Last week, the University of Texas at Austin announced that they intended to close the Accessibility Institute, founded by Dr. John Slattin!  This came as a big surprise to people both in the local community and many world-wide as well.  The University of Texas has always been a leader in research and accessibility was no different.  Dr. Slattin’s tireless efforts to open and run the Institute during his lifetime has really caused some giant steps to be made in the world of accessibility.  Closing the institute would be a real setback, not only for accessibility, but for the University itself!  As a graduate of UT’s School of Music, I am very proud of my University and would like to see great things continue to happen there in the industry of accessibility.

Below is a statement released by Sharron Rush to the press and public.  I think her words and those of others she has included say it all.

 
Contact:
srush@knowbility.org
512 305-0310 / 512 797-7351

 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS ANNOUNCES INTENTION TO CLOSE WORLD-RENOWNED ACCESSIBILITY INSTITUTE
Decision opposed by technology industry leaders, disability community, academics
Austin, TX- August 29th, 2008 – The University of Texas announced last week its intention to close the Accessibility Institute, founded by Dr. John Slatin, a faculty member who passed away earlier this year.  The Accessibility Institute was founded by Dr. Slatin in the early 1990’s as the Institute for Technology and Learning (ITAL), to research effective methods for employing technology in teaching and learning environments.  His work at ITAL and the emerging dominance of electronic information technology  led Dr. Slatin to research design methods and practices that would ensure that no one was left out of educational opportunity because of disability.   His own progressive blindness was one factor, but Dr. Slatin’s passion for art, literature and the humanities led his commitment to include everyone as technology transformed teaching and learning.   At the Accessibility Institute, John Slatin pioneered studies that helped an emerging industry frame its ideas for highly usable and inclusive interface design methods. 

To sign the petition, read more of the comments from around the nation and the world, or learn more about the issues and the importance of this work, follow the links on the Knowbility homepage at www.knowbility.org. Just a side note, when this petition began, within hours we had over 200 signitures.  Now as of today’s date, we’re at over 800 signitures.  If you haven’t already, please sign!! 

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As I have previously stated here, I love to shop on line.  One of my favorites used to be eBay, but as I talked about some time ago, they have made some changes to their site that has made shopping there more difficult and tiresome for me using jaws.  But there are millions of other places to shop, and in most cases, retail stores like Wal-Mart have web sites, making it possible to shop there without having to go to the store.  In so many cases, these sites are not completely accessible and do not follow the guidelines for accessibility that are so easily available!

One such site is Target.com.  If you go to the above link, you can see that they are using flash media extensively and it is very difficult for users of most assistive technologies to navigate effectively here.  Two years ago, after many blind users complained, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) filed a class action suit against Target.  This was the first suit of its kind and there was heated debating on both sides of the issue.  Does Target.com’s inaccessibility violate the American’s Wwith Disibilities Act?  Some said that an inaccessible web site is not unlike refusing to install wheelchair ramps in a public location.  Of course we know that barriers to those with disabilities are no longer simply physical.  With technology becoming an integral part of life for everyone, the disabled members of society have every right to access the same information, services and goods via the web,

thus the emergence of Section 508.  Some even wanted all disabled people to boycott Target, unless or until they chose to pay attention and acknowledge their disabled shoppers!

After a very long battle, this week a resolution was announced.  There is still a lot of debating over whether or not we should celebrate the court’s decision.  Here are my pennies worth.  I believe that this is a very important and positive outcome for accessibility!  Whether or not they will try to find loopholes in the settlement, or that only blind computer users are mentioned, the fact is that something is being done.  They are talking, being educated, being made aware of the need for accessibility!  If a multibillion dollar business like Target is working on this, then in my always very humble opinion, it will only be the beginning!  Not only will Target’s competitors most likely jump in, but the bar will be raised to all other retail websites.  Will this fix everything?  No, but at least we’re making progress, and with the NFB and Jim Thatcher watching, Target will no doubt become the first fully accessible retail website on the net!

