The transcript for the RDWG mobile access symposium is out. This text is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. SHADI ABOU-ZAHRA: Let’s get started. This is the start of the mobile accessibility symposium. Thank you, everybody, for joining. My name is Shadi Abou-Zahra. I’m the staff contact, W3C staff contact for the research and development working group that is organizing this on-line symposium on mobile accessibility.

Yesterday (25th June 2012), the W3C WAI RDWG conducted its second symposium, this time on Mobile Accessibility. Here are my early thoughts on the themes and topics discussed. Mobile devices are becoming increasingly important and are already the primary form of accessing the Web in many parts of the world. However, people with disabilities experience many difficulties when they access the Web with mobile devices. The symposium aimed to bring researchers and practitioners together to discuss these challenges and possible solutions, and develop a roadmap for future research and development in the field.