Wendy Chisholm

Here are a few brief glimpses of memories; they don’t do justice to the awesomeness that is John Slatin.

I went to dinner with Anna and John then we went to Body Choir. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was blown away. At first, I felt a little awkward, but I started moving to the music then realized that I was connecting with people without words. Through movement, eye contact, I was interacting with people in ways I never had before. In the car afterwards, I had many questions and we had a wonderful discussion about intimacy – something I’ve always struggled with. That was a pinnacle discussion for me – one that caused me to question how I think. I’m still growing as a result of that discussion and still have further to grow. As I’ve read Leukemia Letters over the last 2 years and about all the people surrounding Anna and John, I see that the wisdom and the openness we talked about that night is the strength behind the love and the connections.

June 2005: We were in Brussels for a WCAG WG face-to-face meeting that was to start the following day. John and I were sitting on a bench in a park, Dillon at our feet. I had told family and a couple friends that I was two months pregnant and decided to share the news with John. I had slept every afternoon for the two weeks leading up to the trip and was anxious about how I would manage 8-12 hour days in meetings. “I can’t leave the meetings every afternoon. What will I do?” He replied, “If you need to leave, then do it. If people ask, then tell them.” I could always count on John for calm and clarity. I could talk with him about things that I couldn’t with other people. I didn’t know it at the time – but we were both tired. John would return home from that trip and begin the first of many hospital stays.

I wish I could be in Austin this weekend. I want to be part of the energy of the amazing people that surround John and Anna. You both have been influential with your wisdom and your love, your energy and your calm. Thank you. I love you.

Back in the day, Java was supposed to be our “write once, run anywhere” solution. Today, all those beans live on the server handling service calls from other “write once, run anywhere” RIAs. All that promise of fame and glory and they end up hiding in the background. Poor beans. They just weren’t flashy enough. heh.

Throughout my programming career, I have learned (and forgotten) Basic, Pascal, C, C++, Java…not to mention all of the various application-specific scripting languages that I can’t even remember the names of…but, throughout all that learning and forgetting, one thing remains constant: flow diagrams. Seeing them again this morning is like rediscovering that cozy old blanket from college.

Pepsi ad to give Super Bowl viewers a moment of silence

The pregame advertisement features a joke that originates from the deaf community and will play out on screen over 60 seconds of total silence, a veritable eternity when it comes to the noisiness of Super Bowl ads.

The joke goes like this: Two guys are driving to their friend Bob’s house to watch the Super Bowl. Once they get to Bob’s street, neither knows which house is his. They sit in the car, arguing, until one of them has an idea. He starts laying on the horn, and one by one, the houses light up and dogs start barking.

One house stays dark: It’s Bob’s.

Pepsi worked with National Association of the Deaf on this commercial and will sponsor captioning of the Super Bowl. The commercial came about because of an employee’s interest that stemmed from attending a church where the services are held in ASL – he is not deaf. Many people volunteered their services to make the commercial happen and it includes two Pepsi employees who are deaf.

It’s super exciting to see awareness raised in a humorous way in such a large venue! I really hope it makes people stop, listen, and think.

You can watch the commercial online (but don’t press the “play” button, select the commercial – to the right). While I applaud their effort to raise awareness about accessibility and am very excited about their work, their web site is not accessible. Too bad.

Hey, Pepsi! Please add labels to each of the buttons in the Flash app. Thanks!

I love tattoos. I love inclusion. I love futuristic ideas.

The haptic tattoo is all three.

Each time I see predictions for new technologies, I wonder how long it will be until they are accessible. Perhaps 2008 will be better than previous years – let’s take a look at the technologies listed in the BBC’s Technologies on the rise in 2008 and make some accessibility predictions for the upcoming year.

THE WEB TO GO

“Google announced its Gears application whilst Adobe launched Air and Microsoft released Silverlight.” I haven’t looked at Gears and Air, but there is hope that they will be accessible (good folks work at both companies) but SilverLight is an accessibility disappointment. Let’s hope version 2 straightens things out.

Accessibility prediction: Accessibility will be incorporated into each technology but the majority of developers won’t use accessibility features. Development tools won’t check for accessibility issues so developers won’t know or think to address them.

What can you do? Put ATAG and WCAG into developers’ hands.

ULTRA MOBILE PCs

“…towards the end of 2007 a series of new products started to hit shelves. The most talked about was the Asus EEE, a sub-£200 laptop about the size of a hardback book.”

The EEE runs Linux – while I’ve not played with LSR or GNOME accessibility, at least there is an open source movement.

“Apple is even rumoured to be launching ultra-thin Macbooks using flash in 2008.” – assuming that the universal access features of leopard are all that apple claims they are, the future of the ultra mobile pc looks bright.

Accessibility prediction: Ultra mobile pcs will be an inexpensive platform for the replacement to mobile assistive technologies and augmentative communication devices that currently cost hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars.

IPTV

More homes have broadband connections and speeds are increasing, “As a result, more and more internet protocol television services are being launched.” I hope currently captioned programs will continue to be, but one look at YouTube -with its thousands of hours of uncaptioned video – and I shake in my boots. Although, there is hope: CNET is captioning all of its programs.