Read more on Glenda’s blog, where there is a wealth of information on this and other relevant topics.

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Many times, I am presented with the following scenario; I am at someone’s house, a Public Library, or even an Internet Cafe.  There are computers available, but none have a screen reader installed.  I need to look up something on Google, or visit some other website, but cannot do this on my own because the computer available does not talk.  If I have Microsoft available, I could try to activate its imbedded narrator.  While this is not a preferable solution, maybe I could get what info I need.  Perhaps I have a Mac computer without Microsoft’s narrator, so maybe I could try to use Apple’s voice over solution.  Maybe I don’t even know for sure what is installed, I just need to get to the internet, check my e-mail, or in some cases I’ve wanted to help someone download a software and use it.

Up until recently, I have been out of luck in this scenario.  If all I want to do is check e-mail or access the web, I have needed my portable note taker, such as a Braille note from Humanware, a Pac Mate from Freedom Scientific, or Braille sense from GW Micro.  There are several more options out there now for note takers or Personal Data Assistants, many of which are pretty pricey and you don’t get quite the same functionality as you do from a PC.  Of course I can always use my own laptop, but in these cases, I don’t have it with me.  So what is the solution?  Well, there are two that I have found so far and want to touch on.  If anyone knows of any others out there, I’d love to have some input.

The first solution is just for web access.  This program is called web anywhere, and it will work on any operating system and in most cases can be started independently, without sighted assistance.  You don’t have to download any software; you simply type “wa.cs.washington.edu” into the run area of windows, whether it be windows xp or windows vista.  You can even run this on a Mac and it works the same.  Once the program is running, you can type control + L to get to the address bar and type in any URL.  There are several other keys you can use to navigate a page and while this is not as powerful as an installed screen reader, such as jaws or window-eyes, it works well enough to view basic web content.

The second solution would not only give you access to web content, but other software installed on a computer.  This program is called System Access.  It is a less expensive software and completely portable.  It comes on a flash card, which you can use with any computer, either in a built-in PCMCIA slot, or by using a USB card reader.  Unfortunately, the only real info I have on this is what is in the description, as I have not purchased it myself to try it out.  I have spoken to several people who have used it however, and they say that with most applications, it works very well.  It does not require installation, it simply runs off of the flash card and then you just take it out when you are done.

As I said, these are the only two solutions I have found so far, but I am always looking.  Sometimes I get tired of lugging my lap top around, or simply don’t think I’ll need it and then end up wanting to do something on a computer.  Something like this would be great in a library setting, where you need to use their computers for research, or checking your web based e-mail.  In fact, if you watch the video on the web anywhere main page, it shows someone doing just that.  System access would be great for the web, as well as using word, outlook, or some other software already installed on a computer, and you would only have to carry a small card and possibly a little reader.  Please, if anyone knows of some other programs out there, freely comment!!

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An interactive menu that can talk?  Yes, it is true, and I saw one in action!

I love to eat out, don’t we all?  We pay good money to have choices in what we want to eat at any particular restaurant.  It is also a social thing, going out with one person, or a group of people and it was not always easy to have someone read me the menu.  I tended to take the first thing that remotely sounded good, and had no idea what my other choices were.

Several years ago, I saw my first Braille menu and was very impressed.  They handed me this huge book that had the menu, complete with a table of contents, since there were sometimes 100 brailled pages.  I found what I wanted and ordered it.  Pretty easy, right?  Over time however, the menus were not always updated, so I’d find what I wanted, which took quite some time because I like to know all of my choices before deciding.  I tell the waiter, and they tell me “Sorry, we don’t make that anymore.”  The prices too were not updated, so if they did have what I wanted, I’d get a shock when the bill came!  Sometimes I would try to get my sighted husband or someone with me to help me look, just to make sure they actually have the item and check the price, but then I may as well have that person read the menu to me, because the items were not always laid out in the Braille version the same as in the print.  After awhile, I stopped asking for the Braille menu.

