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'Stanford On ITunes' Is For Everybody
http://www.forbes.com/2006/01/24/stanford-on-itunes_cx_kdt_06conncampus_0124stan...
In an unprecedented move, Stanford University is collaborating with Apple Computer to allow public access a wide range of lectures, speeches, debates and other university content through iTunes. No need to pay the $31,200 tuition. No need to live on campus. No need even to be a student. The nearly 500 tracks that constitute "Stanford on iTunes" are available to anyone willing to spend the few minutes it takes to download them from the Internet. While a number of other universities are now using iTunes to distribute class-specific content to their students, including Duke University, Drexel University's School of Education and the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, Stanford is the first to make a substantial amount of recorded university events available to the public at large. For more on iTunes U read the Podcasting News article: Apple iTunes U. Podcasting has become the latest educational craze and is moving beyond colleges and into primary and secondary education: Students and Teachers, From K to 12, Hit the Podcasts. Podcasting can be very useful for some students with disabilities, allowing them to listen to the materials at a pace that is most convenient for them and, in some cases, it can eliminate the need for note-takers. However, students with hearing loss or deafness may be put at a disadvantage unless alternative formats are also available.
Contributed on Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:22:28 GMT.
Website Design Considerations for Older People
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2911.asp
According to the 2001 UK census, the UK now has more people aged over 60 than under 16. It also revealed that there are now 1.1M people aged over 85. Webcredible recently analysed and compared the results of 16 usability testing sessions - eight of these sessions conducted with older users (i.e. over the age of 65), and eight with younger users (i.e. under the age of 40). The 40-minute 'talk-aloud' sessions involved asking participants to find information on a range of government websites. All participants reporting using the internet 'at least once a week' for 'over 1 year'. As people age, they often start to experience some of the difficulties faced by people with disabilities including, reduced mobility, vision and hearing loss and problems with memory and perception. By making site accessible for one group, you often help others.
Contributed on Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:21:10 GMT.
Logo Claims about Website Accessibility bely Reality
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2909.asp
The presence of an accessibility statement or logo on a website does not necessarily give an accurate picture of that website's accessibility, according to research conducted by Helen Petrie, Director of Research at London-based user experience consultancy Designed for All. The research found that out of 500 websites, 40 (8 percent) had an accessibility statement or logo. However, when 20 of these 40 'accessible' sites were inspected only 6 passed basic accessibility tests. Indeed, 6 other sites were found to be making claims about accessibility conformance beyond what they actually achieved. Only 30 percent of the 'accessible' sites examined in the research were making accurate claims about accessibility.
Contributed on Thu, 02 Feb 2006 21:30:16 GMT.
Seven Accessibility Mistakes (Part 1)
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/seven_accessibility_mistakes_part_1/
There are several reasons inaccessible Web products get published. One we discussed in my last article is that some clients just don't care about accessibility. Their reasons make a lot of sense if you put yourself in their shoes. Another reason is developer mistakes. Making mistakes is natural, and suffering the consequences and learning from them is what makes us better developers and better people. Here are some of the major mistakes I encountered during my years as a professional Web developer. If we keep an eye open for them in the future, we are a lot more likely to create accessible, beautiful Web products without much hassle - and make both clients and visitors happy. I've offered tips on how to avoid these mistakes at the end of each description. Following them may not be possible within the limits of your budget, or they may require a more mature relationship with your clients, but it cannot harm keeping them in mind. No step toward designing for the end user with the client's ideas in the back of your mind is a waste of effort.
Contributed on Thu, 02 Feb 2006 21:29:01 GMT.
New 'Ultimate' Accessible Site Launches
http://www.theopenpress.com/index.php?a=press&id=7218
Webcredible today unveiled a re-designed version of their website (http://www.webcredible.co.uk), which they claim is one of the most accessible sites of its kind. "The new site goes way beyond the traditional guidelines most accessible websites attempt to follow," says Jeff Smith, Webcredible's lead developer on the new site. "It goes so far as to offer what we'd call the ultimate in accessibility." Web accessibility has become a mainstream topic across the Internet in recent years, primarily due to it being a legal requirement under the Disability Discrimination Act. Under the Act, websites must be made accessible to users who are blind or disabled. A person who is blind may use a screen reader to read the content of the page aloud to them; someone with poor vision may use a screen magnifier to blow up the text size; a web user with dexterity issues may be unable to use a mouse.
Contributed on Thu, 02 Feb 2006 21:27:31 GMT.
Survival Guide: Perspectives from the field
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/21_02/last-byte/27850-1.html
Debra Ruh scanned the American employment landscape in 2001 and saw no meaningful opportunities for her then-13-year-old daughter Sara, who has Down's syndrome. When somebody suggested Sara could work collecting shopping carts from the parking lot at a local mall, Ruh knew her daughter could do better. Then a vice president in charge of technology training at a mortgage bank, Ruh launched a company that would find meaningful full-time jobs for her daughter and others with physical, emotional or intellectual disabilities. Five years later, TecAccess LLC of Rockville, Va., works with federal government agencies and large corporations to assess electronic and IT accessibility and compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which requires public and private entities to deliver technology that is accessible to people with disabilities. TecAccess, a Small Business Administration 8(a) certified company, small disadvantaged business and a woman-owned company, has 60 employees, more than 50 of whom are compliance testers with disabilities.
