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Accessibility and 911 with WebRTC

Tim Smith Principal Analyst Nemertes Email Twitter, etc

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Speakers

• Vladimir Beloborodov

– Unified Communications CTO

– MERA

• Mark Fletcher

– Business Development, Public Safety Solutions

– Avaya

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WEBRTC AND ACCESSIBILITY

Vladimir Beloborodov

Unified Communications CTO, MERA

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www.merasws.com

Are You Aware?

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~10% of world’s population have a disability (visual, hearing, physical, learning, etc.) *

Study of adult computer users in the US in 2003 **: • 1 in 4 has a vision difficulty (33M users in 2003)

• 1 in 5 has a hearing difficulty (27M users in 2003)

• 1 in 4 has a dexterity difficulty (31M users in 2003)

* http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=18 ** http://www.microsoft.com/enable/research/default.aspx

Accessibility as Opportunity

• Accessibility is about removing barriers for people

• Why care? – Improving quality of life for millions of people

– Potential for growing your business and reputation

– Regulatory compliance (government, education, etc.)

– Helping non-disabled people too (older, mobile, etc.) Also, helpful for SEO.

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Why WebRTC & Accessibility?

• Accessibility for computer users – Assistive input and output devices

– Special OS services and tools

– Native/hybrid apps. Browsers and web-sites/web-apps.

• Why consider accessibility for WebRTC? – Part of UIs for web-apps or native apps

– Promise of better communication options for the disabled

– Promise of special services and features for disabled people

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Accessible Web UIs: Readability

• Zoomable UIs: All sizes in CSS, with relative units

• Well-prepared for modern screen readers – All readable contents is text or images with good alt text

– Contents structure or emphasis is always in HTML markup

– All layout and style is in CSS (not adding or hiding any contents!)

• Careful with colors and contrast – Color alone is not reliable to convey information

– High contrast is crucial. When it is not too high*.

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8 * http://accessites.org/site/2006/11/designing-for-dyslexics-part-2-of-3/

Accessible Web UIs: Interactivity

• Single-Page App designs. Dynamic contents. – Readability, again! For each and every “app view”.

– Let contents refreshes be user-controlled or user-action-sync’ed

– Avoid pop-up windows and sudden focus changes

• Easy navigation and interaction – Always support both mouse-only and keyboard-only navigation

– Keep consistent Tab ordering. Avoid changing it by all means!

– Provide “Skip navigation” links, sitemaps, breadcrumbs, etc.

• Use WAI-ARIA (http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria)

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Accessible UIs: WebRTC

• Let users pick-and-mix text, audio and video options… – …Ahead of communication. Or as personal defaults.

– Video without audio is a valid choice

• Remember about screen readers

– Allow call hold. Careful with web chat and real-time texting.

• Video for users with Color Vision Deficiencies (CVD) – Special option to daltonize video output (quick demo*)

– Optional embedded tools for color identification or matching

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10 * Kudos to Michael Deal for daltonize.js (http://www.daltonize.org/2010/05/javascript-color-vision-library.html)

WebRTC for Better Accessibility

• No plug-ins – especially good for accessibility!

• Communication options for the disabled to be more social

• Tele-medicine, education, shopping

• Better assistive services

– NG of Relay Services (Video, Live Captioning)

– Co-navigation and remote assistance on web services

• Communications on / for NG of assistive devices or sensors

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Some Difficulties and Challenges

• No final “v.1.0” for WebRTC and WAI-ARIA specs yet

• Support in major browsers and on major mobile platforms

• Mandatory video codec(s) for WebRTC

• WAI-ARIA extensions and recommendations for WebRTC

• Common standard for modern Real-Time Text (RTT) – XMPP “In-Band RTT”? RFC4103 “ToIP”?

– Essential for NG-9-1-1

• Audio/video live captioning “tracks”

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WebRTC and E9-1-1: Impact on Public Safety Communications

Mark J. Fletcher, ENP Chief Architect Avaya Public Safety Solutions

FletcherM@Avaya.com

908-848-2602 @Fletch911

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS TODAY

Where we are, and how we got here

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The First Call - Haleyville, AL At 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 16, 1968, the first 9-1-1 call was placed from the mayor's office in Haleyville, AL

9-1-1 is turning 46 next year!

