50 egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2010 logoff www. indifference.in Both our government and corporate Websites have done little to be disabled friendly Shubhendu Parth Managing Editor eGov s part o an exercise o developing param- eters to evaluate user riendliness o Web- sites, I was shocked to see that not much eort has been made to ensure inclusion o the dierently-able in the online space. Tough the Guidelines or Indian Govern- ment Websites (GIGW) prepared by National Inormatics Centre (NIC) do mention that Web pages should allow resizing o text without the use o assistive technology, the 115-point compliance matrix sheet has nothing to suggest on how to make Websites user-riendly or the blind, though it does take care o those with colour vision deciency and low vision. It also mentions that while captions should be provided or all important audio content, alternative text should be provided or non-text elements like audio and video clips, images, as well as multimedia presentation or making the Website accessible to people with hearing impairment. A Strangely, out o 83 nominations that we received or the India eGov 2.0 Awards or most user riendly online initiatives rom govern- ment and public Websites in India, only one complied with the two basic principles o an accessible Website. Te Kerala State I Mission website <http:// www.itmission.kerala.gov.in/> not just allows resizing o text in ve sizes—largest, large, medium, smaller and smallest—it also allows users to change the colour contrast. Tese tools are particularly helpul or p eople with poor eyesight. While many o such users require large text, others can only read smaller letters or need a highly contrasting colour scheme like yellow text on a black background. Also, unlike most o the Indian sites that have the accessibility option hidden under some obscure link, or as a ‘+’ sign somewhere above the global navigational bar, this Website has a clear link or users to reach out or these options not just on the home page but across all pages. It also meets the guideline #95 o the GIGW that states that the purpose o each link should be clear to the user. Strangely enough, or a country that is home to the world’s largest number o blind people— 1.5 crore o the 3.7 crore people across the globe who were blind as per 2007 data—no eort, whatsoever, has been made to make them part o online revolution that the country is going through, particularly in making citizen services accessible to people anywhere and anytime through the www interace. What could be worse than the act that the country’s most successul government sector e-commerce site—www.irctc.co.in—the online reservation system o Indian Railways, credited with bringing about a paradigm shif in govern- ment-to-citizen transactions, cannot be accessed and used by people with little or no vision. Interestingly, while the world is gearing to adopt the Web Content Accessibility Guide- lines (WCAG) 2.0 the draf o which was published on October 14 this year, both the government and public sector organisations in India are yet to adopt WCAG 1.0 standards or their websites.