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Finite Incatatem - my keynote at Accessibility 2.0
http://www.wait-till-i.com/2009/09/25/finite-incatatem-my-keynote-at-accessibili...
Finite Incatatem is the spell in the Harry Potter books that stops a previous spell. Today I want to end the spell that lies on accessibility and makes people believe that it is dark magic and very hard to make work. It isn't and all of you have what it takes to make accessibility the norm rather than the exception.
Contributed on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:16:16 GMT.
British Internet directory seeks to catalog the accessibility of venues across Europe
http://media-dis-n-dat.blogspot.com/2009/09/british-internet-directory-seeks-to.html
DisabledGo is an award-winning disability organisation of 9 years standing based in the UK but increasingly operating in Europe. The organisation was founded by Dr. Gregory Burke, a wheelchair user since the age of 16, who wanted to find a practical way to encourage disabled people to access and contribute to their community. DisabledGo is now one of the largest disability organisations in Europe with a turnover larger than the UK's Employers Forum on Disability and comparable with the Royal National Institute of the Blind. The DisabledGo service was born from a two year consultation exercise with disabled people across the UK with a variety of different impairments. The focus of the research was to identify the barriers to involvement and participation. A key barrier was identified as 'not knowing what venues were accessible to a disabled person's individual needs'. From these grassroots beginnings, DisabledGo involved over 800 groups of people with disabilites in designing a venue-survey methodology. This methodology enables DisabledGo surveyors to capture the information that empowers people with disabilities to choose venues that they feel meet their specific requirements. DisabledGo produces fine-grain, pan-disability access guides to locations and venues across the UK and now in Europe too. Every venue is surveyed in person. Every venue is subject to the same standard of surveying which means users can rely on the information in their town and city and in the towns and cities they would like to visit which have taken part in the DisabledGo Access Initiative.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:42:58 GMT.
Bookshare.org: accessible books for people with print disabilities
http://referencesiteoftheday.blogspot.com/2009/09/bookshareorg-accessible-books-...
Bookshare.org is a non-profit that makes specially formatted files (large print as well as audio) of popular and scholarly books and magazines available to readers with print disabilities, including visual impairments, physical disabilities and severe dyslexia. The first year of membership costs $75; subsequent years cost $50. Since works are licensed to Bookshare under a special copyright agreement, users must submit proof of disability to be eligible for a Bookshare membership. While individual memberships are encouraged, institutional memberships for schools and libraries are available at a higher rate ($300 for 30 downloads). Bookshare encourages institutions to have patrons with disabilities sign up for individual accounts. I think it would be wonderful if a library could subsidize all or part of the Bookshare licensing fee for their patrons who cannot access their regular collections.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:41:42 GMT.
Indian websites flout guidelines for the disabled
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/indian-websites-flout-guidelines-for...
But government's draft National Policy for Electronic Accessibility offers some hope. Last month, Deepak Kumar (name changed on request), a businessman who is visually-impaired, logged on to check out for some information on the newly-created Rajya Sabha website. Given the government's assurance this February that at least 50 important government websites would be made disabled-friendly and accessible, he should have faced no problems. However, there were accessibility problems galore. For instance, there were inappropriate alternate texts, no means to control the moving content, missing form labels, and code (XHTML) that did not match the world wide web consortium (W3C) specifications, all in violation of guidelines provided by the Indian government itself. Moreover, links leading to external websites existed but users were not informed about the same in advance, thus creating more problems for people with disabilities. The very title for the homepage of the website "Rajya Sabha, Parliament of India" failed to describe that it is the homepage.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:41:08 GMT.
Tourism e-accessibility and e-inclusion
http://www.traveldailynews.com/pages/show_page/32827-Tourism-e-accessibility-and...
In their effort to find niche markets, the tourist destinations have finally realised that people with disabilities constitute an advanced market with advanced needs and lot of perspectives; a market that belongs among the most loyal groups of clients. Let's not forget that Europe is getting older and the obligations of the countries members of the European Union increase, therefore more and more opportunities are given to the individuals with disabilities to travel under the same circumstances as the rest of the citizens. The journey starts from their house, from their personal computer, usually by searching Google. However, as Abbott (2001) argues, even though internet provides opportunities of democratization of society through freedom of expression, sometimes of even radical opinions, it is still predominated by websites which usually reverberate the dominant ideology and stereotypes, or it is rich in advertising websites which rarely consider disabled individuals as a remarkable market. Therefore, the trip of a person with disabilities is mandatorily continued only on those websites of suppliers or tourist services which can cover their first need of accessibility, by following the various protocols of accessibility for the web design and content, like the ones developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, known as W3C.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:39:55 GMT.
