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  • Cal State San Bernardino's webmaster has zeal for helping disabled students
    When Evans Kahuthu decided to look for a college to attend, he chose California for the weather and San Bernardino for the forest touted in tourist advertisements. In his native Nakuru, Kenya, the temperature hovers between 60 and 80 degrees all year, and lush trees decorate the landscape. Eight years after coming to San Bernardino, the 28-year-old has found a home away from home and made a name for himself through his advocacy for disabled students. Kahuthu, Cal State San Bernardino's webmaster, recently received an award for his work to make the California State system's Web sites and textbooks accessible to students with disabilities. He is one of four in the university system honored for efforts to implement the Accessible Technology Initiative, a push to make Web sites comply with federal guidelines related to access for those with disabilities. He also has trained faculty, staff and students on making Web sites accessible to all. He tapped into a grant to create Cal State's Center for Alternate Media database, which allows students with print disabilities to access textbooks and other materials online. Kahuthu said there are 500 to 800 students with disabilities at Cal State San Bernardino, a fraction of the more than 17,000 who attend the campus. "The number should not be an excuse not to make your Web site accessible" to those with a disability, he said. "It can happen to you tomorrow. It can happen to anyone."
  • The search for access
    Some students with disabilities say historically inadequate access to classrooms, textbooks and technology hinders their experiences on campus. Jim Jackson is a Portland State student with degenerative eye disease, a condition that progressively worsens his eyesight as time goes by. Because of his condition, he needs to use special technology and adapted textbooks in order to keep up with his class work--technology that is often scarce around campus, he said, and books that require extra steps to order. With a slim scope of accessible technology and the extra effort required to order textbooks, Jackson said he feels that students with disabilities are outsiders to a university that prides itself on being diverse and accepting. "You hear that PSU values diversity so much, but why is it that disabled students aren't a part of that focus?" Jackson said. "Obviously I can't get the same experience as other students, but come on." Jackson said that even finding a textbook requires finding an audio edition of the text from the Library of Congress, and ordering it via the Disability Resource Center. Students may also request a classroom text be adapted to a digital format by the DRC. Sometimes, Jackson said, after reserving an adapted textbook, he must wait weeks into the term to receive it.
  • Free text reader to help print-disabled students
    Thanks to Bookshare.org and Don Johnston, qualified students will be able to access thousands of books and periodicals free of charge. Students with print or reading disabilities will have a new resource to help them access thousands of books, magazines, and other texts electronically: Bookshare, a nonprofit online community, and Don Johnston Incorporated, a supplemental instruction provider, recently announced a partnership that will give print-disabled students a free text reader to access electronic books from the Bookshare.org library. The free text reader, called the Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition Text Reader, will serve an estimated 1 to 3 percent of the total K-12 student population, the two partners said, specifically, those who receive special education services and who are unable to read standard print materials owing to physical limitations. "Our goal is to serve at least 100,000 students over the next few years with this software," said Jim Fruchterman, chief executive officer of Benetech, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based nonprofit organization that operates Bookshare.org. At the start of the 2008-09 school year, qualified students will be able to use Don Johnston's Read:OutLoud Bookshare.org Edition text reader to access more than 36,000 books, magazines, and newspapers in the Bookshare.org library free of charge.
