Plain sailing: easy, navigable and personalisable access to digital information

Digitisation has opened up access to a mass of information for a vast number of people across the globe. In spite of this and the implementation of legislation, accessibility standards and guidelines, equality of access is still denied to millions of people.

Despite the inherent flexibility of digital information there are still far too many scenarios where the end user finds digital information difficult to access, view, comprehend or navigate successfully. Software used to render digital information often locks out the accessibility inherent in the underlying files.

Currently the enormous potential of existing technology is frustrated by a fragmented landscape of piecemeal solutions at both ends of the process i.e. text creation and text consumption. The right technology solution in the centre could not only transform access for learners but could also transform publishing/content creation enabling easy ways to create highly accessible output, knowing the tools will be in place for mainstream as well as specialist use.

The outcome of this SBRI competition must ensure that users can produce and access navigable and personalisable digital information independently and spontaneously, anytime, anywhere, in an effective and user friendly way.