End of Year Twitter Updates

Things have been extremely busy on all fronts, so this post will take a moment to review some recent developments in digital accessibility. All of these stories have been culled from the social networking tool Twitter, which is a fantastic way to stay current with both colleagues and activities.

Virtual Worlds for Disabled US Veterans

A CNN iReport describes the use of the virtual world Second Life to help United States military veterans adjust to the loss of a limb. Virtual Ability Inc. provides people with a range of disabilities to participate in online communities, and they have developed a program called the Amputee Virtual Environment Support Space (AVESS). The intention is to improve physical and mental wellness while accelerating the timeframe for recovery and adjustment.

One of the essential tactics for rehabilitation is peer support, according to this article, as well as the recognition and treatment for depression, phantom limb pain and post traumatic stress disorder. The new technologies provide a means of personal connectivity and fellowship in a virtual environment protected by military firewalls. For users living long distances apart, virtual applications are the best way to sustain interpersonal relationships:

“For individuals with disabilities, virtual worlds are a powerful way to connect with others, to access peer support, and to participate in activities that might not otherwise be possible,” said Virtual Ability’s President Alice Krueger … “When these folks are in rehab, they begin peer support as part of their recovery. But, then eventually they are released, and many go home, to reintegrate into civilian society … there is an immediacy of presence in a virtual world.”

E-Commerce for People with Disabilities

An interesting post emerged recently endorsing the need for businesses to consider customers with disabilities in their e-commerce marketing plans, citing extensive data in support. A 2005 report from the United States Census Bureau identifies 18.7 percent of the US population as being classified with some form of disability, representing 54 million people. While this may be common knowledge among accessibility advocates, greater specificity is uncovered in the drill-down:

The most commonly discussed disabilities affecting website accessibility are sight and hearing impairments. These specific impairments encompass 6.8 percent of the population age 15 years and older – and climb to encompass 21.3 percent of the population when you look specifically at the population over 65, according to the 2005 report. Eight-point-two percent of this same population is listed as having difficulty grasping objects– which affects the use of a mouse.

There are data resources available with statistics representing disabled consumers outside the United States, and many countries (such as the United Kingdom) maintain online databases with updated statistics. It’s also worth noting that as populations age, the term “disability” may be applied more widely to larger demographic groups.

HTML5 Text Alternative Practices

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released last week a draft guidance for providing textual equivalents in HTML5. Included in the documentation are case studies and examples of text attributes for graphic charts, diagrams, decorative images, complex data and color output selections.

IBM Accessibility Browser

The fine research team at alphaWorks have released the IBM Accessibility Internet Browser for Multimedia (aiBrowser), a Web browser for users with visual impairments with several interesting features:

• Multimedia audio controls accessible by shortcut keys
• Annotation functionality that does not alter or modify the original page content, including Flash
• Improved text-to-speech interfacing and DHMTL/Flash supplementation using Fennec

The aiBrowser is available for download at the IBM alphaWorks website. Speaking of accessibility multimedia — also of interest is this article on the creation of accessible online video for keyboard-only users.

Copyright Owners Fighting Accessible E-Books

This coming Monday, a meeting will take place in Geneva considering the sanction of cross-border sharing of DRM-protected digitzed books for blind and visually disabled people.

Despite the altruism of intending to release thousands of book titles to blind users, this proposed effort is attracting opposition by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Their argument is that such a doctrine would increase content piracy by relaxing copyright restrictions, thus cultivating a landscape in which material would be exempt from copyright protection:

The Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry of America told the Copyright Office last month that such a treaty would “begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms.”

Breath-Controlled Virtual Interface

A new blowing interaction technology, creatived by Zyxio, turns puffs of breath into input signals for computers. The SensaWaft intelligent sensor (MEMS) is said to interface with multiple platforms: personal computers, game consoles, mobile devices, USB accessories and Bluetooth.

Windows and Apple Accessibility Features

Windows 7 offers an array of system preference to assist users with impaired vision and hearing access their computer. Among the features are a screen magnifier with multiple modes, a resizable on-screen keyboard and improved speech recognition controls.

Apple improved the accessibility of their Snow Leopard operating system last summer, enabling such features as new trackpad gestures with voice feedback, quick key navigation and mono audio playback.