Accessible Technology Meets the Mainstream
http://www.simplyraydeen.com/authors/116-darby-patterson/350-accessible-technolo...
I've been communicating with an accessibility advocate who lives in Seattle. He's one of those rare people who pays attention to the issue because he cares about people with disabilities and how access to technology can make a big difference in the quality of their lives. Mike is a former corpsman (medic) in a VA hospital and comes by his concerns from the eyes of a veteran who's seen a great deal. He and some friends publish a Blog to promote accessibility. Mike points out that many technologies we take for granted today in mainstream life were originally design to accommodate people with disabilities. For example, just consider "closed captioning" that entertains us as we stand in line at the bank or glance at during Happy Hour at the local watering hole. This innovation was created specifically to provide equal access to those who are deaf and hard of hearing. How about the ramps at street corners designed to make locomotion safer for those who are blind or with a disability? This simple design scheme is greatly appreciated by young mothers pushing baby strollers, the postman with his heavy cart, the elderly who have vision and mobility challenges. It's clear that accessible technology has its own multiplier-factor. An unintended consequence of accessible technology is safety and convenience for mainstream citizens. Mike was particularly excited by an innovation created by Microsoft. "The house would contain its own computer to process and store data, in this case a large list of UPC items that you find on every grocery item you buy," Mike writes. "A person could simply grab ingredients and set them on the counter and a wall monitor would automatically list recipes that could be made with whatever ingredients were set down. Who wouldn't like that?" Yet another convenience designed for those who are disabled but offering attractive benefits to just about anyone!
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:38:46 GMT.
Gov't bill would make Internet more accessible for disabled via real-time texting, closed captioning
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/health/2009/09/01/2009-09-01_gov_bill_sends...
This month, as Congress returns from break, health care reform is not the only imperative issue on their plate. A new bill will aim to make content on the Internet more friendly to those with disabilities. The "21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009" (H.R. 3101) plans to modernize disability standards by making such accessibility features as closed captioning, video description and real-time texting a standard for Internet technologies. The bill was introduced by Mass. Rep. Ed Markey on June 26, with support from the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT), an alliance whose primary goal is to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind as technology moves further into the digital age.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:36:46 GMT.
Windows 7: The most accessible Windows yet?
http://www.itpro.co.uk/614545/windows-7-the-most-accessible-windows-yet
Microsoft has taken pains to make Windows 7 a better experience for everyone, but is the new Windows ready for users with disabilities, right out of the box? Windows 7 will be with us in just a few weeks and it's generally accepted that the new operating system is good news for end users and IT departments, whether they opted for Vista or not. However, the latest Windows could also bring benefits for some more specific groups of IT users: people with visual or hearing impairments, those with impaired mobility, or those with dyslexia, cognitive impairments or learning difficulties. Given that the Disability Rights Commission estimates that this might cover up to 13 per cent of the UK workforce is, this could be another good reason for IT departments and individual users to upgrade.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:35:47 GMT.
Rep. Markey Introduces 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009
http://www.coataccess.org/node/4011
Before Congress adjourned on June 26, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the "21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009" (H.R. 3101). This comprehensive measure would modernize disability accessibility mandates in the Communications Act, bringing existing requirements up to date as TV and phone services connect via the Internet and use new digital and broadband technologies. COAT leaders said the following: "The time is now to safeguard an accessible communications future," said Jenifer Simpson of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD). "We commend Rep. Markey for his leadership and look now to the U.S. Senate for a similar leader!" Karen Peltz Strauss of Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD) said, "H.R. 3101 puts people with disabilities squarely into 21st century broadband communications so we can take full advantage of Internet advancements enjoyed by everyone else."
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:33:41 GMT.
"From Web Accessibility To Web Adaptability": A Summary
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/from-web-accessibility-to-web-adaptab...
I recently announced that a paper on "From Web accessibility to Web adaptability" by myself, Liddy Nevile, Sotiris Fanou, Ruth Ellison, Lisa Herrod and David Sloan has been published. I also said that, due to copyright restrictions, access to this article will not be publicly available until next year, when it will be released from the embargo on the University of Bath institutional repository. David Sloan, who also edited the special issue of the Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology journal which published the paper, has written a brief summary of the paper: "A review of web accessibility from an organisational and policymaker's perspective. This paper focuses on ways to strike a balance between a policy that limits the chances of unjustified accessibility barriers being introduced in web design while also providing enough flexibility to allow the web in a way that provides the best possible user experience for disabled people by acknowledging and supporting the diversity of and the occasional conflicts between the needs of different groups." In this post I will give a extended summary of the ideas and approaches outlined in our paper.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:29:01 GMT.