Then there came the fabulous internet!!  Well you all know I love the internet, and you can find pretty much any info you could ever need or want, including restaurant menus on line!  Most times these worked great, and I could look at the menu ahead of time if I knew which restaurant I would be going to, or even make my own Braille menus.  I like this option because I didn’t have to waste time I could be chatting, another thing I love to do.  I already knew what I wanted and that was that.

Then a few days ago, I was in San Antonio at the Lion and Rose Pub.  We were there to inform people about Knowbility’s upcoming AIR San Antonio in October.  There, I saw for the first time a talking menu and I was extremely impressed!!  It was easy to use, the voice was clear, and it didn’t take long to figure out all of the choices.  It looks cool too!  It lights up as it talks and it’s the size of a tablet, not a huge book full of pages.  I realized that this opened doors for a lot of people, not just me as a totally blind patron, but those with varying degrees of visual impairments, those that needed alternative languages and anyone else who found menu reading cumbersome.  It even has a USB port, so that it can be easily updated as menu items change.  You can also call your server and show your order right then and there, so no more misunderstandings between waiters and patrons.

Hey, why not just do away with conventional paper menus and just use these?  You would only have to buy them once, and a whole table can use it.  I would love to see more restaurants incorporate them.  Thanks to Taylannas Inc. for manufacturing these brilliant little machines!!  Next time you eat out, think of how neat it would be to have a talking menu in your hands and maybe we can help educate and encourage restaurants about them and there many benefits!!

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All right, so I love love love to read!! I like fiction and fantacy, mystery and suspense, some romance, and even a few uplifting types. Many times, you can find audio books and I love them, most of the time. I have some favorite narrators that really make the stories come alive! All that said, audio books are usually quite expensive, weather you buy them at a book store or download them. They do have a few programs out there that offer books on tape, but you have to go through extensive approval processes and such things. I also have access to books in text or braille format, and many times, there is a wider selection of those than that of audio books. But in order to read those books in text or Braille format, I would usually have to load them onto my computer and listen to my screen reader read them to me. But here’s my issue. Personally, I don’t find it very relaxing to listen to Jaws read books to me. I would like to hear my books from a less mechanical, more human-sounding narrator.So what to do? Actually, what made me start thinking on these things more was a blog entry from Susan Gerhart, where she talks about book reading options. After reading her ideas and resources, I found several choices out there for book reading, more than I had previously realized.I listen to jaws reading all day long, in it’s synthetic voice or voices. I am used to it, but when it comes to reading for fun, I want to hear something a bit more natural. I also carry my ipod around with me everywhere and love to listen to books on there, rather than having to use my computer.So I started looking around for different options, to be able to convert text files to mp3 files that can be loaded onto my ipod and listened to. I have used kurzweil reader and it does have this capability, but its voices are also quite synthetic, and I have had issues getting this program to work with windows vista. There’s another program called text aloud, and you can actually buy voices for it that sound pretty decent. I’m looking for other programs that may do better, my goal is to have something that will sound as close to a live person as possible. This way, my reading time will be more relaxing, and less like listening to a computer voice in my sleep.

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Yes, it’s true, there is a such thing as accessible flash! Of course, it must be coded correctly, buttons labeled and all of that. I’m not a programmer, so I don’t know the logistics of what needs to be done, but I can give you a user’s perspective.

First I should tell you where my main experiences with flash have been. My little daughter is getting to the age where the computer is becoming increasingly important. There are so many interactive sites out there for kids, where they can play games, learn to read and a ton of other things. The problem I have is that, as a parent, I want to help her safely browse the internet, show her how to get around and all of that. Most of these pages are in flash media, and the buttons to play the games are not labeled, so I can’t even get her started. I had given up on her even using the computer without someone who could see to help her, simply because I don’t just want to turn her loose on her own and not be able to help her. I had decided she would just have to wait until she’s old enough to navigate without help, and thus miss out on lots of learning and fun opportunities the computer and the web can offer.