  • Accessibility I: How To Create Games For A Diverse Audience
    Escapism, the ability to forget about the ordinary or unpleasant realities of life in favor of a preferable experience, is considered one of the chief reasons gamers indulge in their hobby. The longing to encounter things unobtainable in real life is hard to ignore once your imagination has been unleashed for the first time. In the virtual realm, we can be who we want despite real-world limitations. We can defy the laws of physics and ignore the technological confines of our greater culture. We can create new universes, new worlds and new life. We can make the rules and mold societies to follow our philosophies. In the world of video games, nothing is impossible. Escaping for even a minimal amount of time through a digital experience can engage our imagination, elevate our moods and chase away the mundane realities of everyday life. Sounds good, right? The practice of escapism intuitively becomes even more important to an individual who is disabled by society or their surroundings. Whether the individual has a physical, auditory or cognitive impairment, the video-game experience in theory should act as a great equalizer. In the world of video games, anything is possible if the capacity to engage in these experiences is not denied to us. What if a physical limitation leaves a gamer unable to use a standard console controller? What if the lack of subtitles prohibits the entire deaf community from experiencing a blockbuster title? The bottom line is that the majority of video-game hardware, software and peripherals are unnecessarily inaccessible to many gamers with disabilities. Through simple lack of awareness or an intentional marginalization of their demographic, gamers with disabilities routinely take the backseat in the game-development process. There is no denying that the vast range and degrees of disabilities makes the situation complicated, however, there are simple steps developers can take to improve the accessibility of their titles. By studying the basics of accessibility and usability, fostering an awareness of common disabilities and how they affect gameplay, and giving gamers with disabilities a voice through participation in game testing, the current situation can be vastly improved.
  • Accessibility II: How to Create Games For A Diverse Audience
    With an audience as diverse as the accessibility community, where do game developers start making these changes? As always, the best place to start is by understanding your audience. The phrase "disabled gamer" may seem to be an all-encompassing term, but in reality it fails to be helpfully descriptive on even a basic level. According to Cornell University's Online Resource for U.S. Disability Statistics, in 2005 more than 12 percent of U.S. citizens reported having some form of disability. The variety and degree of these disabilities makes it admittedly almost impossible to design a game accessible to everyone. However, it helps to break the term "disability" into manageable chunks. On a superficial level, disabilities are broken down into five categories: visual, auditory, speech, mobility and cognitive impairments. Some disabilities can be compounded on top of each other, another factor that makes it difficult to design games accessible for all individuals. A feature by Brannon Zahand, "Making Video Games Accessible: Business Justifications and Design Considerations," provides a great foundation for understanding the wide spectrum of disabilities as they relate to video games.
  • British CIOs adjust to laws covering disabled workers
    People with disabilities have so far lost out on many of the benefits that technology has brought. But changes are on the way. Technology is supposed to make it easier for everyone to live and work, but for the 10 million people with disabilities in the UK, many of whom find it difficult to use a conventional keyboard and screen, life is much harder than it need be. Everyday business activities such as accessing information or using email are complicated or impossible for those with physical or sensory impairments, because websites and in-house systems cannot be adjusted to cater for their needs. On the face of it these adjustments seem simple enough: the ability to make text bigger, change colors, have onscreen text read aloud or to plug in special hardware and software. In fact many alterations that people with disabilities need can be achieved just by changing Windows settings. However, many organizations have struggled to make their IT accessible. Until recently only organizations with a high proportion of users with disabilities, such as government departments and banks, took much account of the fact that their customers and employees might not be able to use a screen and keyboard unaided.
  • People with disability in Canada can be positive contributors
    Over six years ago, a young deaf Canadian man, full of enthusiasm and passion, created the website Whistlerforthedisabled.com all by himself to be a resource for people with disabilities. It has become the leading website of its kind in North America. On it Hugh Tollett has collected information on accessible facilities for people with disabilities. He still continues to work hard on improving his website. His perseverance, friendliness and sincerity impress those who meet this determined young man. When explaining the primary goal of building the website, his assistant said Tollett wanted to give visitors, both able-bodied and disabled as many opportunities as possible to participate in the invigorating mountain lifestyle of Whistler.
  • Game Accessibility.com
    This website is part of the Game Accessibility project, a research project that focuses on the accessibility of electronic games for gamers with disabilities. This website aims to inform gamers with disabilities about the availability of accessible games, and functions at the same time as an academic resource for developers, publishers and researchers in order to stimulate accessibility in games.
