Old and new features - GARI goes into its 4th feature review

Since its creation in 2008, the Global Accessibility Reporting Initiative (GARI) has evolved into the central source of information for mobile accessibility, used around the world by 17,000+ people every month. GARI is available today in 17 languages and still pursues its mission of helping all consumers to find devices that fulfil their individual needs - whether it is a mobile phone for a hard-of-hearing person, a Smart TV for a blind person, a tablet for a person with learning disabilities or a Wearable for a person who cannot move their hands.

One key factor in GARI’s success can be found in the fact that it’s not just a top-down approach but that it has developed into a collaborative platform - thanks to the regular feature reviews and stakeholder consultations the Mobile & Wireless Forum (MWF) has committed to. In these feature reviews, the MWF invites all stakeholders including those representatives of the disability community, consumer and senior citizen organisations, accessibility experts, industry and national regulators to comment on the current set of features the database reports on and to suggest new accessibility features to be added.

While the first two feature reviews in 2010 and 2013 resulted in many new features added to the database, feedback received in the last review in 2015 centred around improvements to the website, the ease-of-use of the search interface and some suggestions for improving the feature descriptions. We are curious to see what will be the feedback we receive in this 4th official GARI feature review and are looking forward to your comments.

If you would like to participate, please have a look at the guidance documents (http://www.mwfai.org/publications.cfm?lang=eng&cat=) and send your contribution to michael.milligan@mwfai.org or sabine.lobnig@mwfai.org by 21 August 2017.