National accessibility portal: an accessible information sharing portal for the South African disability sector

Abstract

The National Accessibility Portal initiative is a large initiative aimed at improving the quality of life of people living with disabilities in South Africa. The initiative has several functional components, including the National Accessibility Portal, National Accessibility Portal Centres, and research into developing localised client side assistive technologies and devices, advocacy as well as the development of a methodology allowing for replication in other developing countries with similar needs. The focus of this paper is on the research and development of the portal in the bigger National Accessibility Portal initiative. The portal’s differentiating elements measured against other content portals is the ability to provide a configurable platform (based on the user’s profile) for information sharing and communication in an accessible and usable fashion within the constraints of today’s technologies, in the user’s language of choice and in the most cost effective and sustainable fashion. The process involved in developing version 1.0 of the National Accessibility Portal; from gathering user requirements, addressing the issue of multilingualism, accessibility and usability challenges is described. Presented is the initial user feedback comments and highlights of ongoing challenges. In addition the paper presents the technology stack and implemented functionality