(Accessible?) Web Experiences for Second Life Residents
This week saw the announcement by Daden Limited of a web browser called Daden Navigator, which will allow residents of Second Life to browse the Web in-world.
Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, had already introduced technology to view web pages within the virtual world application. However, residents did not have the ability to click on links and collaboratively share content, features that Daden Navigator will provide. According to Daden MD David Burden, SL users will be able to set home pages, save and view bookmarks, search and navigate using “back” buttons. Flash or Javascript content will load from a popup window, loaded automatically into the user’s default web browser.
Of particular interest will be what this means for users with visual impairments. From the following quote, one may wonder if the gap between virtual world technology and web accessibility may begin to decrease:
Web sites require no special coding to work with Daden Navigator, however David says, “What we find interesting is that because Daden Navigator is based on technology that we originally developed for visually impaired users it suddenly makes Second Life residents acutely aware of web accessibility issues – if a web site is accessible it will work well with Daden Navigator, if it isn’t then SL users, just like visually impaired users, will struggle.”
Earlier comments expressed in this space warrant repeating: at some point, web accessibility advocates will need to take into consideration how virtual worlds fall into the broader spectrum of compliance. As Mr. Burden himself concludes, “Second Life is proving to be a great environment for serious business uses such as virtual meetings, collaboration, training and education … now users can be given instant access to almost any web content to support their use of Second Life.” The time to define what public accommodation means for users of virtual worlds is now.
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