  • Middle-Aged Users' Declining Web Performance
    Between the ages of 25 and 60, people's ability to use websites declines by 0.8% per year, mostly because they spend more time per page, but also because of navigation difficulties. Based on extensive research, we've developed special Web usability guidelines for young children, teenagers, and senior citizens. Each of these age groups have specific characteristics that designers must understand to attract young or old users to their sites. But what about people in the middle? We don't even have a real name for them, I usually just call people between 25 and 60 years old "mainstream users." This is by far the most important age group.
  • How Sloppy Website Design Hinders Online Success
    Do you ever wonder why your Website is nowhere to be found on Google, Yahoo! or MSN? If the answer is Yes then you must read on. Your problem could be the way your website design firm designed your site. Although many website design firms tout their design, marketing and search engine marketing expertise one look at the code behind their clients' sites tells a very different story: Messy, bloated HTML, 404 errors, re-directs, too many graphics, content hiding behind forms; lack of alt attributes and on, and on. In other words, the website's are not "built to code" and that results in the problems for online businesses including accessibility.
  • Accessible online learning: supporting disabled students
    This year I am delighted to be acting as a consultant for the Open University helping them to develop a new Masters unit called "Accessible online learning: supporting disabled students". The unit will be offered as part of the Masters in Online and Distance Education and is divided into three main parts. The first part of the course is concerned with the learning experiences of students with disabilities. The second part of the course is concerned with the more technical aspects of accessibility. The final part of the course is concerned with current debates and discussions about disability and accessibility in educational contexts. I am particularly excited that my 2006 book "E-learning and Disability in Higher Education: Accessibility Research and Practice" will be a core text for the course. Simon Ball from TechDis is also working with the OU Team to integrate TechDis staff development materials into the course.
  • osCommerce and Accessibility
    It has been a legal requirement for UK websites to be accessible since 1999. All websites are expected to make 'reasonable adjustments' to ensure their websites accommodate all users, regardless of ability or disability. It's estimated that at any one moment, 20% of online users are disabled in some way. This may be a temporary disability, such as a broken wrist, or a permanent disability, such as visual impairment. Just because someone is registered as blind, it doesn't mean they can't still see but perhaps needs to rely on a screen reader to help them with text on a website. If your website is not developed to respect this possibility then you are stopping this visitor from using your site, potentially losing a customer and every friend and family member that customer knows. Not to mention, they can make a claim against you and you could be liable to pay out compensation and be forced by a court of law to either remove or change your website.
  • New bionic eye implant to help the blind
    German scientists have developed a bionic eye implant that will soon be tested on blind patients. The prosthesis is a combination of high-tech glasses and an implant meant for patients with the hereditary disease Retinitis Pigmentosa, Germany's RWTH Aachen University announced on Monday. "The implant will make recognition of outlines, black-white differentiation and faint vision possible," said project head Professor Wilfried Mokwa in a statement. Retinitis Pigmentosa is characterized by the degeneration of the retina, including symptoms like tunnel vision, loss of colour and contrast recognition and loss of night vision. The implant transmits an image to a a digital signal processor called a "retina encoder," which creates the corresponding pattern of stimulation for electrodes placed onto the retina that reproduce the image. Mokwa said the implant may be tailored for other variations of blindness and other eye diseases in the future.
  • Super-Regulator' Sharpens Focus On Accessibility
    From the E-Access Bulletin: The UK government set up Ofcom in 2003 to be a 'super-regulator' for the nation's communications industries, merging five former regulatory bodies across the television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications sectors. Part of the body's role includes ensuring equal access to communications technology for people with disabilities, and in its first five years of operation it has carried out various projects relating to access to television, telecommunications and radio by all users. People with disabilities have been involved for example in work by Ofcom's Consumer panel, an advisory body representing consumer interests; its broadcasting Content Board, which looks beyond consumer issues to the broader 'public interest'; and its Advisory Committee on Older and Disabled People. Now, however, the pace of change in all its areas of activity including the convergence of internet services with television; the rise of digital radio; and the switchover to digital TV have prompted the regulator to give renewed priority to ensuring that all citizens are able to benefit from modern communications services. This year Ofcom is duly launching a new dedicated workstream focusing on access and inclusion, including usability, across all its areas of work. One of the people working on this is new Consumer Policy Manager Katie Hanson.
