Leveling the playing field......
Jun. 15th, 2006 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1One of my pet peeves is graphics-intensive web sites. Some sites have lots of pictures, image maps, or an animated Flash movie. I'm still using dial-up, which means it takes a while for pictures to download.
But that's not why I get peeved.
I get peeved because the designers apparently forgot about a small but important segment of the web community: the blind and/or visually impaired. These folks can't enjoy the pictures because they're unable to see them. Some enlarge their text, some use plain-text browsers (e.g. Lynx) and some use speaking browsers (e.g. Jaws). I have a friend in Buffalo who is blind and uses a speaking browser. (Shame that she's not on LJ.) And at one job site, there was a man who used a brailler for his computer terminal.
(I apologize if I'm being politically incorrect with the labels I'm using for these communities or the people in these communities.)
Today, I asked my project manager how accessible we need to make our application. He didn't know, but he'd find out. I think there are tags in HTML that I can use to make the form easier to fill out by a non-sighted person. Dreamweaver knows about them. One is LABEL.
But the non-sighted people aren't the only ones who benefit from computer technology. Thanks to adaptive technology, nearly everyone is able to use a computer.
Because it's primary a visual medium, the deaf and/or hearing-impaired are able to communicate easily via computer. In college, I remember chatting with a few students from Gaulladet College online via the old Bitnet Relay system. I would not have been able to have these conversations in person, since I don't sign, read lips, and I finger spell poorly.
Microsoft Windows has some accessibility features built in, such as "sticky keys". This was a good thing to know, since one of the people who used a previous application I helped develop and troubleshoot had one arm, and thus couldn't do a shift-click on any of the mouse buttons. And I remember Jay, a man who worked at my school's computing center that had a physical limitation.
And we all know about Stephen Hawking's voice box. That uses text-to-speech technology so that computer text can be converted to something that approximates human speech.
At a trade show a few years ago, I saw a neat product. One part was a headband with built-in sensors that "felt" the eye muscles move as a person moved their eyes. The second part was a small electronic box that translated the sensor signals into mouse movements. Essentially, this device enabled people to move a mouse cursor with their eyes. (Clicking a mouse button was probably achieved via a long blink.)
I'm encouraged by this application of computer technology to "level the playing field" and allow each of us to communicate with each other.
But that's not why I get peeved.
I get peeved because the designers apparently forgot about a small but important segment of the web community: the blind and/or visually impaired. These folks can't enjoy the pictures because they're unable to see them. Some enlarge their text, some use plain-text browsers (e.g. Lynx) and some use speaking browsers (e.g. Jaws). I have a friend in Buffalo who is blind and uses a speaking browser. (Shame that she's not on LJ.) And at one job site, there was a man who used a brailler for his computer terminal.
(I apologize if I'm being politically incorrect with the labels I'm using for these communities or the people in these communities.)
Today, I asked my project manager how accessible we need to make our application. He didn't know, but he'd find out. I think there are tags in HTML that I can use to make the form easier to fill out by a non-sighted person. Dreamweaver knows about them. One is LABEL.
But the non-sighted people aren't the only ones who benefit from computer technology. Thanks to adaptive technology, nearly everyone is able to use a computer.
Because it's primary a visual medium, the deaf and/or hearing-impaired are able to communicate easily via computer. In college, I remember chatting with a few students from Gaulladet College online via the old Bitnet Relay system. I would not have been able to have these conversations in person, since I don't sign, read lips, and I finger spell poorly.
Microsoft Windows has some accessibility features built in, such as "sticky keys". This was a good thing to know, since one of the people who used a previous application I helped develop and troubleshoot had one arm, and thus couldn't do a shift-click on any of the mouse buttons. And I remember Jay, a man who worked at my school's computing center that had a physical limitation.
And we all know about Stephen Hawking's voice box. That uses text-to-speech technology so that computer text can be converted to something that approximates human speech.
At a trade show a few years ago, I saw a neat product. One part was a headband with built-in sensors that "felt" the eye muscles move as a person moved their eyes. The second part was a small electronic box that translated the sensor signals into mouse movements. Essentially, this device enabled people to move a mouse cursor with their eyes. (Clicking a mouse button was probably achieved via a long blink.)
I'm encouraged by this application of computer technology to "level the playing field" and allow each of us to communicate with each other.
