This was yet another attempt on my part to get familiar with Accessibility. The term means a lot but to me it refers to usability of computer systems by people with disabilities or age related limitations. I was notified about this seminar which looked at Macromedia (formerly) Flash as a delivery tool and how one can make it accessible – Designing Accessible eLEarning Applications with Flash. The title was intriguing because I never thought one could make it accessible the way HTML/xHTML behaves and hence I decided to participate.
The workshop was conducted by N-Syst, an organisation which has been a part of the accessibility movement in India. They have been urging IT services companies through workshops and training courses to make softwares more friendly for the physically challenged people for th epast many years. Shilpi Kedia, the founder of the organisation conducted the workshop in a cordial manner.
The first half we were introduced to some of the accessbility laws which have been passed by countries like the US, UK and Australia. These laws provide cover to the physically challenged people to sue any company or service which doesn’t adhere to the standards set by the federal agencies. For instance US has Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act 1973 and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act 1973. The UK has 2 laws pertaining to the disabled – Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and Special Educational Needs Disability Act 2001 (SENDA). Australia has the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. These acts or laws stipulate certian guidelines which are to be followed by the industry or educational institutions while developing some application or a product and discourage any discrimination between individuals. These laws have now become a yardstick to measure the success of any application vis-a-vis accessibility.
We were also shown some very intresting applications as well. For instance a software called the Visual Impairment Simulator gave an insight into how people with visual disabilities like Colour blindness, cataract, far-sightedness, etc. see the world around them. This was something which I experienced for the first time and it sensitized me towards the issue a lot. Vision is particularly important because a study from an unknown third party source has shown that 80% of all human learning happens through vision. The other forms of disabilities which were covered here were Hearing, Mobility and people with Learning disabilties. Down the line we all will be suffering either from one or all of the given disabilties due to old age and that should wake us from our sleep now.
In the latter half of the workshop we were also shown some accessible products like the light detector for the visually impaired which remind him/her through a loud beep sound about the lights in the room which might have been switched on due to some reason and a “talking” calculator which calculates a given figure loudly. We were also told about a phone available in the US called the TTY (sic) which has a keyboard attached to it so the hearing impaired can type in and send their message across. At this point I sighted the example of Hong Kong, the one city I would wish to visit again, and the very disabled friendly Metro Rail System there which has such services like the beep sound to notify the visually impaired person about the exit/entry routes. India unfortunately still lacks these facilities.
In Flash we were shown the different ways in which we can make the software accessible by using dynamic text and giving names and descriptions to the objects which we use within. This is to help a screen reader called JAWS to read the various elements aloud to a visually impaired person. There was an exercise wherein we developed the snakes and ladder game for the blind and I am proud of some the ideas which our team gave. We could have easily won something had there been a professional championship :-)
And now I am going to end this show Yawnnnn!!! It’s past my bedtime. See you guys later..zzzzz
First time visitor.
Quite an informative article.