Where It's AT – Assistive Technology Blog

Contributed by Joel Zimba, Special Projects Coordinator, MDTAP

Until the other day, I had no idea what a “carousel” was – in regards to Web design. However, I realized I had run into them on a number of occasions and found them irritating.  In this article, an assistant director of Web AIM, whose web Accessibility Tips we often post, discusses the evils of a carousel for visually impaired users, and then goes on to explain why they are just bad design all round.

What is most notable to me is how a simple notion like not having text change on a page without reason takes a back seat to someone’s notion of visually compelling design.  The usefulness and appeal of the carousel is debunked in the article.  This is the case with many aspects of design which reduce accessibility.

Moral of the story is that not only tagging your graphics and labeling your form fields will improve accessibility for everyone and make your page  more useful, but designing for readability and inclusiveness will increase overall market appeal as well.

MDTAP Open Houses – Fall 2013

We’re hosting two more Open Houses! Come tour our AT Lab, try out some of the newest AT devices on the market, and talk with our AT Specialists.

September 18th– 1-3pm

September 24th– 6-8pm 

Registration is required and limited to 20 people per tour. These tours are being hosted at our central office in Baltimore. For details or to register, contact Lori Markland at lmarkland@mdtap.org or 410-554-9477. 

AT in the news for the week of 7/8 – 7/12

Talking Books Program Draws Library of Congress Honors

The Bradley – A new tactile watch makes time fashionably accessible to blind & sighted people alike

“Everybody: An Artifact History of Disability in America”

Technology that helps seniors stay at home

Tapestry visual story-telling app adds support for iframe embeds

New amputee creates her own functional prosthetic leg out of Lego blocks! Now that’s talent  

Apps for helping autistic kids socially and academically

Museum Says No To Girl’s Wheelchair

Deal boosts blind’s access to texts

High-tech gains get disabled people into workforce

Desire2Learn’s blind workers help make better accessibility tools for classrooms

Practical guide for people with disabilities who want to go to college

Will technology beat science on a fix for paralysis? The Dept. of Defense certainly thinks so

Study shows seniors navigate assistive technology with ease

Disabled keyboard technology could help Assistive Control with growth

Low-cost technology helps severely disabled play computer games with eye movements

Emergency Responders Turn to Technology to Track Disabled People Who Get Lost

Apps for helping autistic kids socially and academically

Special iPad application now for schooling autistic children

Clear and Simple Writing

Difficulty: Beginner

Category:

• Content
• Presentation

Clear and simple writing is one of the most important, yet often neglected, aspects of web accessibility. Technical accessibility provides access to content, but that content must be written and presented so it is understandable by the audience. This includes considering the use of headings and content sections, avoiding slang and jargon, being mindful of the required reading level, defining acronyms and abbreviations, avoiding misspellings, and presenting the text in a highly readable font face and presentation.

PeopleFinder Lite

Contributed by Joel Zimba, Special Projects Coordinator

Sendero Group has produced accessible mapping and GPS software for many years.  They just released their long-awaited navigation app for the iPhone, which I will not be reviewing today.

Instead, Sendero has also made a first stab at solving a problem common to all, but perhaps particularly annoying to the blind –   finding someone in a crowd. The PeopleFinder app is extremely simple.  It broadcasts your location via Bluetooth.  This lets someone close by know you are present and apparently a message about your location can also be sent.  Note that my difficulty with this feature may have been the result of operator error.

Rather than broadcasting personal information, you can use any text you like, though mine defaulted to Joel’s iPhone.  Your phone number is also an option.

So, how might this be useful?  Sure, the original suggestion of finding someone at a large outdoor event might be simplified.  How about knowing that the person you are meeting is on the bus which just pulled up.  Since Bluetooth range is limited, this would be a handy trick.

Not by coincidence, PeopleFinder is available in the App Store now and is free.  While it wasn’t quite released in time for the National Federation of the Blind Convention in Orlando this year, it will surely get much field testing at the upcoming American Council for the Blind convention in Columbus.