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The Idea Place Posts

MLB Improving Accessibility of Gameday Audio

Published May 9, 2009 by Kelly Ford

Good news for anyone who uses MLB’s
Gameday Audio service. I recently received the following e-mail from Lainey Feingold. For those who are not familiar with Lainey’s work, she’s been behind numerous improvements around accessibility over the past several years in areas ranging from ATMs to web sites.

 

To everyone who has contacted me about this year’s Game Day Audio Player on mlb.com:

 

MLB has put up an accessible player for Game Day Audio.  The new accessible game day audio player and related media center is live now (as of earlier this afternoon), but mlb is still working on all the internal links to integrate this player into the site.  That part should be done early next week.  But in the meanwhile, you can use the new player by going directly to the following url:

 
 

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/player/mpa/index.jsp

 
 

Please let us know what you think, and we’ll let you know as soon as this new player is integrated into the full site.  ACB, CCB and BSCB continue to work on other accessibility issues on mlb.com through the structured negotiations process, including the game day audio service.  We know that problems still exist for mlb.tv subscribers, so please let us know if you subscribe to mlb.tv.  Feedback about the new game day audio player will be shared with MLB.

 

One other accessibility issue that has been address is the all-star ballot.  This year’s ballot has been designed to be accessible and has an audio captcha.  The ballot is available at:  http://mlb.mlb.com/media/player/mpa/index.jsp  Please send any feedback on this as well.

 

Thanks for everyone’s support as we work with MLB to make the site accessible, 

 

Lainey

 
 

 

Lainey Feingold

Law Office of Lainey Feingold

http://lflegal.com/

510.548.5062

LF@LFLegal.com

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Ghosts in Seattle

Published May 3, 2009 by Kelly Ford

Whether you are a believer or not, the Market Ghost Tour is worth a try should you ever visit Seattle. Aimee and I took the tour last evening with a friend of hers from work and despite being drenched by rain, the experience was entertaining.

 

The hour-long walking tour leads you through parts of Pike Place Market pointing out buildings that are supposedly haunted. While no ghosts were encountered on our stroll, I for one learned a bit of Seattle’s history that I hadn’t heard before.

 

As an example, you can learn all about a Dr. Linda Hazzard who built her medical claim to fame on the theory that starvation was the cure to all ills. I guess you could say the theory worked because in the end the maladies afflicting the good doctor’s patients did go away. Unfortunately something else ended up doing most of the people in. Wonder of wonder it was the same Dr. Hazzard who filled out most of the death certificates in these cases. According to the tour guide, Paramount Pictures is coming out with a movie on this next year. Should you so choose, you can read Hazzard’s book “Fasting for the Cure of Disease”.

 

Our tour guide Mercedes was a walking storybook of Seattle history, much of it not the sort you’d find in any chamber of commerce version of what one should know about Seattle. She has a book of her stories available along with links to several other books that may be of interest.

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Accessible Interface to YouTube

Published April 30, 2009 by Kelly Ford

A recent message on the WebAIM mailing list talked about a more accessible interface for YouTube. This was created by a student investigating the impact of web 2.0 apps on people who are blind.

 

This isn’t necessarily a finished product but does seem to work well. It is particularly nice if you are using a screen reader and browser that support ARIA live updating. This is a technology that allows web page changes to be announced automatically to the screen reading user.

 

The accessible interface to YouTube can be accessed at http://tube.majestyc.net/. As an example in this version, ARIA live updates are used to announce video states such as buffering, playing and paused.

 

This is a research project so the developer is looking for feedback. Consider dropping by the page and completing a short questionnaire.

 

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Indian Wedding Barat Music

Published April 26, 2009 by Kelly Ford

A few years ago Aimee and I travelled to India for the wedding of one of my coworkers. We had the privilege of taking part in one of the wedding traditions known as a Barat.

 

Dictionaries will tell you that a barat is a procession lead by the groom with his relatives and friends to the place of the wedding ceremony. It involves musicians, dancing and general celebration as the wedding party makes their way through the streets.

 

What I will tell you is that listening to this recording of some of the procession even today reminds me what a delightful experience we had at the wedding and taking part in the barat. Enjoy nine minutes of what was more than an hour long experience. The musicians mingled with the people in an ever-changing flowing arrangement of people. One minute you were near the front of the group, the next the back. One second a drum is beating just inches from your head, the next a horn. I’ve long wondered what it was like to be part of a marching band. Now I know.

