Digital accessibility at Gem
In the news last week
Another award for GPT-NL: GPT-NL previously won the Dutch Privacy Award, and this week it won the Dutch AI Award for its contribution to the AI ecosystem.
Gem information sessions: municipalities held information sessions about the development of Gem with generative AI and about the transfer of the Gem administrative office to the VNG (Association of Netherlands Municipalities).
Digital accessibility at Gem
The government wants everyone to be able to take part in the digital society. That is why the websites and mobile apps of government bodies must be accessible to everyone, including people with a disability. This has been a legal requirement (in Dutch) for years, but it is not yet going well everywhere — and residents are the ones who lose out.
Chatbots have to be digitally accessible too. ICTU is therefore building a trial setup for a chat interface, with not one but three views: Small, Medium and Large. The small view is based on the current view of Gem. The trial setup is now being independently assessed for digital accessibility certification. Once it is certified, the software will be released as open source. You will then be able to see how it works and reuse the code to make your own chatbot digitally accessible. Help with that is available too. Please note: your website will still need to be certified separately.
This trial setup is called the Inclusive Digital Assistant, or IDA for short. When you use the software, you choose a name that suits your own organisation. Gem, for example, if you are with Gem.
In the second quarter we want users with a disability to test the chat interface. Among other things, we will be testing accessibility, the voice interface and multilingualism. We are still looking for participants.
