Accessibility
Seeing EyePhone: Could Your Phone Be Your Service Animal?
Jun 10th, 2011
iPhone App developers, take note: for the first time in awhile, I’ve found a situation where I can’t say, “there’s an app for that!” and I need one.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you simply didn’t hear something, such as the kettle whistling? or the water running because the TV was too loud, or there were screaming kids? It happens to everyone, whether or not you’re deaf. These are situations that can have negative effects if unattended. In this post, I’m going to explore the possibility of our mobile devices being able to provide us with essential More >
How Twitter can be an #accessibility tool for #deaf / HoH.
Apr 27th, 2011
Last week, President Obama held a Facebook Town Hall event via live video-streaming to promote the StartUP America Partnership, which was followed by a panel discussion by start-up veterans. As an entrepreneur and a fan of this initiative, I “tuned in” to this live video stream to learn more about the program and learn from the panelists. Except…there was one road-block.
Road-Block: Lack of Captions at the Live EventThe live video feed wasn’t captioned. Now, I’m not here to whine or point fingers, but to tell you about an interesting accessibility “alternative” that I stumbled upon. This “solution” was instantly available, didn’t More >
Museums & Social Media: A Step Towards Accessibility
Apr 19th, 2011
“The Brontosaurus skeleton in the @AMNH is so tall!”
When was the last time you went to a museum or a cultural / community event? (Such as the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C.) Did you provide any insight on your activities on your social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, or mobile photo sharing site Instagr.am? Chances are that you likely did, as a way to tell your families & friends what you’ve been up to. Perhaps you wanted to strike up a conversation, or remind people that the Cherry Trees were a gift to the American people by Japan. More >
How to Caption Voicemail Messages
Mar 31st, 2011
“You have 1 Voicemail”
Seeing the voicemail icon on my phone makes my shoulders tense up. That’s because I can’t always understand the voicemail messages due to a number of factors, one being the obvious if you know me: I am deaf. I can use the phone, thanks to my cochlear implants, but I really depend more on seeing visual cues. The other factors to not understanding voicemail messages include the clarity of the caller’s voice, background noise, and/or my listening focus. There was one particular voicemail that I couldn’t understand, and it was nagging at me for a couple of More >
What Makes Content “Keen?”
Mar 11th, 2011
We love hearing from our fans who say, “How can I help get Keen in my city?”
That’s music to my ears, because that means the demand is there, and I can continue to tell museums and providers that there is an engaged community out there. With that said, there’s a handful of ways that you can help, and one way is identifying video content that you’d like to see on Keen Guides. Ultimately, we want to help museums understand that implementing accessibility doesn’t always mean a giant shift in how they run their programs. The smallest improvement makes a big, More >
Universal Design Helps MobiLegs Put its Best Foot Forward
Mar 1st, 2011
How many of you have used crutches?
And if you used them, how many of you “amended” them – washcloths under the armpits, furry things on the hand grips. Let’s face it: when you have to duct tape stuff to something you use every day for 6 weeks or more, it’s time for a redesign. I recently came across Jeff Weber’s innovative redesign of the crutch to enhance comfort and aesthetic design. This crutch, later to become known as MobiLegs is born out of a personal experience of Weber, who was already a designer by skill. (He helped develop the Herman Miller More >
Accessible Uses for New Technology: Telepresence
Feb 17th, 2011
Imagine that you’re homebound for medical reasons, or work from home, and you want to be able to communicate with your friends, families, and colleagues throughout the day. Not just for an hour here or there, but for a whole day. Connecting via “video chat” probably comes to mind, but what if these people are constantly on the move, from room to room, or even floor to floor, and you want to go with them?
Introducing Telepresence Robots
Meet the 4-foot tall steel and chrome robot, Vgo (pronounced vee-go) that has a high-definition video screen for a face and motorized wheels for More >
The Super Bowl XLV Captioning Fumble
Feb 8th, 2011
My friends and I sat down on what was expected to be a historic Super Bowl XLV: 100% of the national commercials and promotions were supposed to be captioned. No, don’t check your calendar, we’re not still stuck in 1989. It IS year 2011 and this basic accessibility feature of television captioning was expected to hit the record books.
History in the MakingThe National Association for the Deaf (NAD), the National Football League, and FOX Broadcasting all worked together to get captions available on all national commercials and promotions during the Super Bowl XLV. (Thank you!!) (You can read about it on NAD’s website) We all know More >
Inclusion for Foreign-Language Speakers
Jan 26th, 2011
So, last night, President Obama called out my home county — beautiful Forsyth County, NC — as a place where students are chasing the American Dream. But, beaming with pride though I was at the mention, it made me start to wonder about other people’s hometowns. Not so much the Winston-Salems or Omahas of the world, but the Bizertes, the Moscows, the Atbaras. While I watched the speech’s captioning intently on my screen, I wondered: what do foreign language speakers do if they want to see programming like this? Is this content less accessible to those who don’t speak English? Well, More >
Universal Design in your Kitchen Drawer
Jan 24th, 2011
In previous blog posts, I’ve talked about universal design in technology, and how these products are often the best in the market. Since then, I’ve paid more attention to everyday objects that we use, and considered whether or not they’re developed with accessibility in mind. In my kitchen, I’ve seen more of this than I’d expect, and I thought you’d find this interesting. Perhaps you’ll be challenged to think about how objects can be a part of the mainstream and serve an accessibility purpose, too.
Aesthetics & Functionality in the Universal Design MovementThe beauty and convenience of household appliances, furniture, and technology More >