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Evaluation of New Audioblog.com Service
We’re evaluating a new paid service called audioblog.com to replace the free but unreliable audioblogger.com.
Possible Opportunity to Make an Accessibility Difference at Google: Blogger User Testing
If you are located in the Bay Area near Google headquarters, I strongly urge you to sign up for this Blogger Usability Testing opportunity right away! Time is of the essence here as the testing is being conducted in late May and early June. Let’s get a few blind people in there to show them, first hand, how the creation of a blog has been made inaccessible due to visual verification! During sign up or if contacted by Google staff, do not mention your blindness. Give Google no possible excuse for your exclusion from their usability testing. Let’s do everything we can to make ourselves count!
Sidewalk construction, Jeff Bishop’s Disneyland trip, etc.
Check out Jeff Bishop’s The Desert Skies web site and follow his Podcast as he and his family enjoy their Disneyland vacation. We wish we were there!
Will Microsoft care about us with OneCare?
By the end of this year, Microsoft says it will begin public beta testing of a new consumer based anti spyware, antivirus and firewall product known as OneCare. Check out this PC World article for additional details. The question is, will Microsoft care about us by insuring the accessibility of OneCare?
Do we count? – Part 1
There has been an absolute lack of media coverage of yesterday’s rally at the Department of Education in Washington D.C. to stop the downsizing of the Rehabilitation Services Administration. This begs the question, do we count? Of course, sadly, the answer seems to be a resounding “no”. Has anyone located any media coverage? If so, please comment.
Screencasting: Does it represent yet another threat to the blind?
Screencasting is a way to quickly and easily distribute short video presentations. Jon Udell, a blogger and columnist at the IT publication InfoWorld, advocates the widespread use of screencasting as a means of providing effective training materials in the form of brief combined audio and video presentations. As the focus of screencasting appears to be on the video aspects of the technology, the concern is that the blind will be left out of the process entirely. Imagine what could happen if an employer provides the bulk of its training in the form of inaccessible screencasts and the employer doesn’t want to take the time or expend the resources necessary to make it available to a blind employee in an accessible format. This is an old story we hear over and over. When will the big players in the mainstream technology industry learn to understand that it is vital to insure reasonable accessibility to as many potential users as possible so as to avoid denying equal participation to everyone? This is new technology. There is no time like the present to insure that accessibility measures are built into its design now. Anyone have any thoughts? What has been your experience with screencasting technology and the accessibility of the resulting presentations?
New Start.com RSS Aggregator: Microsoft’s Innovative Experimental Approach to Web Accessibility
It appears that Microsoft is entering the field of RSS aggregator web sites with its Start.com incubation experiment. RSS aggregators allow Internet users to collect and quickly stay current with blogs, Podcasts and all other web sites that provide their information in the form of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. In this arena, Microsoft will be competing with such currently established web based RSS aggregation sites as BlogLines for an increasing usage share of those learning to take maximum advantage of all that RSS has to offer. If successful, it can be safely assumed that the service provided by the Start.com experiment would be integrated into those already provided by Microsoft’s free and premium MSN portfolio of web based offerings. Microsoft’s approach to providing equal accessibility to Start.com is unique. Rather than providing a separate accessibility site or potentially limiting the visual appeal of the primary site, Microsoft has chosen to add a clearly defined link at the bottom of the page that enables the user to turn on and off “accessibility mode” on the fly. Preliminary test show that, once activated, “accessibility mode” does enable a blind person to use the site effectively.
Please feel free to comment on this unique approach. Let’s make sure to provide feedback to Microsoft on the effectiveness of this “accessibility mode” scheme as it will probably start popping up on other Microsoft web sites in the near future. Have you seen it implemented elsewhere on the Internet? How is it working for you?
Concern About Proliferation of Open Source Screen Reader Projects
I have just read another message on one of the blind community e-mail lists concerning the initiation of yet another open source screen reader for Windows. That makes two projects purporting to be working on the same goal: the creation of a free, user friendly open source screen reader for Windows. While I fully realize that two doesn’t amount to a “proliferation” of such projects per se, I am concerned nonetheless. Resources are extremely limited, especially in the blind community. I’m not sure the “market” will handle two open source screen readers. One project will receive much more attention than the other, while the constant reinventions of the wheel, so to speak, will result in much needless duplication of efforts. Let’s consider combining both existing open source Windows screen reader projects into one and encourage others with similar ideas to join the existing efforts. Anyone have thoughts on this?