  • NCVO: Isle of Wight organisation wins ICT award for promoting accessibility
    The Riverside Centre, a social firm from the Isle of Wight, has scooped an award at the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Hub Awards today. Riverside, which provides accessible learning and social activities for people with disabilities and others within a supportive environment, won the Best use of ICT Accessibility award. The third Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Hub Awards 'Using Technology to achieve more', were announced at the ICT Hub 2008 National Conference and recognised the ICT achievements of voluntary and community organisations over the past year. The Riverside Centre puts IT and communication at the centre of their work. The Centre offers a comprehensive programme of services to all users, from basic IT sessions to enabling 'silver surfers' to contact distant friend and relatives. The Riverside Centre provides CV preparation sessions for Job Club members and learning support for NVQ and Learn Direct sessions. Users include people with a learning disability and/or sensory loss and the Centre has helped a range of people to gain new skills, from keeping IT diaries to accessing training and employment opportunities.
  • Internet Explorer 8 Promises Better Standards Compliance and a Whole Lot More
    Developer release lauded as "sweet!" but puts the focus on security, interoperability and better programming features rather than the user experience. At the MIX08 conference, Microsoft released the first beta of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), which is available for immediate download (Internet Explorer 8 beta). It promises several technical enhancements, as well as several philosophical improvements. After a session demonstrating the technical underpinnings of the beta release, the initial community response was, in the words of one developer, "Sweet!" Microsoft is swift to point out that Beta 1 is a developer release, rather than one meant for end users to test. "It's very early; we're not done," said Chris Wilson, the IE Platform Architect, during the technical breakout session introducing the new browser version. "We're not talking (yet) about the user experience." This Beta version puts its attention on security, interoperability and better programming features. Among the enhancements are CSS 2.1 support, CSS certification, performance improvements, HTML 5 support, built-in development tools and two new user features, Activities and WebSlices, that developers will want to explore. A key change in Microsoft's plans is, just announced this week, that IE8 will default to standards-compliance mode, rather than legacy support for previous browser versions. "Compatibility is key," said Wilson.
  • Enabling IT for all
    Experience tells us that accessible technology is neither difficult nor expensive to achieve, but it is dependent on the activity of campaigning organisations and individuals. Groups such as the national computing and disability charity AbilityNet, professional bodies such as WCIT (Worshipful Company of Information Technologists), the BCS and forward-thinking industry leaders help promote the mindset among IT directors. The promotions also help to bring about adjustments required to accommodate disability in the workplace. In most offices there is a growing and increasingly vocal group of people who experience IT-related repetitive strain injury (RSI), as a result of using a mouse, excessive keyboard use or sitting at a workstation incorrectly. The recent age discrimination legislation has cast the spotlight on challenges presented through an ageing workforce, and a range of associated conditions such as vision impairment and arthritis. Half of Japan's 127 million population is over 50, for example, and many other developed countries are mirroring the trend. Many companies strive to ensure systems are not locked down, allowing modifications within the operating system, and the addition of hardware and software alternatives to cater for individual requirements. Success is challenged by an inability to control the wider technological environment. We might all be equal in front of the screen, but once we venture onto the internet all bets are off. Despite legislation, 95 per cent of web sites are still inaccessible to individuals using specialist adaptive technologies like screen readers and voice recognition.
  • E-Access '08
    Julie Howell, Director of Accessibility at digital design agency Fortune Cookie, will deliver the keynote speech at Headstar's E-Access '08 conference in London on 23 April 2008. Fortune Cookies has a specialty in travel web site development. More about Julie at BBC's Ouch! - Close Up with Julie Howell. Fortune Cookie is also proudly sponsoring the event. Now in its forth year, and described by Headstar as 'bigger and better than ever', E-Access '08 will provide delegates with a unique opportunity to hear about the very latest trends in web accessibility from some of the world's foremost experts on disabled people's access to technology. Web accessibility standardisation and access to the world of social networking will be on the agenda, which features a presentation from Simon Stevens of the virtual community Second Life. Responding to the invitation to open the conference, Julie Howell says, "E-Access '08 the UK's premiere web accessibility conference. Businesses interested in understanding how accessible design can deliver incredible return on investment should clear their diaries on 23 April and get along to this vital conference. I am extremely honoured to give the keynote and delighted to be sharing the stage with the UK's foremost accessibility experts and fellow disability rights campaigners."