Contributed on Thu, 02 Feb 2006 21:26:41 GMT.
Accessible Tesco From Nightmare To Nirvana
http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=13119
Tesco's journey is a case study that clearly illustrates the benefits of accessibility and the potential pitfalls along the way. Tesco's first entry into on-line shopping was with Wine and Flowers in 1995, this was followed the following year by the first Grocery store. The grocery grew dramatically to 270 stores by 1999. The drive behind this growth was the needs of the time poor, cash rich community. The requirement of this group was to spend as little time as possible grocery shopping. The website was designed to be as quick to use as possible whilst still being able to promote new products and special promotions. The design led to pages loaded, some might say overloaded, with information and function. However, a completely different customer group began to recognise the benefits of on-line shopping, persons with disabilities: A person in a wheel chair finds a supermarket an effort to negotiate and home delivery is particularly appealing. A person who is blind finds a supermarket inaccessible unless they have a helper (just walk into a supermarket, close your eyes and try and work out what you do next).
Contributed on Thu, 02 Feb 2006 21:25:54 GMT.
Students plug in, enroll in 'iTunes U'
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryRSS.cfm?ArticleID=6071
Students at the University of Michigan's School of Dentistry can download and listen to class lectures on their MP3 players, thanks to the school's use of a new content management system from Apple Computer that adapts Apple's popular iTunes service for campus use. Now, Apple says it is making its new iTunes U service available free of charge to all other interested schools. iPodding has become the latest educational craze. It can be very useful for some students with disabilities, allowing them to listen to the materials at a pace that is most convenient for them and, in some cases, it can eliminate the need for note-takers. However, students with hearing loss or deafness may be put at a disadvantage unless alternative formats are also available.
Contributed on Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:57:29 GMT.
Strength of Internet Ties
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/172/report_display.asp
The PEW Internet and American Life Project has just published their latest study: The Strength of Internet Ties: The internet helps maintain people's social networks, and connects them to members of their social network when they need help. 60 million Americans have turned to the internet for help with major life decisions. The internet has grown dramatically and now boasts One Billion Users with many (over 60 Million Americans) using the internet to help them with major life decisions, it is essential that the resources needed to make decisions are accessible to all, including users with disabilities.
Contributed on Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:56:35 GMT.
Lisa Thorson Presents JazzArtSigns in Boston March 9
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=8631
See, hear, feel the music: JazzArtSigns, the cutting-edge arts and music event of the upcoming year presented in Boston
Contributed on Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:55:36 GMT.
Failed Redesigns
http://blog.fawny.org/2006/01/04/failed/
From Joe Clark's Blog: This was going to be an entire new section of Webstandards.TO, but it threatened to become an ongoing Sisyphean burden of the sort I am now trying to avoid. So here is a simple list of candidates for a new concept I hope to spread throughout our little industry: FAILED REDESIGNS. A failed redesign is a Web page created from scratch, or substantially updated, during the era of Web standards that nonetheless ignores or misuses those standards. A failed redesign pretends that valid code and accessibility guidelines do not exist; it pretends that the 21st century is frozen in the amber of the year 1999. It indicates not merely unprofessional Web-development practices but outright incompetence. For if you are producing tag-soup code and using tables for layout in the 21st century, that's what you are: Incompetent. Note: this article has language that some people may find offensive.
Contributed on Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:54:14 GMT.
Chris Mairs to Present 2006 IEE/BCS Turing Lecture on 'Lifestyle Access for the Disabled'
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/01/23/1305915.htm
In our current "technology heavy" society, with its iPods and hand-held devices, does technology help or hinder the disabled? Starting this evening, Chris Mairs, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of MetaSwitch, a leading vendor of next generation carrier switching solutions, tackles the paradoxical relationship between technology improvements and accessibility in the 2006 Turing Lecture Series, "Lifestyle Access for the Disabled - Adding Positive Drift to the Random Walk with Technology."
Contributed on Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:52:34 GMT.
Include 2005 Proceedings go Online
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2924.asp
The proceedings of International conference on inclusive design, held at the Royal College of Art, London, in April 2005, are now online. The encouraging message from Include 2005 was that as companies seek a better understanding of their customers, designers explore more user-centred methods and educators introduce social issues into the curriculum, the time is right for inclusive design.
Contributed on Wed, 25 Jan 2006 23:02:30 GMT.
One Of Four Web Users Are Disabled Users
http://justaddwater.dk/2006/01/20/one-of-four-web-users-are-disabled-users/
Did you know that up to 25 percent of all visitors on your website have some kind of accessibility problem. Some of your users may be blind, deaf, dyslectic, has learning disabilities or motoric disabilities such as schlerosis, parkinson's disease, etc. A so-called functional disability. But how about users with a technical disability: Wireless devices, slow internet connections, old browsers, feed readers, etc. These should be considered as well, as there are probably more people with technological disability than functional disability.
