At this point it’s no secret that I’m a diehard Apple fan. My family bought the very first Macintosh in the mid 1980′s, and I’ve never been without one since.

I’ve blogged before about accessibility features that Apple has put into their products, from their operating systems to the iPhone. While it’ll forever be a debate if they’ve gone “far enough” with their considerations for those with disabilities, the point I continue to maintain is that they seem to take it seriously enough to continue adding enhancements.

We’re on the cusp of another Mac OS update, with Lion roaring in any day now. I for one can’t wait to get my paws on it, especially at its ridiculously reasonable price of $29.99. They’re touting that it’s littered with over 250 enhancements.

Here’s a rundown of some of the touted new accessibility features:

• Addition of picture-in-picture zoom – to enhance the zooming experience and providing greater overall context of how what you’re focusing on fits in with the overall page/screen.
• Support for 80+ Braille tables across multiple languages
• Greater control over how and how much information comes across via a refreshable Braille device
• Greater precision in the appearance of the pointer when viewed at larger zoom levels
• Greater customization of VoiceOver, enabling it to perform in different manners for different activities
• Screen sharing – enabling users to assist other users directly

You can find out about all the new features of Lion at Apple’s OS X Lion Features.

As always, we’ll have to see these features in action to gauge whether they truly make disabled Mac users’ lives easier. Hopefully by the end of this month, we’ll start finding out.

Further reference:

• Current Mac OS X accessibility features
• Apple’s accessibility statement

Tags: apple, braille, lion, mac os x, refreshable braille, VoiceOver, zoom

I was at a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game a few weeks ago, and was doing a little tailgating with a friend (to those unfamiliar, that is grilling out in the parking lot before the game).

At one point, a young man approached us and gestured to a small pamphlet he was holding. It had a message on the front that read, “I am selling this Deaf Education System card to make living. Will you kindly buy one? Pay any price you wish! Thank you.”

These sorts of things definitely tug at my heart strings, so I gave him a $5 (for both me and my friend). He gave me a complicated handshake that I feebly imitated, and went on his way. It looked like the next several people he approached similarly give him donations.

After mentally wishing him well in whatever struggles he was facing, I got to thinking about portable “deaf education systems” like the hand-drawn representations in the pamphlet.

I naturally wondered what sort of mobile applications are out there for this sort of thing. So I did a search in the app store.

I expected to see a handful of results, but was surprised to find several dozen when I typed in “sign language”.

Like any subject matter, I’m sure some of these apps are good, some are mediocre, and some are just plain bad. I can’t say as I want to check all of them out, but I think I’ll rummage through a few of them and post some thoughts later on.

Are there sign language or deaf-assisting applications that you’ve experienced that are worthwhile? Are you a deaf person who uses his or her iPhone or mobile device to make your life a little easier?

Tags: app, apple, deaf, iphone, sign language

I’m downright appalled at how much I’ve neglected this blog in the past month. The fact of the matter is that work demands, among other things, contributed to theaccessibility.com taking a hiatus.

Nevertheless, that still doesn’t make me feel good about disrupting what was becoming a good blogging rhythm. And we all know that frequency of quality posting is key to any successful blog.

This is a short blog post to get back into the swing of things.

Last week, Apple released iPhone OS 3.1. There are some nice features in the release, but one in particular adds a nice little accessibility win.

The upgrade makes it easier to activate the accessibility features on your iPhone. By clicking the Home button three times, you can toggle on VoiceOver, Toggle White on Black, and Ask.

While arguably a minor enhancement, anything that makes accessibility features easier to get to is admirable. As I’ve said before, Apple seems to genuinely take accessibility seriously, as they continue to evolve their products such as the iPhone, Snow Leopard and now the mobile OS. Are they perfect? Of course not. But at least there is continual progress.

Tags: apple, iphone, mobile

I’ve admitted numerous times that I’m an Apple devotee. So maybe I’m biased when I laud their efforts in the accessibility realm. However – and perhaps it’s in part because they have always done a good job “getting it” when it comes to creating software and hardware that are both well-designed and easy to use – they seem to at the very least take accessibility seriously and continue adding or bolstering accessibility features in their products with each release.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is slated for a September 2009 release. As with most of their products, they have an accessibility features page for Snow Leopard and the OS X platform in general.

Among the heralded Snow Leopard accessibility enhancements:

• More robustness to the built-in VoiceOver capabilities, particularly for web browsing
• Major enhancements to their trackpad – which will represent the active window, enabling users to hear what item they hover over, as well as to discern and navigate through multiple items on the screen through finger movements
• Support for over 40 plug-in Braille displays
• The rotor capability – an enhanced capability of the trackpad to enable users to use a “dial” motion for cycling through text word or character at a time, and also to navigate a web page by common items, such as headers, links and imagery
• Technology that to a degree overcomes sites’ accessibility shortcomings by assigning “auto web spots” denoting important elements of the site. One can, for example, assign certain areas of a regularly-frequented site so that, in the future, VoiceOver can skip right to those elements first.
• VoiceOver Commanders – a new enhancement to the VoiceOver admin utility that allows for greater automated actions and keyboard shortcuts

Many of these features, on the surface, promise to offer greater ease of use, particularly for the visually-disabled — from all-around usage of your Mac to web surfing specifically. How effective they are, of course, remains to be seen when Snow Leopard arrives. Also, with just about all the enhancements directed towards the visually-disabled, how will Snow Leopard work for those with other disabilities, such as limitations of motor skills and hearing problems?

Tags: apple, braille, mac os x, snow leopard, VoiceOver

I’ve had the opportunity recently to do some basic accessibility testing on some sites, and thought I’d share just a few of the tools I use to make certain aspects easier. There are many out there, with varying degrees of usefulness. This list barely scratches the surface.

Firefox Accessibility Extension 1.4.5.0
This toolbar gives you a handful of features that aid in accessibility testing. You can run a report that notes accessibility failures. You can easily identify important elements of a page such as title, headings, frames, and links. It gives you image options such as viewing alt tags in context, or viewing the page without images altogether.

There are also built-in validation offerings, as well as color contrast findings and keyboard navigational aids. It directs you to options such as the Cynthia Says Web Content Accessibility Report and WebAIM WAVE

Web Developer 1.1.6 add-on for Firefox
Another Firefox extension that enables you to check out aspects of accessibility is Web Developer for Firefox. You can easily disable elements such as CSS and images, as well as run automated tests such as Validate CSS, Validate HTML, and Validate Section 508, which utilizes Cynthia Says.

Juicy Studio Luminosity Colour Contrast Ratio Analyser
There are numerous tools out there for testing color contrast, but I find myself in the habit of using the one at Juicy Studio. In determining if text on backgrounds (colors or imagery) meets the minimum WCAG 2.0 requirement of 4.5:1 (3:1 for larger text), all you have to do is enter the foreground and background colors and you’ll see how you’re doing.

GrayBit.com
This is an interesting tool that renders a site in grayscale. By pulling color out of the equation, it enables you to get a raw sense of visual contrast.

Of course, none of these really do everything for you. Looking right in the code of a page, or carefully navigating through with your own senses offer invaluable insights as to how well a site has been set up.

Tags: accessibility tools, color contrast, firefox