For the past several years I’ve taken part in a family fantasy football league. Each year when draft time comes around, I start my process of figuring out how I’m not only going to draft my team but also keep track of the full draft results. As a member of the league, I want to draft the best possible team. As league commissioner, I need to know the full draft results because I’m responsible for…
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As I’m sure most in the web accessibility arena have heard by now, a Florida judge ruled that the regional grocer Winn-Dixie must make the company’s web site accessible. As usual Lainey Feingold has an excellent summary of the details. The full legal ruling is also available. Reading through the full document, a few interesting tidbits of information jumped out at me. I’m always interested in the dollars and cents of accessibility costs. Prior to…
Leave a CommentI’m someone who enjoys long form journalism and there’s obviously quite the supply online. In fact, there is so much content at times that sifting through it all can be daunting. One resource I’ve found that has consistently delivered an excellent selection of reading material is called The Sunday Long Read. The two individuals behind the weekly collection do a stellar job at finding interesting material to read. Sign up on the web…
Leave a CommentBlog readers will know that accessibility is one of my interests and I’m always particularly interested in ways to make larger data sets more accessible and consumable. Weather maps for example that allow those who can see to quickly get a sense of the temperatures throughout a region are rarely in my use very accessible when you are not able to see. I’m also a fan of the do it yourself approach to problem…
One CommentI spend a significant part of my professional and personal life working in the area of software accessibility. I’m pretty familiar with all the positives and negatives of various operating systems, strategies for accessibility on those environments and the various tricks and techniques one can sometimes try to work around challenges when they come up. Then too, unfortunately, there are times I’m reminded of the consequences when a solution does not exist. I’ve been…
4 CommentsTerrill Thompson, the driver behind an accessible NCAA basketball tournament bracket, is following that effort with what he bills as the “Accessible Sports Survey”. The survey asks for some basic info about the sports you enjoy, sources of sports information you use, number of sporting events you attend and some basic demographic info about any assistive technology and disabilities you want to share. Thompson indicates data from the survey will be used to help develop…
Leave a CommentEach March, college basketball fans are consumed by March Madness and filling out countless NCAA brackets. With my favorite Wisconsin Badgers having a number 1 seed in this year’s tournament, you can bet I want to get my bracket in. I’m as much of a fan of accessibility as I am sports, so this time is always an interesting checkpoint to see how far accessibility has come or not when it comes to something…
Leave a CommentIt is nice to see that Safeway has updated their iOS app for online shopping with an improved VoiceOver experience. I’m not a regular user of this app but as luck would have it, I happened to use it over the weekend before the update. So it was nice to read the description of what’s new for the 2.6 update saying, “Enhanced usability and performance for users of VoiceOver and other built-in iOS accessibility features.”…
Leave a CommentThe Seattle Sluggers, a beep baseball team, started playing last year. One of the local TV stations just ran a story on the team. I thought the reporter did a good job at explaining the sport and not making people who are blind sound either helpless or like super freaks, the two ends of the spectrum that can often happen with this kind of story. I am part of the team and find it…
Leave a CommentA bit of hard drive cleaning had me sifting through some of the random audio I’ve captured over the years. So if the internet allows one to cater to self-indulgent delights of sharing information others may or may not find interesting, here are just a few sounds from the past few years. Use the links at the end of each description to play the audio. Cape Foulweather on the Oregon Coast The Oregon…
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