Overview
The challenge: Leverage the Internet to increase tourism in Kyoto City, a large, culture-rich metropolis in Japan. Help make sure that the Kyoto City Web site is more accessible to all people regardless of ability or disability. Include both foreign language support and text-to-speech functionality for Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese.
The solution: IBM Easy Web Browsing technology is being offered, at no charge to end users, on the Kyoto City Web site, to allow users who have low vision to enlarge text or read text aloud.
The benefit: Followed the direction and "Grand Vision" of Kyoto for the 21st Century. Helped establish an accessible Web site that is attracting the global community. Increased traffic on the Web site.
Kyoto City government uses Easy Web Browsing as part of its 'Grand Vision' for 21st Century
Seeking to create a direction for civic life and city development, the Kyoto City government devised a "Grand Vision" for the 21st Century. In 1978, the city made a declaration to the world that Kyoto would be "a city open to the free exchange of world cultures." As part of the plan to achieve this ideal, Kyoto formulated "The Master Concept of Kyoto City" in 1983 with the aim of meeting many of its goals by the year 2000. This Master Concept asserts that the city will keep developing, but at the same time preserve its tradition. From Kyoto City Web site:
"To attract the world's cultures, Kyoto City created a Web site that allowed all people, regardless of their abilities or native language, to be able to access information. The Web site is available in four languages, and uses IBM Easy Web Browsing technology to enlarge text and read it aloud. The technology is very easy to use and is offered free to the user. Senior citizens, who often have vision difficulties such as low vision or cataracts, can now access all the information on the Kyoto City Web site through enlarged text or as a "screen reader." The screen size can be customized from 50% to 600%. It also enables the user to change the color of the Web site background to help those with color blindness and other color-related vision impairments. For children and non-Kyoto natives, the IBM Easy Web Browsing "reading aloud" function helps increase comprehension. Offering this enhanced communications functionality as part of its Web site increases the user's comfort level with technology — even for novice users."
Vision for the future of Kyoto City
In the coming years, government agencies, local municipalities and private companies will plan how to prepare their Web content in various languages — such as English, Hangul and Chinese — in order to enhance global information transmission. They can use the Kyoto City Web site as the model. By adopting the multilingual text-to-speech technology from IBM, Easy Web Browsing can be used to help those agencies address the needs of their constituents.