June 24, 2002
Thank you, Lois. I want to welcome all of you to the first of what I hope will be a series of workshops the FedStats Task Force will conduct on topics of mutual interest to those of us in the Federal statistical community.
Today we are gathered to discuss one of the most challenging problems cartographers, economists, mathematicians, and statisticians have faced since we all first considered the concept of displaying complex data in an intuitive and informative way on a printed page – how to make our data accessible on the Internet to people with disabilities. The number of people who have disabilities worldwide is significant. In America alone, it is estimated that today about 54 million people have a disability. The impact of the results of our efforts here today and in the future will play a pivotal role for the growing population of people with disabilities – having had a birthday last week, I am keenly aware of the aging of our "baby-boomer" generation.
It is easy to argue that it makes sense to have our Web sites accessible to the disabled. Almost all Web technology can be made accessible with no impact on its visual appearance. Doing so increases the number of individuals who can benefit from the information on our sites. Young people in their early twenties with perfect vision and tactile acuity (aka mouse jockeys) are so often Web site designers. But with advances in medicine and science, and with an aging population, more and more people who have disabilities, even minor disabilities, are using the computer and surfing the Web. If our Web presence is not accessible, those millions will not easily benefit from the information the statistical community has to offer.
In 1998, the generalized logic of this argument motivated passage of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, which became effective in June, 2001. This law could be considered the "Americans with Disabilities Act for the Information Age." Section 508 effectively requires the Federal Government to put "curb-cuts" in the sidewalks of the information highway of electronic data that agencies provide to both employees and the public.
Under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Access Board sets standards for accessibility to information technology for the Federal Government, including Federal agency Web sites. The Federal statistical community faces unique challenges in making its Web sites accessible, particularly those sections that contain data tables, statistical graphics, and formulas. To address these challenges, the FedStats Task Force of the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy decided to organize this Workshop that will focus on ways that statistical agencies can meet the new accessibility requirements and make the content of their Web sites more accessible and useful to people with disabilities. Tables, statistical graphics, and formulas are used extensively by statistical agencies in the dissemination of statistical information on the Web. Accessibility requirements affect each of these elements; however, little attention has been paid to the accessibility of these elements in a statistical context.
Some experts in the area of the visual display of quantitative information, such as Edward R. Tufte, in his book of the same name, addressed accessibility of graphically displayed information, but only in a very limited way. Professor Tufte explains that "colors, if used, are chosen so that the color-deficient and color-blind (5 to 10 percent of viewers) can make sense of the graphic (for example, blue can be distinguished from other colors by most color-deficient people.)" While this may portray the beginning of a sensitivity to the difficulties people with disabilities face when presented with graphical information, it represents only the tip of the iceberg of accessibility challenges that the statistical community faces.
Let me illustrate this with an example of a way geographically relevant information is frequently presented – by maps. Not to pick on anyone, but the National Center for Health Statistics’ Atlas of United States Mortality, a highly lauded publication, is a great example of the complexity of the problem we face as a community. The Atlas portrays each county’s mortality rate for leading causes of death in the United States by varying the gradation of darkness of the fill for that county, for example, a county with a white fill might have a statistically lower rate for a particular cause of death, while a county with a black fill might have a statistically higher rate than the U.S. as a whole. Rhetorically, I ask each of you to consider ways in which such information could be effectively portrayed to a blind person.
The Workshop Co-chairs, Laurie Brown and Marianne Zawitz, and the other members of the Workshop Planning Committee are to be congratulated for bringing their vision for this Workshop to fruition. A glance at today’s agenda leaves little doubt that everyone will leave here with a much fuller understanding of the issues as well as ideas about effective approaches to solving the accessibility challenges that confront our community. I am also looking forward to reviewing the first of a series of FedStats Working Papers on electronic dissemination issues of mutual interest to the Federal statistical community that will summarize your discussions, outline possible solutions, and identify areas needing additional work.
In closing, I want to recount something Mark Forman, Associate Director for E-Government and Information Technology at the Office of Management and Budget, said just last week, at the Congressional Web Accessibility and Section 508 anniversary event. Mark, and I am paraphrasing somewhat, said "Designing accessible information and data supports the goal of being customer-centric. Not only is accessibility a smart thing to do, not only is it the right thing to do, making electronic information technology accessible improves the usability of the product for everyone. And to ensure that all of the e-gov projects now being developed lead the way, we have made Section 508 compliance the cornerstone upon which each project is developed."
Thank you for coming together today. I am delighted with the level of interest portrayed by the attendance – and I look forward to the results of your deliberations.