Save the Date!
Join the Conversation to Advance Accessibility and Inclusion in Social Media Submit ideas to help improve the user experience for people with disabilities
March 17 – April 4, 2014

Do you use social media as part of your daily life? Do you have ideas on how social media can be made more accessible for everyone? The National Council on Disability (NCD) (http://www.ncd.gov/) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) (http://www.dol.gov/odep) want to hear from you!

You are invited to participate in a national online dialogue from March 17 through April 4 that aims to explore the value of social media in the lives of people with disabilities, particularly around work, and to identify accessibility issues and creative approaches to making social media tools more accessible and usable for everyone. The information gathered from this dialogue will then help NCD and ODEP further collaborate with the social media industry to implement solutions and improve the accessibility of these online tools.

This event, titled “Advancing Accessibility and Inclusion in Social Media – The User Experience (http://ncd-odep.socialmedia.epolicyworks.org/)” will be the first in a series of three social media accessibility online events to take place over the next several months. To register to participate in this inaugural event, visit http://NCD-ODEP.SocialMedia.ePolicyWorks.org (http://NCD-ODEP.SocialMedia.ePolicyWorks.org)

(http://www.dol.gov/odep/)
(http://www.ncd.gov/)

ePolicyWorks is part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy ePolicyWorks effort. Through this effort, multiple federal agencies work together to ensure that Americans with disabilities have equal access to employment and critical employment-related supports such as health care, education, transportation, housing and technology. ePolicyWorks leverages Web-based technology, stakeholder involvement and real-time information-sharing to facilitate a new approach to federal policy making.

Pros and Cons of iOS 7.1

Contributed by Joel Zimba, Special Projects Coordinator, MDTAP

Yesterday, Apple released iOS 7.1 for all modern iOS devices.  There are many great accessibility and performance enhancements, as well as at least one known potential show-stopper.

First of all there are many new changes to the user interface for low vision users.  There are several new options under the Accessibility section of the Settings app. Also, there are additional wall papers which may improve usability.  After the release of iOS 7, we posted an article about the problems encountered by many low vision users with the new operating system.  Apple has made some attempt to address these problems.  The verdict has yet to come in on whether or not they hit their mark.

Many irritating VoiceOver bugs have gone away. Volume issues and playing nicely with Siri are notable.  Also, the recurring “Screen Locked” message has gone away.  For a full report of accessibility related changes to iOS 7.1, you can check out: http://www.applevis.com/blog/apple/whats-new-and-changed-blind-and-low-vision-users-ios-71

Overall, iOS 7.1 seems much more responsive and stable.  Apparently this is quite noticeable on the aging iPhone 4.  Ordinarily, I would say everyone should go out and get the update.

However, there is one big problem.  Bluetooth keyboard support is very buggy.  The exact nature of these problems is unclear, as the behavior is not the same from app to app.  As a regular user of a wireless keyboard, I find this glitch particularly annoying.  Let’s hope the patch, which usually drops a couple of weeks after a milestone release, will address this.