Vita & Qualifications
Domingos de Oliveira has been working as an independent accessibility consultant since 2009. As a blind person, he has been involved with accessibility all his life. You can find references on the individual focal points of his work after the vita.
Article Content
Vita
Domingos de Oliveira studied political science, sociology and philosophy at the University of Marburg, graduating in 2005 with a diploma in political science. During further training as an online editor, he learned to write editorial texts, but also to work with HTML and CSS.
Gradually, he slipped into the field of accessibility. When he started his own business as an online editor, many clients asked him to check websites and PDFs for accessibility. Although he was blind himself, he had no idea what the term meant. He knew that something didn't work for him, but not why it didn't work. So he started learning the ropes and gradually became a self-taught expert.
In 2013, he published his first book on accessibility: Barrierefreiheit im Internet. It is still one of the standard German-language works. In 2018, his book Barrierefreiheit umsetzen - ein Leitfaden für Behörden, Unternehmen und NGOs (Implementing Accessibility - A Guide for Public Authorities, Companies and NGOs) was published - the first and so far only general German-language introduction to accessibility ever. In 2022, he published his third book on accessibility: Barrierefreie PDF und Dokumente.
In 2015, he completed further training as a lecturer in adult education. Since then, he has been able to qualify several thousand persons on digital accessibility.
We - netz-barrierefrei.de and Silta.ai - have been able to train several thousand persons on accessibility and advise numerous smaller and larger organisations. This is possible thanks to our large, multidisciplinary and experienced team.
Accessible internet and apps
We organise training courses on the accessible internet ourselves. Clients for in-house training include various web agencies, but also Aktion Mensch or the ARD ZDF Media Academy.
We have assisted the German Research Foundation, the Paritätischer NRW and the Cinemateque Leipzig in relaunching their websites.
We have provided consulting services for the German Research Foundation, the DFL Foundation and the Paritätischer NRW. We assisted the DFL Foundation with the development of the website and app for the "accessible Stadium Guide" project.
Accessible documents and PDFs
We organised training sessions on accessible documents ourselves. We have conducted in-house training courses for Aktion Mensch, the German Disabled Sports Association and the umbrella organisation of the statutory health insurance funds, among others. In addition, we have trained around a dozen small and large universities as well as numerous agencies in the creation of accessible documents with Office and Acrobat Pro or InDesign.
These training courses always include advice on workflow and optimising templates for accessibility.
Accessible documents and PDFs have been created for the University of Hamburg, Aktion Mensch or the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, among others. As a rule, we work here with agencies that design the layout and entrust us with the task of making the documents accessible. We have a lot of experience with complex documents, especially with complex forms and tables. This part of the work is done by my cooperation partner Silta.
Testing and evaluation
In the last few years we have evaluated pretty much everything that exists in the digital field: Websites, programmes, documents and now, of course, native apps. Major clients include the Institute for Human Rights, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the German Patent and Trademark Office, the IT company Conet and the DFL Foundation.
Oliveira has been involved in various committees, such as the BIENE Award of Aktion Mensch, the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia on the topic of accessible culture and museums, Deutschland sicher im Netz or the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs on the topic of artificial intelligence and the common good.
Publications
Oliveira has written around half a dozen specialist books on accessibility and disability. He has also published specialist articles, for example for the portal Reharecht or for the Technical University of Ilmenau.
He has given numerous presentations, for example at the Technical Summit of Microsoft in 2016, at the Diversity Conference of the Tagesspiegel in 2018, at Republica in 2017, at the Accessibility Summit of the Disability Commissioner or the LVR Cultural Conference in 2021, at a specialist event of the Rheinwerk Verlag in Bonn in 2022 and many more.
Take a look on our services in digital accessibility.