Archives for “Areas of Focus”
Everett Zufelt’s open letter to CTV (Canada) regarding the accessibility of CTVOlympics.ca makes me angry. I had already read Joe Clark’s article about the Vancouver Olympics websites being inaccessible to disabled people, as well as the Webaxe article. It was clear from Twitter that the sites were inaccessible. So why should Everett Zufelt’s letter make me angry? [...]
The ÆGIS project has a gift for you – 15 personas of IT users with disabilities. No more procrastination on your projects! Visit the Ægis persona page to download the PDF files for each persona. This blog post gives you a quick overview of the personas you’ll find on the Ægis site, as well as an [...]
Does your business know about the need for captioning?This recent article might be a wake-up call for people in the United States: Who is Required to Close-Caption? With only a few exceptions, all programming for broadcast in the United States must be closed captioned. Fortunately, the article includes the FCC fact sheet for more closed captioning information. If [...]
Sutherland Shire Council in New South Wales, Australia, has a beach wheelchair available for community use at Cronulla Beach (South Cronulla). The wheelchair allows access to the beach for people who use wheelchairs or who find the beachfront difficult to negotiate. The chair is available free of charge for short term loans. The chair is available [...]
I recently discovered two new logical-based captchas plugins for WordPress. 1. Logical Captcha (Version 1.0.3, Updated 2009-8-24) takes advantage of the TextCaptcha.com service, which provides logic-based textual questions instead of distorted images or audio to validate that the entity registering is a real live human being, and not a spam bot. Textual logic-based captchas mean [...]
From Space Daily, Tokyo (AFP), 26 August 2009 Robotics and medical experts in Japan on Wednesday unveiled the prototype of a new hi-tech electric wheelchair that resembles a scooter and promises greater mobility. Users ride astride the four-wheeled Rodem—rather than sitting in it, as in a conventional wheelchair—steer it with a joystick and hold onto motorbike-style handles [...]
For many of the participants, it's their first glimpse into the high-tech world and first [opportunity] to spontaneously talk to their classmates.
Update—25 July 2009: The author of the paper discussed below, Brian Kelly, thanked us for these comments and wrote that the paper is available on the repository at http://opus.bath.ac.uk/14902/ if you’d like a copy of the paper before next year. He can release a number of copies. Brian’s site is “UK Web Focus: Reflections on [...]
National Wheelchair Beautification Month was founded by Horace Knowles. According to an article by the Nashua Telegram at nashuatelegraph.com, Knowles suggests attaching a florist’s water tube near the top of a wheelchair by means of Velcro and inserting the real or artificial flower of your choice. It brightens the day not only for the wheelchair [...]
Deschamps’ Mobi-Mat provides access for wheelchairs, strollers, and pedestrians on sand, grass, or other soft and unstable surfaces. The beach access mat is a light portable polyester matting that is temporarily or permanently laid down on the ground to provide non-slip and traffic resistant access for all. Ultra-light, easy to set up and store, Mobi-Mat makes [...]
American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) promotes and integrates scientific research, education, and practical applications of sports medicine and exercise science to maintain and enhance physical performance, fitness, health, and quality of life. Clinical Exercise Physiology Association (CEPA) committed to advancing the profession of clinical exercise physiology. American Military University (AMU) Sports Management degrees courses for BS [...]
The AccessAbility SIG began their fine tradition of conference accessibility guides for the STC conference to ensure that all members could attend. All members. Even those with, say, special mobility needs. As long-time SIG member, Mike Murray, declares, if it weren’t for the guide, he wouldn’t be able to attend. He must know that he [...]
Editor’s note: Here’s an anecdote from Lori Gillen, co-manager, that puts accessibility-in-the-workplace in perspective. We are not accustomed to seeing accessibility in action in the workplace, so I wanted to share a little experience that I had in which assistive technology helped people with disabilities function in the workplace. I attended a meeting at the Massachusetts Commission [...]
Editor’s note: STC member Anne Gentle kindly contributed this personal account of temporarily losing vision in one eye while recovering from an injury. This story, first published on her own blog, illustrates how a simple event can have complicated consequences. Anne writes, “I’d just like to get the word out and have others learn from [...]
Disabled sailor Sailing for people with significant physical disabilities got its start in Canada in 1989, when Sam Sullivan used a British-made Sunbird dinghy to launch the first few sails at the Jericho Sailing Centre on English Bay. Today, the Disabled Sailing Association of BC (DSA-BC) operates eight specially designed Martin 16 sailboats and hosts between [...]
Working with technical communication means keeping our minds open to the diversity of our audience “out there” in the real world. This is especially the case when we spice things up with accessibility. There are many stories that expand our horizon and make us rethink our attitudes. The New York Times posted such a story today [...]
For an informative article about phantom vision, which affects between 10 and 40 percent of people with low vision, read the article on Lighthouse International, “I See Purple Flowers Everywhere: The Many Visions of Charles Bonnet Syndrome” by Lylas G.Mogk,MD, and Marja Mogk, PhD; with Carol J. Sussman-Skalka,CSW, MBA. Do you ever see things you know [...]
In this BBC documentary, Peter White explores the history of Braille – from its revolutionary invention to its current decline in the face of modern digital technology. For information and Web service providers, what are the design and testing implications going forward? See http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2008/12/081230_doc_braille.shtml?s . Related posts No [...]
The November 4th 2008 US election is considered historical, but do you know what else made history that day? New technology that can be used for captioned radio broadcasts. From the press release sent out on that occasion: While millions of U.S. citizens voted in national and local elections last week, some of the nation’s deaf and hard-of-hearing [...]
Discussions about banning the incandescent light bulb have existed for some time. The incandescent light bulb is already phased out in some countries. The concept is to save energy and the environment, which is very praiseworthy. Why is this news on a blog about accessibility and technical communication? We technical communicators who are not blind do [...]
Do you find usability concepts outside your work? Oh, we who work with these topics probably run into situations concerning usability and accessibility on a regular basis. Examples are everywhere as shown by the “broken” category over at Mark Hurst’s Good Experience. But what about this ad? Advertisement proclaiming that font size adjustment on your computer screen [...]
Cats remember where their paws have been. Researchers from the Department of Physiology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, report that cats can create memories of their environment without having to rely on vision. Stepping over and touching a physical obstacle with their forelegs creates a memory of the obstacle that persists for [...]
Another great project for technical communicators is happening right now over at WebAIM. As announced recently on the WebAIM blog, they have started a translation project for WAVE, WebAIM’s web accessibility evaluation tool. After all, who says web accessibility evaluation is only necessary in English! First stop is Spanish. The Center for Persons with Disabilities at [...]
WebAIM has put together a survey of the preferences of screen reader users. Do you use a screen reader all the time due to a disability? part of the time due to a disability? often, but do not have a disability that requires a screen reader? occasionally to perform accessibility evaluation? If you fit one of those models, why not [...]
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