So now to a few examples of what I have encountered. I have seen many a flash page that, for varying reasons, I cannot access. The buttons are not tagged, so you have no idea of their functions. At the risk of putting a business on the spot, the following is an example of flash that is, well not so accessible.

My daughter attends the Joyce Willett Dance Studio
As you can see, in order to see class schedules, you have to press the buttons, and if you were to use a screen reader, you would not hear labels given for the buttons. Using jaws, I am unable to use this site at all, believe me, I have tried.
Now, on the PBSkids site some buttons are labeled, but there are a lot that are not. Most of the show names buttons are labeled so that jaws speaks them, but there are a lot of numbered buttons in between that I, as a blind user have no idea what will happen when I activate them.

I could spend all day giving examples of flash that simply does not work, or only partially works, but I want to show you a kid site that has successfully incorporated flash media and accessibility. Thea Eaton, founder and owner of Snert Studios, has created a very accessible, screen reader friendly flash site. Even if you don’t have a log in or password, you can see the work that has been done on the opening main page. Once you log in, there are several animated pictures and videos, all within the flash format, with all controls and buttons tagged. She even goes so far as to describe the videos and photos in detail. They are working on games as well, and I will be excited to see that!!

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I myself do a whole lot of shopping on line and find different levels of accessibility.  Some sites work very well, all forms are correctly tagged and functional.  Others work, but with some effort to get around some accessibility barriers.  I use amazon, e-toys, and up until recently was a big user on e-bay.  There are so many benefits to shopping on line.  It saves the hassle of scheduling transportation, dealing with customer service at the stores, and not really knowing all of your choices.  On line, I can compare prices, see all items I want and their descriptions, and have them delivered to my doorstep with ease. So here’s my beef with e-bay.  I hadn’t shopped on there for some time, quite simply because it is addictive and I was spending too much money.  You can’t pass up great deals after all!  So yesterday, I was looking for a good deal on a specific item for my daughter, went to e-bay and was a little dismayed at some changes they have made.  First of all, they have added a lot more graphics that are untagged and all over the place on the page.  They have also incorporated more layout tables, causing jaws to spit out unnecessary table information with empty rows and columns.  They have no skip to main content, so when I want to see an item and its description, I have to weigh through all of the graphics and empty tables to get to what I need.  The headings are still there, which is great, but even skipping by heading doesn’t get me past quickly to the information I’m seeking.  I can still shop and complete my purchase, but it requires more effort than it used to, and it is extremely tedious. 

Will I still shop at e-bay?  Probably, but perhaps not as often, I don’t have the time to take forever to get information, no matter how great the deals are.  I’m not sure what prompted them to make these changes, but from my standpoint, they decreased their accessibility.  So what can one do when you find yourself in this situation?  Who do you talk to?  How can you tactfully tell a big business like this that they’ve lost my few cents because they have become inaccessible to me?  Knowbility surely can help improve the site, but the company has to be open and want to become accessible.  I would love to see a procedure in place to help anyone report somewhere or talk to someone who can help if they encounter problems accessing any web site for any reason.  This is just one example, but I find sites often that I can’t easily get information I need or want, sometimes I don’t get it at all.  Obviously the more accessible a site is to me, the more I will use it, and I believe that is important to any business, no matter how big.  It is us little people who make them what they are.

