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Thoughts From CSUN 2009

I returned home last night from the Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference in Los Angeles. As much as I’m glad to be back home, I was very impressed and motivated by the folks I met and spoke with during my time in LA.

I imagine the highlight for me would have been the opportunity to meet with many folks with disabilities, gaining their perspective on the technologies available and what improvements they would like to see implemented. The tenacity of these people to pursue their life goals was both humbling and inspiring. One of my dinner mates this week remarked that the CSUN demographic may not be a representative sampling of PWD, which may very well be the case, since such folks may possess a sense of determination not felt by all users. Yet, the impression left a deep footprint.

Also of note was Wednesday night’s CSUN Tweetup featuring five-minute spot presentations by such industry heavyweights as Jared Smith of WebAIM, Glenda Sims from the University of Texas, Shawn Lawton Henry of the W3C, and Mike Paciello of The Paciello Group, among others. Between presentations I hid in the corner and had a great talk with fellow introvert Lewis Phillips of Knowbility.

Probably the best session I attended was Universal Design for Wounded Warriors, which detailed the accessibility challenges faced by US veterans returning from active duty. We as technologists often forget that people may (and often do) have multiple disabilities, particularly soldiers who have become injured from combat, and solutions must retain enough extensibility to accommodate them. I also came away with a strong appreciation for the work our government agencies are doing on behalf of this user group.

On Wednesday I presented on the topic of Virtual Worlds for People With Disabilities, which I’m happy to say was very well received by an enthusiastic and intelligent group of participants. Among them was Wansoo Im, a Rutgers University professor who has spent the past few years working on something he called “public participatory GIS” — sort of a community-based geographical tagging system. (If you’ve heard of the New York City rest room maps, that’s him.) Very interesting use of technology with a unique social slant.

Also in attendance were some folks from IBM, who invited me to come to their exhibit booth and have a look at the demo for Virtual Worlds User Interface for the Blind. As indicated earlier in this blog, VWUIFTB is a browser-based ARIA that allows access to pictorial Second Life content through annotations that can be interpreted by a screen reader. After viewing the demo clip, I am interested in seeing how this technology can be more fully integrated into the logic layer of virtual worlds platforms.

Overall, I can say that the trip was well worth the investment (although the hotel wireless left a lot to be desired). There are many interesting developments being cultivated on behalf of people with disabilities, and I was fortunate to take part in discussions regarding such topics as international Sharepoint standards and the application of WCAG 2.0 to Microsoft’s Silverlight. I’m further encouraged by the amount of investment among the vendors and thought leaders in our industry. In short, there’s a lot of good stuff happening — forward!