Virtual Hurdles: Fighting for Gaming Accessibility
http://ablegamers.com/disabled-gamers---general-news/624-virtual-hurdles-fightin...
My best friend has Muscular Dystrophy, and I forget about it all the time. It is a weird phenomenon; spending so much time with a person that their disability becomes mundane. It is especially odd when American culture offers very little impetus for people to consider how to treat those different from themselves. Meaning: Just like they would treat anyone else. In fact, the only time I am reminded of Adam's disability is when interacting with strangers. Perhaps this familiarity prevented me from reaching a rather obvious epiphany until several months ago. You see, Adam and I both like to spend our free time playing video games. Unlike me, however, Adam's focus seldom leaves EA's stable of sports titles. He has spent the better part of four years peddling these games to me; games whose rules are of alien design, nearly undecipherable to myself. It should be no surprise to learn that I have dodged these strange requests as if the fate of this and several other worlds depended on it. I never paid much attention to Adam's love for these games. It is not exactly as if he is the only person excited for Madden 10. Like millions of other people, Adam likes sports games. Big deal. Then I started to think a little more critically about this. The games I enjoy are those in which I am granted the ability to do something new, something outside the bounds of my natural ability. Assuming that most gamers seek the same exploration of the unknown, perhaps it could be that Adam enjoys the virtual sports arena simply because it allows him to participate in an otherwise aloof experience.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:26:52 GMT.
Tool helps avoid seizure-inducing content on Web
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=8260605
Wisconsin researchers have released a free software tool that could help Web surfers susceptible to certain seizures. An estimated one in 4,000 people has photosensitive epilepsy and could suffer a seizure when exposed to bright colors and rapidly flashing images. The condition gained prominence in 1997 when more than 800 Japanese children were hospitalized after viewing a cartoon. Since then, television directors, video-game makers and others have tested their content to make sure it doesn't reach seizure-inducing thresholds. Web developers, though, didn't have simple ways to run such tests. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison set out to change that. "On the Web you really never know what's going to pop up on the screen until it does, and one second later you could be having a seizure," said Gregg Vanderheiden, the center's director. Web developers can use the Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool, or PEAT, to determine how fast an image blinks, for example, and let developers know whether it poses a seizure risk.
Contributed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:20:50 GMT.
Disability.gov 2.0
http://wiredworkplace.nextgov.com/2009/07/disabilitygov_20.php
Marking the 19th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Labor Department has revamped Disability.gov to include social media tools and encourage interaction and feedback. The new Web site allows visitors to sign up for personalized news and updates, participate in online discussions and suggest resources for the site. It also includes a Twitter feed, RSS feeds, a blog, social bookmarking and a user-friendly platform to obtain answers to questions on such topics as finding employment and job accommodations. Ensuring access to federal Web sites for people with disabilities has been cited as a major challenge facing Web 2.0 adoption in the federal government. All federal Web sites must be compliant with a section of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which provides guidelines for making federal Web sites accessible to people with disabilities, but many Web 2.0 applications do not meet the criteria for accessibility outlined in the law. Perhaps Disability.gov could become the standard by which the government makes Web 2.0 tools more accessible for Americans with disabilities as a means to encourage participatory democracy, enhance the ability of federal employees with disabilities to leverage Web 2.0 in the course of their jobs, and solicit feedback from Americans with disabilities on the best tools and technologies to use in government to make it a model employer of people with disabilities.
Contributed on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:52:36 GMT.
Paralympics NZ - When Web Professionals Don't Do Their Job Right
http://accessibility.net.nz/blog/paralympics-nz-when-web-professionals-dont-do-t...
It seems wrong that a disability-related organisation would have a website that is not accessible. One really shouldn't cut out their primary market. It tends to happen when the organisation relies on "professionals" who don't really have any idea what they are doing. And the organisation just knows that they want a website. Often, they don't even know enough to realise they should ask about accessibility. This is not necessarily the organisation's fault. They are good at what they do, and what they do is not website development. So, who's at fault? Does it really matter who is at fault? I happen to think it doesn't matter. What is important is that the issues, the barriers, get fixed.
Contributed on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:51:45 GMT.
Publishing Partnerships to Benefit Students with Print Disabilities
http://www.unitedspinal.org/publications/action/2009/07/16/publishing-partnershi...