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Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d live with someone who couldn’t see. My roommate is not completely blind but he can’t see past his feet. The first few weeks of living with him I treated him as if he was completely blind telling him where things were, worrying about him in the grocery store when we went shopping, and not letting him out of my sight because he’ll never see me again if we got more then 9 feet away. I’m not sure if he laughs at that now or rolls his eyes. Like most blind people my roommate is very self sufficient. I believe when I first moved in I was nerves. I wasn’t sure how much to help him or not. I’m naturally helpful and didn’t realize I was being overly helpful and that it annoyed him. I naturally feel silly now for constantly tying to watch out for him, like a mom or something. It wasn’t till about 3 weeks in did I start letting go of the instinct to do everything for him. I wasn’t thinking of putting myself in his shoes and how annoying I could be. Now me and my roommate constantly joke about him being blind and a total nerd. More on him being a nerd and living off cereal and how he really needs to take one of his dairy cows home from his dad’s farm, because he literally goes through gallon a day. Honestly I have to remind myself now that he’s visually impaired. He’s just like a regular roommate I just can’t expect him to know what’s in my hand from across the room or how I look before going out.

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My roommate Zack has a cornea disorder where his cornea constantly changes. I was talking to him over the weekend and he was joking about how my shirt was torn in half from working out. I had a workout waist band on and a workout bra. I was extremely confused with his joke, and thought it was a little weird because my bra is purple and the band is blue. I looked at him like he was crazy and that that was the worst joke I’ve ever heard. He must’ve read my face because immediately he apologized and explained that after his first cornea surgery he became a little colorblind.

Zack had a hard time telling the difference in my purple bra and blue band. He also explained that it doesn’t effect him until he’s embarrassed with a situation like that. He can tell the colors by their hues. He says most colors to him are all brown. He says he misses being able to see colors. I just recently heard of this new color blind correction called ColorCorrector. It’s a guaranteed success. “Azman Eye Care Specialists is the only office in the world with the ColorCorrection System™, an advanced combination of unique tests and filters for color vision correction. With our comprehensive color-vision testing, the ColorCorrection System can determine the proper filters for enhanced color vision.”

Available in spectacles or contact lenses makes this procedure surgery-free and still allows a person to see in color.

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Last week I came to a realization when meeting the newest staff member here at Knowbility, after hearing about her situations with her current employers. I completely knew where she was coming from and realized that is one of the original reasons i came to work with Knowbility. I’m both Dyslexic and ADD, but I have a different sort of dyslexia that a lot of people don’t understand. I have Graphic Dyslexia, this is where I actually look at equations like 42-2 and instead of counting down from 42 I start from 40 and will add 2 my brain is naturally inclined to think and do the opposite of things.

Even though I can hide and suppress these disabilities from employers but they do come out and have to be addressed. I’ve been at many work places where they classify me as useless or stupid because of my disability. I’m constantly faced with the choice of explaining my disability to start with or saving it for a later time, and risk not being hired do to my dyslexia. Employers worried about me messing up numbers and mishandling money, even though I’ve never been short on any of the registers I’ve ever worked at. They feel that I’m an inconvenience because of my disability, and when talking to our new colleague I was reminded of the situations people like me and her face when getting employed or being employed.  Her most recent employer cut her hours back once she asked for accomodation. I myself have faced the same situation but not only does management see you as an inconvenience but coworkers do too. I have actually been called straight up stupid by a girl I once worked with after accidentally getting an argument of hers mixed up in my head. I had actually understood her argument the opposite of what she was arguing against, and was arguing against her when she agreed with me completely. I felt silly, but this happens a lot with me. It is part of my dyslexia. I’m not stupid nor was I not listening to her, but it was my head playing games with me like punching in a phone # backwards after it being repeated to you, or even trying to spell things out loud.

Its extremely frustrating because before opening my mouth or reading or listening to a person I must think it over a few times before giving an answer, making sure not make a fool of myself. Even though I look fine and talk fine I’m marked with a very debilitating disability in the work world. I’m a high risk employee even though I’m extremely qualified. Me and my new colleague alike both have a very hard time asking for help or explaining why things might’ve gone wrong or come in late or why we must work at home. We don’t want to feel like an inconvenience and risk being fired.

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