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An Accessibility Thanks to Goodreads

Published April 15, 2009 by Kelly Ford

I use a social networking site for book enthusiasts known as Goodreads. The basic concept behind the site is that you share what you are reading with friends and they share with you and you all get to discover more good reads.

 

Maybe 18 months ago I mentioned an issue around missing alt text on book titles on the site. Goodreads fixed the issue in about a day. Recently a change broke the issue and the site developers fixed things in a day. It is nice to see web developers take accessibility seriously and be so responsive when issues do come up.

 

If you enjoy books, give Goodreads a try. I’ve found it quite handy to keep track of what I’ve read and have discovered several new authors and books to read.

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W3C’s WAI Has Two Opportunities to Help Shape the Future of Accessible Web Browsing

Published March 27, 2009 by Kelly Ford

For those who haven’t heard about this in other arenas, I wanted to let readers know that the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) has some key opportunities to help shape the future of an accessible web browsing experience. There are two documents that have been released recently that offer opportunities to comment.

 

WAI-ARIA Last Call

 

WAI-ARIA defines a way to enhance the accessibility of web applications and user interfaces that are commonplace on the web today. It makes it possible as an example to create a tree view control in HTML and related script and have a screen reader and web browser treat that control like a tree view you may have experienced in a desktop application. Obviously the specification is only part of the story as you need both the web browser and screen reader or other assistive technology to support ARIA as well. Firefox has supported ARIA for a while and the recently released IE8 has added support for ARIA to IE.

 

You can learn more about the last call ARIA document and some companion documents that talk about adding support to ARIA in a browser and best practices for using the technology starting at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2009JanMar/0037.html. The announcement may indicate that comments were due by 3/24 on the last call document but I know comments are still being accepted beyond that date.

 

User Agent 2.0 Working Draft Available for Review

 

The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group is in the process of updating guidelines on what it means to be an accessible user agent. User agent really means web browser and the guidelines talk about everything from what keyboard access in a web browser should do to how web content should be made available to applications such as screen readers. I’m personally a member of this working group and when I think about the number of web browsing applications that exist today and that will exist five years from now, I think a UAAG 2.0 document is an excellent opportunity for us all to help ensure we can browse the web on all the different devices where it is available. This goes far beyond just the browsers we use on our notebooks, desktops and maybe cell phones today. UAAG 2.0 is still in a development stage and the group has some tough challenges we are tackling. I’d encourage those with an interest in the space to review the current working draft and share feedback. You can learn more starting at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2009JanMar/0057.html.

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Getting into Podiobooks

Published February 6, 2009 by Kelly Ford

I’m sure I’m definitely a Johnny-come-lately to the table when it comes to podiobooks. I know a friend of mine has been after me to experience the world for more time than I care to remember. I dabbled a bit a few months ago and then the computer I was using to gather books crashed and well, I wouldn’t be a Johnny-come-lately if I jumped right back in now would I?

 

The basic premise as I understand it behind the podiobooks world is this: There are loads of authors who have stories to tell that today’s mainstream publishing world just won’t publish. Based on my own experience it has little to do with the quality of the writing or nature of the books. I’m sure it is more a reflection of the homerun or nothing mentality of the publishing industry as anything else.

 

Some of these authors have decided to use technology to solve the problem of getting their stories out and one of the leading web sites for this is Podiobooks.com. There you can download for whatever donation you choose to make, hundreds of books in audio form, mostly read by the authors.

 

I won’t claim to be any sort of expert in the area. My understanding is that several of the authors have garnered book deals with publishing houses as a result of their success in this new arena. What I will say is that I’ve found another good source of reading material. My sleep might not like the result, but the reader in me has been enjoying the new discoveries I’m making in the podiobooks world. And a big thanks to the friend who persisted in telling me I’d enjoy this source of listening material.

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Freedom Scientific Talks About ARIA

Published January 18, 2009 by Kelly Ford

The current episode of Freedom Scientific’s podcast called FSCast has an extensive discussion of ARIA (accessible rich internet applications). At a high level, ARIA is a way to ensure that the complexity of desktop applications being reproduced on the web remains accessible.

 

The podcast is worth a listen for anyone interested in web accessibility. Although JAWS is used in some of the demonstrations, the discussion of ARIA hits at the benefits and challenges of ARIA for any screen reading user. Take a listen to the podcast directly at http://podcast.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/episodes/fscast026-january2009.mp3.

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