  • Accessing Second Life: Universal Design in a Virtual World
    Welcome to Healthinfo Island and to the Accessibility Center! I welcome you, and our speakers today, on the topic of universal design - Atsuko and JonDan. If you haven't been here before, you're invited to browse the Center and tour the Island - in fact, we are happy to meet with you for a separate chat to talk about the various things going on here. And there's a LOT to say! Healthinfo Island is a project funded by a grant from the National Library of Medicine, administered through the Alliance Library System (ALS) of Illinois.So is the Accessibility Center - it's also grant funded, also administered by ALS, specifically by Lori Bell, known inworld as Lorelei Junot, the spark behind all of the Info Islands, which now are populated by more than 700 librarians from all over the world, and which have expanded to include educators, researchers, and corporations. Like the early Web, SL is a grand experiment: what will the future look like? Can we do what we do now, in RL, in a virtual space? Can we do MORE? How can we harness the potential of this new world to enhance education, awareness, and community building, encouraging collaboration across all kinds of boundaries - geographic, profit-nonprofit, time, language, experience, skill, and other elements of our existence?
  • University's Web Project unrolls new site design
    Visitors to SF State's various Web sites will encounter a new, uniform look as the university gradually implements its improved web template, according to members of the university's Web project. The main page is still under construction and is expected to go live within the next two weeks, said university spokeswoman Ellen Griffin. Designed to ease navigation across SF State's patchwork of Web pages, the template is also intended to improve Web access for users with disabilities, said Clare Ramsaran of the Disability Programs and Resource Center. Administrators of current pages can download and customize the template for their own sites. "We've found that usability and accessibility overlap," said Ramsaran, DPRC's information access consultant. In the case of blind students, special software "reads" the text of a page aloud but can stumble over awkward wording or image-dependant Web sites. Simple menus and well-organized layouts are ideal for the software, but sighted navigators can also benefit from the organization, Ramsaran said.
  • Travel sector websites fail disabled travelers
    New research commissioned by Travolution magazine has found that major UK travel firms are failing to make their online services accessible to disabled people. The research was carried out by digital design agency Fortune Cookie which tested a number of UK travel websites for accessibility to the UK's 10 million people with disabilities. Fortune Cookie's Accessibility Expert Rune Leth Andersen said: "There are a number of ways of testing the accessibility of a website. Run it through an automated accessibility checking tool. But beware, automated tools detect only some accessibility problems and can produce false positives. Another approach is to commission a web accessibility expert to audit the site and provide recommendations. And you can undertake user testing involving disabled people." Fortune Cookie analysed eight popular travel websites but found that none met basic accessibility criteria and all would be difficult for a person with a disability such as blindness to use. Examples of sites that failed accessibility tests included Malmaison: "a number of the images have no 'alternative text' description'; Travel Supermarket: "relies solely on JavaScript for navigation"; Expedia: "poor colour contrast that would make the text illegible to some people"; and Trip Advisor: "inconsistent and confusing navigation".
  • Web Accessibility: Why should we care?
    Several things have had me thinking a lot about accessibility lately. A number of things all happened at around the same time which brought this to the forefront of my thoughts. A manager at work referred another developer to me on an accessibility question, I found that Bobby is offline and this neck problem I'm having has scared me with the possibility that I could be a disabled web user one day. This is a topic that I actually know quite a bit about. In previous jobs in earlier years I had to know quite a bit about accessibility, both in the rules and regulations and also in how to construct a site that followed those rules. I frequently had to instruct others in following these rules and for a while every single site I built had to conform to these rules. I haven't had to worry about accessibility much for the last few years so I was worried that things would have changed so much that I would be playing catch-up again. Luckily (for me at least) the same standards that were around then are still current. I'm not going to get into what the standards are and how to code in an accessible way in this post, I'll be doing a whole series on those topics.