In a recent historic event sponsored by the National Press Club, Jim Fruchterman, chief executive officer of Benentech, announced partnerships between Bookshare and universities nationwide and between Bookshare and publishers to provide digital books for Bookshare's accessible on-line library for people with print disabilities. Bookshare is a web-based digital library that gives people with print disabilities the same ease of access to books and periodicals enjoyed by those without disabilities. Bookshare allows a book to be scanned once and then shared with many qualified individuals who require digital formats that are easy to download, search and navigate. Fruchterman told the attending members of the press about how the new Bookshare University Partnership Program is uniting universities throughout the country to increase the number of accessible post-secondary textbooks to students with print disabilities. These disabilities include blindness, low vision, physical disabilities and severe learning disabilities. Typically, hundreds of thousands of students with print disabilities in higher education wait months after the start of a semester before having their textbooks in a format they can read. The formats include audio, various print sizes and letter shapes, Braille and e-books.
Contributed on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:50:06 GMT.
Usability Issues for Deaf Users
http://www.pathf.com/blogs/2009/07/usability-issues-for-deaf-users/
Working on a project involving users who are deaf made me curious to learn more about this group, the issues they face with language, and how that can affect how we design software and online experiences for them. Digging into the matter, I learned a few interesting things. To begin with, a common perception is that deafness is a disability. But perhaps it's more useful to understand deafness in a different way. In many cases Sign Language is a deaf user's first language. So English, or any other spoken language, is like a foreign language to them. This is an easy detail to forget, and means that these users who are actually have some things in common with hearing users that learned English as a second language.
Contributed on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:48:54 GMT.
Helping Yahoos imagine disability
http://ycorpblog.com/2009/07/15/helping-yahoos-imagine-disability/
There are 60 million people with disabilities in the U.S. There are more than 10 times that number around the globe. Yahoo!'s Accessibility team wants to make sure that every one of these individuals is able to use Yahoo! as their web site of choice. That will only be possible, of course, if every corner of our network is fully accessible. While we still have work to do toward that end, we did reach a significant milestone last month when Yahoo! India launched an Accessibility Lab in Bangalore. It is modeled after our Sunnyvale lab, which has demonstrated a variety of assistive technologies to hundreds of Yahoos since it launched in 2008. Our Accessibility Labs are important tools for engineers who can't imagine life with a disability. The reality is that not everyone can use a mouse, type on a keyboard, or see the computer screen. We simulate that experience so our developers can learn how to think about users with disabilities during their product development process. We have screen readers to help them understand the experience of a user who is blind, single switches and onscreen keyboards for users who are physically disabled, communication devices for kids with speech impairments, etc. More and more Yahoo! products are being designed and developed in our Bangalore office, so it became clear that we needed to enhance our ability to train engineers and designers there.
Contributed on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:48:01 GMT.
Accessible Twitter optimized for disabled Twitter users
http://www.murraynewlands.com/index.php/2009/07/twitter-apps-accessible-twitter-...
If you are a Twitter user with a disability, the interface can be difficult depending on the computer you use and finding Twitter apps to help can be difficult. Especially for users who are blind or hearing impaired, Twitter can present unique usability challenges. But that does not mean that it is unusable by any means. But the world of Twitter apps has come up with a solution, more specifically, Web Overhauls has a new Twitter App called Accessible Twitter.
Contributed on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:46:36 GMT.
The Inclusion Principle
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/the-inclusion-principle/
From the A List Apart Website: Designers have always had a vital interest in affordance, a term Donald Norman made famous in The Design of Everyday Things and later brought to the user interface design community in Alan Cooper's About Face. Affordance allows us to look at something and intuitively understand how to interact with it. For example, when we see a small button next to a door, we know we should push it with a finger. Convention tells us it will make a sound, notifying the homeowner that someone is at the door. This concept transfers to the virtual environment: when we see a 3D-shaped button on a web page, we understand that we are supposed to "push" it with a mouse-click. A problem arises when someone easily understands how to use an object, but cannot execute the action required to do so. Most people who use wheelchairs understand how stairs are used, but affordance cannot help them climb a staircase. In contrast, wide, automatic doors in grocery stores can be understood and used by people with and without special access needs. We call this combination of affordance and all-embracing accessibility "universal design." In universal design, perceived affordance, that is, the implicit understanding of how to interact with an object, actually coincides with the user's ability to execute the action. Universal design is, therefore, inherently accessible.
Contributed on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:44:51 GMT.
Damnation: A Solid F in Accessibility
http://ablegamers.com/pc-gaming-news/607-damnation-a-solid-f-in-accessibility.html
Damnation is a third person vertical Shooter similar to an early Tomb Raider and Gears of War hybrid of sort. When I first heard about this game, I really thought that it was going to be great. I liked the concept of a Steampunk inspired storyline and gameplay that sounded somewhat interesting. After playing this game all I can say is that Damnation truly, truly lives up to its name.
Contributed on Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:34:43 GMT.
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