Accessibility prediction: Thousands more hours of uncaptioned video and few described videos.

What can you do? Learn about captioning services and tools and incorporate captioning into your workflow. Refer to WCAG 2.0 Related Resources for Captions and WCAG 2.0 Related Resources for Audio Description.

WIMAX

No issues that I’m aware of.

Accessibility prediction: None that I can think of. Any ideas? Matt says, “location-based services” and pointed me to Andrew WiMAX Location Information Server. Sweet! Wonder what the Geeze has to say about that.

MOBILE VOIP

Accessibility prediction: As long as the interface is accessible, should be awesome. I assume people with hearing loss or who are deaf will continue to chat and text. Any issues here that I’m not aware of?

What are your predictions for 2008?

From the L.A. Times: A new film about a troupe of disabled performers delivers a message of empowerment.

As I read the first paragraphs of the story, I dreaded that the director, Liu Xiao Cheng, was using disadvantaged people for his personal gain. But, as I read further, it seems he genuinely wants to change how people think about abilities.

“It wasn’t enough for this troupe to arouse people’s mercies,” he said. “We wanted their respect.”

As I reread the article, it is the columnist’s use of language that triggers feelings of bias, “blind dancers,” “deaf dancers,” “blind singers.” By saying, “blind dancer” he focuses on the disability, rather than the person. By removing “hearing-impaired” from “host” in the following paragraph, the theme can sing:

At each performance, a host uses sign language to express the troupe’s theme — that it does not take sight or hearing or full physical faculties to produce gorgeous art.

Beautiful.

From the L.A. Times: A new film about a troupe of disabled performers delivers a message of empowerment.

Coming soon to a theater near you, “My Dream” about a troupe of Chinese performers with disabilities. As I read the first paragraphs of the story, I assumed it was like many others that I’ve read; that the director, Liu Xiao Cheng, was using disadvantaged people for his personal gain. But, as I read further, I think he may genuinely want to change how the non-disabled view people with disabilities.

“It wasn’t enough for this troupe to arouse people’s mercies,” he said. “We wanted their respect.”

As I reread the article, it is the columnist’s use of language that triggers feelings of bias, “blind dancers,” “deaf dancers,” “blind singers.” By saying, “blind dancer” you are making the disability primary rather than the person – you see the disability before the person creating a box around them. By removing “hearing-impaired” from the host in the following paragraph, the theme can sing:

At each performance, a host uses sign language to express the troupe’s theme — that it does not take sight or hearing or full physical faculties to produce gorgeous art.

Beautiful.

I am finally breaking free from blogger.   I have much work to do on the design, but will use this to get me up and rolling until I’m more familiar with WordPress and have a better idea of where I’m going with all of this…

It’s been an emotional two days in the world of accessibility.

I’ve been reading reactions to the judge’s ruling that Target should stand trial and I looked at the site this morning – the one that includes “several improvements” that were made in reaction to the suit. I keep expecting someone to say, “Just kidding! We uploaded this site from the wayback machine, circa 1998. Here’s our standards-based design over here….”

I keep coming back to these two paragraphs from “Court Rules Against Target in Web Site Accessibility Lawsuits” by Evan Schuman:

As for the Target argument that many of the purchases were ultimately made, albeit with help, the judge offered a different perspective. “Certainly, forced reliance on other people is injurious in many respects. Again, Target responds that none of these (consumers) were absolutely prohibited from entering the Target stores and making purchases as a result of the [Web site]‘s inaccessibility. According to Target, these shoppers merely experienced inconvenience,” Hall ruled. “Target contends that equal convenience is not required by ADA. Therefore, the fact that (the suing consumers) spent more time to accomplish the same tasks as sighted persons and required assistance from in-store personnel or guides does not render the stores inaccessible.”

The judge continued: “Like its argument that deterrence does not constitute inaccessibility, this argument, too, is overbroad. A wheelchair user is not prohibited from entering a store without a ramp: [T]hat person could be carried into the store by the store personnel or hire a guide to do so. Nevertheless, those accessibility barriers, even where they may be accommodated, would generally violate the ADA. Similarly, the increased cost and time to surmount the alleged barriers presented by the inability to pre-shop demonstrate that these (consumers) have met the class definition. Target’s reliance upon their ability to accommodate blind shoppers through other means, such as in-store assistance or a 1-800 customer service number is misplaced at this stage. As the court noted at the outset of this litigation, the method of accommodation is an affirmative defense.”

I’ll let that percolate for a couple days…a post about “accessiblity vs usability” is likely the result.

On the other hand, the Special Olympics Summer World Games opened yesterday and I’m just now watching the rebroadcast. Over 7,000 people from 165 countries? With that many people raising that much accessibility energy in one area of the planet maybe there’s hope for us yet. (Do you suppose the golden dragon who delivered the magical ball of light to the woman in the orange boat floating above the blue sea of dancers was audio described for the folks unable to see the performance?)

In other news, “AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! Unite to Advance Online Media Captioning.” Yes, please.

More later, I’m off to the university to hear T.V. Raman speak.