  • Game Accessibility Arcade to be Presented at Game Developers Conference 2008
    The event will showcase solutions for creating accessible versions of games and game controllers for gamers with disabilities. The Game Accessibility Special Interest Group (SIG) of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) will be presenting its popular Accessibility Arcade session at the Game Developers Conference 2008 in San Francisco at the Moscone Center, February 18 - 22. SIG members hope that these sessions will provide the opportunity will help raise awareness amongst game developers and the gaming media that people with disabilities also want the chance to play commercial games and game controllers that have been re-designed for computers and the latest console systems. "The message we hope to convey at GDC 08 is that games are for everyone and are an important part of life today that cannot continue to be inaccessible for people with disabilities," said Michelle Hinn, chairperson of the Game Accessibility SIG, game design instructor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Game Accessibility Researcher at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. "The majority of games on the market remain unplayable by up to 10-20% of the population. This is not only an opportunity for developers to increase revenue - it is an issue of social injustice that must be corrected."
  • Tech finally at hand for India's 60 mn disabled
    It's early days but different organizations are developing and creating affordable products and solutions. Priti Rohra, a 30-year-old Mumbai resident, is your regular working woman with a corporate job and travels by local trains to work. But her poor eyesight, at 40% of normal, means she has difficulties reading signs or negotiating potholes. At work, Rohra uses a screen reader on her computer that gives an audio playback to every click she makes on her keyboard. Her English screen reader, from Florida, US-based Freedom Scientific, costs Rs60,000, clearly unaffordable for most Indians with acute vision problems. "In India, no firm or organization is anywhere near to making cost-effective solutions for us. Around 98% of the products and solutions such as websites available in India, are inaccessible. Each one of us (physically challenged) have brains and can learn any technology but make it usable and affordable," she says. Rohra works as an accessibility tester and consultant at BarrierBreak Technologies, a unit of Mumbai's Net Systems Informatics (India) Pvt. Ltd, that provides software solutions to make computing accessible for people with disabilities.
  • Raising the Standard
    From the E-Access Bulletin: Although awareness of the importance of web accessibility is now relatively high after years of struggle by disability campaigners, website owners and developers still face a confusing task in trying to ascertain exactly what they should do to make their sites accessible. There are a variety of guidelines and standards, and the main recognised international standard, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), is now outdated. A new version - WCAG 2.0 - might appear next year, but no-one is holding their breath since already almost a decade of wrangling and delays has passed since the appearance of WCAG version 1.0. Into this minefield strides the British Standards Institution (BSi), the UK's national standards body, now in the process of establishing a new technical standards committee to oversee the development of a standard which all organisations will be able to follow in procuring or developing an accessible website. It will not in itself set out in detail the technical requirements of accessibility, but it will aim to outline a thorough process developers can follow to ensure they are taking all the right actions at the right time to make their websites and services as inclusive as possible.
  • Investment in Accessibility is beginning to Pay Off
    A new study sponsored by The Customer Respect Group finds that companies strategically invested in removing barriers to customer interaction are deriving significant hard and soft benefits from accessibility initiatives. The study, "Accessibility and Business Value: Profiles in Success," evaluated the Web-site accessibility of Fortune 100 companies based on a benchmark developed by The Customer Respect Group. The accessibility benchmark was designed to measure the effectiveness of features that help improve the online experience for people who are blind or have low vision, and for those with cognitive and mobility challenges. The benchmark served as the basis for accurately identifying leading companies in the area of online accessibility. Subsequent interviews were conducted with executives the top ten leading companies, including Verizon Wireless, Southwest Airlines, General Electric, Proctor and Gamble, TIAA-CREF, Washington Mutual and others, to further investigate the companies' broader accessibility initiatives and determine the impetus for investment.
