Accessibility Challenge

The 16th “Web Accessibility Challenge”, sponsored by WebABLE, is your opportunity to showcase advanced Web and Mobile technologies to technical leaders from academia and industry or to submit ‘Late Breaking Work’ of a prototype.

The main goal of the Challenge is to encourage and accelerate the development of innovative and usable technologies, as well as provide feedback from end-users and experts in the field. The Challenge is where experimental systems and technologies are compared and evaluated both by the delegates and an independent panel of judges to identify the most significant advances in accessibility research that year. Our deadlines have been chosen to give successful applicants as much time as possible for making their travel and accommodation arrangements.

We would like to encourage students to submit their thesis work.

Awards

Authors have to attend the conference and present in any case.

  • Judges Award: On one hand, we will award the best abstract paper and video submission by five judges coming from different backgrounds such as academia, industry and government, all relating to accessibility.
  • Delegates Award: On the other hand, the audience will vote for the best pitch and demo presentation at the conference.

Panel of judges:

  • Mike Paciello, WebABLE
  • Patrick Carrington, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
  • Sukriti Chadha, Spotify, United States
  • Shaomei Wu, Facebook

Challenge details for delegates

This year the W4A Web Accessibility Challenge will involve a 10-minute presentation including:

  • A slide pitch presentation
  • A video sent to the Challenge Chairs

During the presentation, each Challenge entrant will “pitch” their solution to audience and articulate the innovative aspects of their technology and how it advances accessibility and usability. Their presentation will define the accessibility issue their technology solves, and describe the innovations one can expect to see during the demonstration video that will follow. The presenter may or may not allocate time for questions during the session.

Delegates will be given access to a virtual poll for selecting their favourite demo for the Web Accessibility Challenge Delegates’ Award. The poll will be distributed through the Telegram mobile chat platform and the access to the voting channel will be provided during the conference.

Submission materials and details

Your application should contain the following:

Abstract: A two-page abstract in PDF format. The submission should follow the formatting requirements of the main track. It may include limited references.

Demo Video: The demonstration media file (compulsory) and the software (optional):

  • For large movie files, you can consider alternative methods for submission such as posting on YouTube; in this case, please add a tag “#w4a2021” to the movie, and submit a file with the URL of the movie. The maximum length of the movie is 5 minutes.
  • Abstracts and movies should emphasize the innovative ideas in the system; do not demonstrate whole functions including usual or average functions.
  • The demonstration movies should be accessible; please consider adding audio descriptions and not adding unnecessary audio (e.g., background music).

All the files should be submitted via e-mail to cc2021@w4a.info.

System requirements

  • Any kind of system or prototype that improves usability and accessibility is acceptable, such as mobile applications, assistive technologies, voice browsers, voice user interfaces, browser plug-ins, server-based services, telephony systems, etc.
  • Open source systems are welcome

Conference attendance

A presentation and demonstration will be part of the W4A event, thus attendance of at least one author is mandatory.

Deadline

  • Abstract and Video Deadline: January 27, 2021
  • Notification: February 19, 2021

Contact

If you have any questions relating to the submission process, please email cc2021@w4a.info.