Published by rwatstein August 31st, 2008
in web sites and disabilities.
Here is a Web site that shows you what various Web pages look like to people who have different types of color blindness. This is no small issue. Consider how many people are looking at the Web sites you worked so hard to design, and they do not see anything like what you put up there. The site says: In the U.S. 7 percent of the male population — or about 10.5 million men — and 0.4 percent of the female population either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and green differently. Color blindness affects a significant amount of the population, and it is even more prevalent in more isolated populations with a smaller gene pools. It is mostly a genetic condition, though it can be caused by eye, nerve, or brain damage, or due to exposure to certain chemicals.
Read the full article here
Share This
Published by rwatstein July 12th, 2008
in innovation, technology and disabilities.
Web technologies and mobile devices have created many new ways for sight and hearing-impaired consumers to find information and connect with friends. But as entertainment and communications tools increasingly take digital form, some people with disabilities feel left behind. Online videos are not required to have captions, for example, and ticker-style emergency messages are not narrated
Read the full article here
Share This
Published by rwatstein July 5th, 2008
in libraries and disabilities.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburghs Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (LBPH) has been named Network Library of the Year by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a department in the Library of Congress. This highest honor is given for exemplary library service to readers whose visual or physical disabilities prevent use of standard print. A framed certificate and an award of $1,000 were presented to LBPH at a ceremony in Washington, DC. LBPH will also display a traveling plaque until the next recipient is chosen.
Read the full article here
Share This
Judith M. Dixon, a clinical psychologist by training and a sophisticated techie by avocation, is helping to lead the Library of Congress into the digital age. Dixon, 55, who gave up university teaching 27 years ago to join the library’s National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, is a key player on a team that has been working for the better part of a decade to create a new generation of audiobooks for the library’s more than 700,000 registered blind and disabled users.
Read the full article here
Share This
There are more than 50 million adults with disabilities in the United States alone. They now have access to a targeted social network: Disaboom. Disaboom was founded by J. Glen House, who graduated from medical school after a skiing accident left him quadriplegic at the age of 20. Its mission is to develop the first interactive online community dedicated to improving the lives of people with disabilities or functional limitations.
Read the full article here
Disaboom website
Share This
Published by rwatstein December 1st, 2007
in education and disabilities.
“We’re making it possible for deaf and hard of hearing people to have equal access to information via the Internet.” That’s according to Samuel Slike, an instructor and curriculum coordinator of the Education of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Program at Pennsylvania’s Bloomsburg University. Last semester, Bloomsburg began using Wimba’s Live Classroom, a Web-based learning tool, to offer deaf and hard of hearing students an online course that includes a sign-language interpreter and closed-caption text to accompany the standard slide presentation and instructor’s voice.
Read the full article here
Share This
Published by rwatstein December 1st, 2007
in libraries and disabilities.
Libraries are silent zones and it is no different at Farook College near this Kerala city. But sometimes in its quiet ambience you may hear a voice reading aloud in English in an accent that is not native. Don’t be perturbed - it is the Digital Talking Book Library.
Read full article here
Share This
