Accessible Technologies – By Mattie Coccia and Alex Schneider – Legal History

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Accessible Technologies – By Mattie Coccia and Alex Schneider – Legal History

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Ethics-in-Disabilities-and-Accessible-Technologies

On Github alexschneider / Ethics-in-Disabilities-and-Accessible-Technologies

Accessible Technologies

By Mattie Coccia and Alex Schneider

Follow along: http://is.gd/YSBIrP

Talking Points

Physical disabilities, not mental

Consumption of media

Primarily we're talking about tech that aids people in their consumption and access to media, rather than mobility and social interaction.

Timeline of technology

1700s: Sign Language

1824: Braille

1913: Hearing Aids

1950s: TTS/Screen Readers

1972: Closed Captioning

TTS/Screen Readers allowed access without requiring content creators to incur great expense. Most disability access requires great expense either on content creators or on

Legal History

Pre-WWI: Second class citizens

1930-1950: Disabled war veterans lobby for increased rights and support

1973: Rehabilitation act

1990: Americans with Disibilities Act

2010: Communications and Video Accessibility Act

http://archive.adl.org/education/curriculum_connections/fall_2005/fall_2005_lesson5_history.html

Many disabled are treated like second class citizens before WWI and had few rights and few people helping them. During the world wars, many veterans became physically disabled Rehabilitation act is for government financial and personal support for disabled people (primarily people who are unable to work). ADA focuses on physical environments, so as virtaul environments become popular with computers, a new act was required.

Development and sale of traditional accessible technologies

Hearing aids $1500+

Powered wheelchairs $1500+

Navigation systems for the blind $600

Assistive Technologies That Are Still Expensive

Sip/puff switches $300+

Refreshable braille display $3500+

Brain computer interface $400+

This doesn't have to be the case!

A11y (Accessibility) Software

Screen readers

Speech recognition for control

Automatic captioning systems

In today's world, general computer hardware are capable of doing nearly everything required for accessibility means. So why aren't they?

Writing Accessible Software is Hard

<ol>
  <li id="ch1Tab">
    <a href="#ch1Panel">Chapter 1</a>
  </li>
  <li id="ch2Tab">
    <a href="#ch2Panel">Chapter 2</a>
  </li>
  <li id="quizTab">
    <a href="#quizPanel">Quiz</a>
  </li>
</ol>

<div>
  <div id="ch1Panel">Chapter 1 content goes here</div>
  <div id="ch2Panel">Chapter 2 content goes here</div>
  <div id="quizPanel">Quiz content goes here</div>
</div>

16 lines of code

<style>
	li[aria-checked="true"] {
		font-weight: bold;
		background-image: url('images/dot.png');
		background-repeat: no-repeat;
		background-position: 5px 10px;
	}
</style>
<ol role="tablist">
  <li id="ch1Tab" role="tab">
    <a href="#ch1Panel">Chapter 1</a>
  </li>
  <li id="ch2Tab" role="tab">
    <a href="#ch2Panel">Chapter 2</a>
  </li>
  <li id="quizTab" role="tab">
    <a href="#quizPanel">Quiz</a>
  </li>
</ol>

<div>
  <!-- Notice the role and aria-labelledby attributes we've added to describe these panels. -->
  <div id="ch1Panel" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="ch1Tab">Chapter 1 content goes here</div>
  <div id="ch2Panel" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="ch2Tab">Chapter 2 content goes here</div>
  <div id="quizPanel" role="tabpanel" aria-labelledby="quizTab">Quiz content goes here</div>
</div>
<script>
var processMenuChoice = function(item) {
  // 'check' the selected item
  item.setAttribute('aria-checked', 'true');
  // 'un-check' the other menu items
  var sib = item.parentNode.firstChild;
  for (; sib; sib = sib.nextSibling ) {
    if ( sib.nodeType === 1 && sib !== item ) {
      sib.setAttribute('aria-checked', 'false');
    }
  }
};
</script>

37 lines of code - more than double

Automatic Captions

Accessibility in Gaming

Colorblind mode

Visual based games adapted for blind gamers

Unconventional control methods

Colorblind mode menu

Colorblind mode

Visual based games adapted for blind gamers

Unconventional control methods

GimpyG Gaming video

Werdning Hoffmans Desiese GimpyGGaming

Disabled people often have to jump through hoops in order to get the same experiences.

Who should be responsible?

Content creators?

Accessible technology developers?

Development time for games and accessible software is expensive!

Possible Solutions

Incentives for spending dev time making products accessible

Provide standard built into the operating system for pluggable accessibility tools (colorblindness, subtitles, alternate control devices)

Subsidize the hardware that is neededed

Accessible Technologies By Mattie Coccia and Alex Schneider Follow along: http://is.gd/YSBIrP