Contributed on Wed, 25 Jan 2006 23:01:52 GMT.
Source Order, Skip links and Structural labels research results presented at OZeWAI, December 2005
http://accessify.com/2006/01/source-order-skip-links-and-structural.php
From the Accessify Weblog: Is page source order important to screen reader users? Recently, the idea of placing the informational content of a web page before the navigation has gained some currency. This paper reports on our research into the relevance and importance of page source order, skip links and structural labels for screen reader users. Read the results of the Source Order, Skip links and Structural labels research carried out by Roger Hudson, Russ Weakley and Lisa Miller, presented at the OZeWAI Conference, 9 December 2005.
Contributed on Wed, 25 Jan 2006 23:00:59 GMT.
Amazon, Random House throw book at Google
http://news.com.com/Amazon%2C+Random+House+throw+book+at+Google/2100-1025_3-5931...
As Google put thousands of public domain books online Thursday, Amazon.com responded by announcing plans to allow people to read books on the Web. Meanwhile, Random House, the world's largest publisher of trade books, said it had come up with a business model for allowing people to pay to view its books on the Internet. Amazon's new "Amazon Pages" program will let people purchase online access to anywhere from a few pages of a book to an entire work. The e-commerce company also announced a program called "Amazon Upgrade" that will let customers pay extra to be able to access books electronically that they've had shipped to them in printed form. "Buy a cookbook and you will not only have it on your shelf, but also be able to access it anywhere via the Web," Amazon said in a statement. E-books and digital media can be very useful for students with disabilities, allowing them to access the material in a variety of ways, making it easier to find a format that best works for them.
Contributed on Mon, 23 Jan 2006 20:20:34 GMT.
Graphical Passwords For Better Security
http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/index.php?p=137
You all know that passwords are relatively easy to steal, especially because we don't pick difficult ones. So computer scientists from Rutgers University-Camden have developed graphical passwords to enhance your computer security. One solution works by picking 'click points' on an image previously selected by the user. And another one, designed to avoid 'shoulder surfing,' works by clicking on random icons located inside a collection of other icons chosen by the user. If these solutions can be fine for your main system, they will not help you when you need to create a new password for an online service. Given the accessibility problems with Captchas (see the Captcha Conundrum from the NCDAE October Newsletter, how accessible will this technology be?
Contributed on Mon, 23 Jan 2006 20:20:00 GMT.
Access Facilities On Web
http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/lewgreennews/display.var.673794.0.access_facil...
People with disabilities will soon be able to find out if a building is accessible to them at the click of a mouse. Charity DisabledGo will visit more than 1,000 shops and other business in the borough to assess how disability-friendly they are. It will then publish the findings in a database on its website so people with disabilities can find out in advance which are the easiest places to access.
Contributed on Mon, 23 Jan 2006 20:19:26 GMT.
iPod Nano Is A Universal Design No-no
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&ne...
Anthony Tusler, former Coordinator of the Technology Policy Division at the World Institute on Disability, will launch his partnership with the Academy of Art University on February 21 with a lecture at the Academy's Industrial Design department located at 1849 Washington Street in San Francisco. Tusler aims to help industrial designers understand and use universal design concepts, who will in turn make the future brighter for people with disabilities. As the Academy of Art University students will help determine the future of product design, Tusler and the Academy intend for these students to become knowledgeable and excited about designing products for everyone. "I have faith that the students will embrace the concepts of designing for all when they are exposed to usability ideas. I know they will discover that universal design is a puzzle to be solved that will help people with disabilities and the aging Baby Boomers," says Tusler.
Contributed on Mon, 23 Jan 2006 20:18:37 GMT.
Google Petition Concerning CAPTCHA
http://www.accessibilityblog.com/2006/01/17/google-petition-concerning-captcha/
From Matt Bailey 's Accessibility Outlook Blog: Well, I can't say that I'm surprised about this one. Pardon the pun, but you could "see" this coming. The Blind Access Journal is rising up to ask Google to give them access. For years, blind users have been frustrated at the inability to be a part of Google's growing services. It was a slap in the face to the Blind community when Google celebrated Louise Braille's birthday by using a Braille logo. The Braille Google logo was simply the last straw. The Blind Access Journal has created an online petition for users to sign and request that Google come up with an option for their CAPTCHA (Visual Turing Test) or visual word confirmation. If you aren't aware of what the CAPTCHA is, it is the security device that makes users type in the words and letters that are in a graphic and usually jumbled up somehow. This security technique prevents automated bots from subscribing to Google services such as Gmail, Blogger and the IM service. In using a strict visual cue, this technique also prevents low-vision users, blind, dyslexic and other visually impaired users from subscribing to the services as well.
Contributed on Mon, 23 Jan 2006 20:17:36 GMT.
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