Where It's AT – Assistive Technology Blog

The NFB is hosting 2 “boutiques” to teach some of the most current issues in accessibility:

How do you make a document accessible? 4/14/2016, 8am-10am

Word, PDF, EPUB, PowerPoint, and HTML documents — how much do these formats have in common? For blind and other print-disabled users, they have this shared trait: all of these formats can be hard or impossible to read if the author doesn’t use the built-in tools to structure them and provide information where needed. Moreover, all of these different formats share fundamental methods of making them accessible to users with disabilities. Next time you write a presentation or a resource sheet, a project overview or a budget, make one that works for everyone. In this boutique, we will review some of the common practices shared between formats, followed by some brief looks at how those work in a few different formats. Please join us at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute on April 14, 8:00-10:00 a.m. for a free introduction. You can RSVP to cvangerven@nfb.org; space is limited. The address is 200 East Wells Street, at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230.

Digital books – reading and writing accessible books, 4/25/16, 3pm-5pm

EPUB is rapidly displacing PDF as the preferred non-proprietary format for digital books, but there are many formats available. This boutique will go over the different ways blind consumers can read a book accessibly, and the different needs for different kinds of books. After all, making a novel accessible is usually easier than doing so for a textbook. We will discuss resources for finding out how good a reading platform is, point out some good examples, and provide some guidance on how anyone making a book – whether it’s a self-publishing novelist, a teacher looking for the right format for a syllabus, or a publishing house – can do so without tripping up their blind readers. Please join us at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute on April 25, 3:00-5:00 p.m. for a free introduction. You can RSVP to cvangerven@nfb.org; space is limited. The address is 200 East Wells Street, at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, MD 21230.