  • Designing Games That Are Accessible To Everyone
    Every year more and more people join the ranks of gamers, and new and innovative products are created to feed this influx. However, despite all this progress, gamers with disabilities have been routinely left behind. Many of the most popular games and systems are inaccessible to various forms of disability, such as visual impairments. Equally troublesome is that the games that are accessible are generally not playable by the mainstream market, due to the very design quirks that made the game accessible in the first place! For instance, there are a number of games designed for those who are visually impaired, but they frequently neglect critical elements for the sighted (i.e. graphics). And therein lies the problem -- games for those who are blind shouldn't mean games for only those who are blind. This is a terrible model that most people who are blind themselves hate. Developers should try to make games that work well for both gamers who are disabled and mainstream gamers to be profitable. With relatively minimal investment in what's simply better user interface design anyway, game developers can capture this additional market share that's eager for new offerings and has nowhere else to go.
  • Sense and sensibility
    The People with Disabilities Act, which is being revamped, should make inclusive design a reality in all products and places. The People with Disabilities Act, now 12 years old, is up for revamp. But will the new law ensure that roads and buildings become more accessible to people with different disabilities, and the production of assistive technologies for the disabled gets a boost? A new law has become necessary after India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons (UNCRDP) late last year. The UNCRDP's driving principles include mobility, independent living and equality. This implies universal design for all infrastructure, besides for products, websites and so on. UNCRDP defines it as "the design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialised design." Recently, Techshare, a conference of IT companies on disability organised by Barrier Break Technologies in Delhi, showcased the latest in assistive technologies as well as samples of inclusive design in products from across the world, like Braille keyboards and voice enabled devices. The need for inclusive design emphasised by the UNCRDP is reinforced by the fact that the needs of a person who is visually impaired are the same as that of a senior citizen whose vision has been impaired by glaucoma at a later stage.
  • India's First Two Day Accessibility Event Techshare India 2008 Concludes Successfully
    Techshare India 2008 concluded on a high note. The two day accessibility conference cum exhibition, organised by BarrierBreak Technologies in partnership with Royal National Institute of the Blind (UK) to highlight the role of Technology in the lives of People with Disabilities. Techshare India 2008 highlighted the role of technology in enriching the lives of People with Disabilities and how technology can be used by them to access education, information and employment. Techshare India 2008, a pan disability event, received an extremely positive response both from the visitors as well as the participants. The need for an event such as this in India was highlighted repeatedly. The platform was effectively used to discuss the availability and use of technologies to enable People with Disabilities. The exhibition area showcased the best of accessibility products from around the world along with an experience zone where any one could experience first hand the challenges that were faced by People with Disabilities and how technology could improve the quality of their life. An array of products were on display: an electronic screen reader that enabled people with visual disabilities to read information on a computer screen; Braille display keyboards that could read what was on the screen as well as allow people with disabilities to work on a regular computer; digital talking pen, electronic wheelchair and, many more.
  • Accessibility and business value study
    New study finds corporations derive business value by removing barriers for people with disabilities and boomers. Businesses weigh in on accessibility benefits in study sponsored by The Customer Respect Group. A new study by The Customer Respect Group finds that companies strategically invested in removing barriers to customer interaction are deriving significant hard and soft benefits from accessibility initiatives. The study, "Accessibility and business value: Profiles in success," evaluated the Web-site accessibility of leading companies based on a benchmark developed by The Customer Respect Group. The accessibility benchmark was designed to measure the effectiveness of features that help improve the online experience for people who are blind or have low vision, and for those with cognitive and mobility challenges. The benchmark served as the basis for accurate identification of leading companies in the area of online accessibility. Subsequent interviews were conducted with executives from the leading benchmark scoring companies, including Verizon Wireless, Southwest Airlines, General Electric, Proctor and Gamble, TIAA-CREF, Washington Mutual and others, to further investigate the companies' broader accessibility initiatives and determine the impetus for investment.
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