves on the executive board of the Friends of the Maryland Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and the State of Maryland Work Group on Increasing the Teaching of IT Accessibility Concepts in State Universities. He has served in multiple roles in the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI), most recently, adjunct chair of public policy (2010-15) and Digital Accessibility Chair

"Lazar, Goldstein, and Taylor are a uniquely qualified trio, combining expertise in legal accountability, human-computer interaction, and the perspective of corporations regarding accessibility. Together they offer theoretical and pragmatic insights into why and how the digital world should be accessible, as well as the cultural changes that need to occur to precipitate full inclusion." --Michael Stein, Executive Director, Harvard Law School Project on Disability; Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School; Extraordinary Professor, University of Pretoria Faculty of Law, Centre for Human Rights

"Information technology has enormous potential to make our society more inclusive. Realizing that potential takes a lot of hard work, not just on the technology itself, but also on the legal and policy framework within which it operates. This book lets us learn from those who have been doing that work, a rare opportunity!" --Clayton Lewis, Professor of Computer Science and Fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado, Boulder

"Ensuring Digital Accessibility is a comprehensive yet easy to follow guide to a fast-moving area of the law. It will be of great use to lawyers, software and web developers, CIOs, and policymakers." --Michael Waterstone, J. Howard Ziemann Fellow and Professor of Law, Loyola University Law School

"This book is a must read for anyone interested in understanding what it means for technology to be fully accessible to individuals with disabilities. The book will be invaluable to a broad audience because it is chock full of technical and legal resources but describes those resources in a way that is understandable to a lay audience. I will rely heavily on this book when I next update my teaching materials in the field of disability discrimination and look forward to its publication."