The Purpose of 9-1-1

• Single number access

– Police

– Fire

– Medical

• Consistent number access

– Eliminating unique agency numbers

– Routed based on LOCATION

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The CHALLENGES of 9-1-1 PHONE NUMBERS NO LONGER EQUAL THE USER’S LOCATION

USER MOBILITY

NOMADIC ACCESS

CIVIC ADDRESS ARE NOW GEOSPATIAL COORDINATES

CELLULAR OFFERS ONLY X and Y COORDINATES, IN A HIGH-RISE BUILDING “Z” IS VERY IMPORTANT

CELLULAR LOCATION VIA GPS PERFORMS POORLY INDOORS, IF AT ALL

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Information Over-load • The Network today-

– Analog based – Little Intelligence – Reached its limits to pass information

• Today’s Devices

– Intelligent Endpoints – Multimedia Enabled – Aware of their surroundings

Even though Smart Devices exist, they have no way of communicating, other than voice.

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Under

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS TOMORROW Where we are headed, and how we are getting there

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NextGen 9-1-1: Are we there? NG9‐1‐1 will be implemented in successive releases

ESInet is an IP enabled network

Full replacement for existing E9‐1‐1 functions

Introduce additional features

Interactive Multi-Modal messaging

Policy‐based routing using

Device Location

Call type

Target PSAP status

Network status

Automatic acquisition of supportive data

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NG 9-1-1 PHASE 1

2 3 4 ?

Additional Data Feeds

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Survey Says . . . .

How would you prefer to be able to reach 9-1-1?

3,149 surveys were issued

2,973 or 94% users responded (could select multiple)

1,431 or 48.1% wanted to use TEXT

1,045 or 35.1% wanted to use VIDEO

695 or 23.4% wanted to use SPEECH

939 or 31.6% wanted to use VOICE, VIDEO and TEXT

Fletch just made a 9-1-1 call

Someone needs to see if Fletch is alright.

Fletch just made a 9-1-1 call AND

The ambient temperature near Fletch is 227 degrees!

Someone needs to see if Fletch is ON FIRE.

NG9-1-1 Data Correlation

In addition to people, devices should be able to intelligently summon for assistance based on environmental conditions or additional data. WebRTC will allow that to happen.

Situational Awareness

•Enterprise Location Management (ELM) servers in the DMZ provide information about:

• Users • Devices • Location • Environmental Data • Event Correlation

•This will empower Public Safety with additional information enabling better decisions

• Temperature Sensors • Video feeds • Physiological data

Location URI/URL conveyed in the SIP header

Enterprise Data Feeds

TODAY: IN-BAND VOICE ONLY

FUTURE – MULTI-MODAL

EMERGENCY SERVICE IP NETWORK (ESInet)

VOICE VIDEO SMS / IM / EMAIL

Web RTC

VOICE

VIDEO

SMS / IM / EMAIL

Current Legislative Landscape

18 States have a reference to MLTS/PBX

Michigan defines a penalty for non-compliance

OSHA maintains you must have a ‘safe workplace’

NENA filed very strong comments on a recent Federal Communications Commission Notice of Inquiry regarding MLTS –

“MLTS Location capabilities are feasible, and [the FCC] should begin a proceeding to establish a timeframe for mandatory implementation.”

Legislative side of E9-1-1

“If WebRTC is being sold—or can be interpreted as delivering a

replacement to traditional telephone service (desktop device), then the 9-1-1 capability must be addressed. “

Martha Buyer, Attorney

martha@marthabuyer.com

www.marthabuyer.com

716-652-4413

Avaya’s Position

Next Generation Emergency Services have been clearly defined in both the US (NENA 08-003) and Europe (NG112-LTD)

Enterprise administrators must look to the future when designing emergency services in their networks

Building an architecture that is compliant NOW is the best possible decision from a technology and investment perspective

Avaya DevConnect Partners that have followed best practices and guidance set forth by Avaya’s strategy and thought leadership in the industry, are are able to provide resilient, life safety solutions that are fully

compliant, and in lockstep, with the Next Generation Emergency Service standards of tomorrow, effectively future proofing the customer’s emergency communications infrastructure investments today.

Mark J. Fletcher, ENP

Chief Architect Avaya Public Safety Solutions

Thanks for attending!

RESOURCES For Additional Information Avaya’s Public Safety Page http://www.avaya/PublicSafety Fletch’s CONNECTED Blog http://Avaya.com/Fletcher Fletch’s E911 Talk Podcast http://Fletch.TV Fletch’s YouTube Channel http://YouTube.com/Fletch911TV

Avaya Podcast Network

http://Avaya.com/APN