Last Monday, I had a great time presenting “Accessibility: An Even Playing Field” at mkeUX, at 5th Ward Pub in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

mkeUX is a laid back, anyone-welcome group dedicated to promoting user experience. They host presentations in casual settings. It’s light on the formal and stuffy, and heavy on the open sharing of ideas and having fun. My good friends and colleagues Michael Seidel and Mike Kornacki are responsible for it, and it’s been a huge success.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun yakking accessibility. We talked about the different types of disabilities, the laws as they exist today in the United States, and some of best-known lawsuits pertaining to accessibility. I covered some of the types of assistive technologies out there.

The second part of the presentation was sharing examples of some accessibility culprits – but by no means all of them! That included the often-villainous CAPTCHA, and some disturbing and downright offensive examples of it.

I’ve never been overly impressed with slideshows put up on SlideShare. More often than not, it’s out-of-context slides that don’t tell you much.

That being said, I do want to share my presentation. So here it is — but I will add some notes about what each slide means, very soon! This is more a reference for those who attended the event.

Thanks to everyone who did attend, and for everyone who expressed interest. I hope to do this presentation or some form of it again very soon!

Tags: accessibility, assistive technologies, CAPTCHA, milwaukee, mkeux, user experience, ux

I’m thrilled to say that I will be doing an accessibility presentation at mkeUX on December 6th, at the 5th Ward Pub in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Of course, I’ll share my presentation on this blog in the near future, but I’m calling it “Accessibility: An Even Playing Field.” I thought back to January when Glenda Watson Hyatt asked the accessibility world to answer this question in exactly 25 words — What Does Accessibility Mean to You?

As I answered then:
Accessibility is all about lack of restrictions. It is about opening pathways to all people regardless of any limitations. It is an even playing field.

I’ll talk about: what accessibility means to me; what types of disabilities and assistive technologies are out there in any web, application, or game audience; some successes and failures (lawsuits included!); some easy things to avoid…and more.

If you’re free, come on down for it!

Tags: accessibility, milwaukee, mkeux, user experience

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend the PR+Social Media Summit at Marquette University in Milwaukee. I’ve been very interested and active in social media for years now, so it was exciting to attend such an event, right in my hometown.

There were a number of excellent presentations – a whole day’s worth in fact. Rather than recap each and every session I attended, I thought I’d share some quick-hit sentiments that stuck with me.

On transparency and openness:

• IBM has open Internet for all employees
• They encourage employees to do this to expose their individual expertise
• Trust employees – they are the brand
• Blogging personally helps you find your voice

(From Timothy Blair‘s presentation, “From Experimentation to Implementation: IBM’s Communications Evolution“)

On engagement and community:

• Community is about engagement – both conversing and listening
• Be visible and interact
• It’s not about the tools – it’s about the human element. The tools come and go. Yesterday it was MySpace, today it’s Facebook and Twitter, who knows what it’ll be tomorrow
• Every single individual in a company has a voice and is part of the overall community
• It’s being genuine on all platforms from LinkedIn to Facebook to Twitter

(From Amber Naslund‘s presentation, “Community isn’t a buzzword. It’s a business strategy.”

On building a personal brand and making yourself known:

• Just selling yourself through social media won’t cut it – follow conversations, listen to them, engage in them, monitor what’s going on
• Find ways to show off your expertise/what you do best
• Generate quality content…and lots of it
• Share everything from tips and tracks to “trade secrets”
• Read feeds and chime in regularly
• Become a source – getting cited as expert gains you tremendous credibility

(from Sarah Evans‘ presentation, “How to Stand Out in the Online World”)

I debated if posting about a social media conference even belonged on a blog about web accessibility. Quickly, I realized it does.

Why?

Well, for a few reasons:

My year and a half as a web accessibility blogger has been a great experience. Thanks in great part to social media, I’ve met a lot of fascinating, insightful and all around cool people. I do some of the above bullets better than others, but owe a great deal of the attention I get to social media.

PR+Social Media Summit was a great experience, one that I wholly recommend to anybody when the next session rolls around.

Tags: milwaukee, Social Media

I’ve been spending the past couple weeks sharing insights from attending both “Multiple Facets of Accessible Design” and a tour of IndependenceFirst. Tonight, I’ll wrap it up with one more post about the various things I learned walking around the facility.

I was really impressed by the extent to which a place like IndependenceFirst goes in making all aspects of their facilities accessible. Some examples didn’t surprise me, like having bathrooms and shower facilities that are fully usable by those with various disabilities, or a cafeteria with accessible appliances. Others were just things I’d have never thought of.

There is an extensive library of assistive technology devices available for use, some I recognized and others that were completely foreign to me. They were several cases with all manner of these devices — keyboards, telephones, calculators, clocks, measuring cups, to just name a few.

IndependenceFirst has a program in which they help people with disabilities get recycled computers. This includes training such as accessing the Internet. We got a glimpse of this Computing Recycling area. There are even local Milwaukee businesses that send volunteers over to get donated computers up and running.

I had never even considered the idea of an accessible copy machine, but we got to see one. Also, in the tour of the Wellness Center, Carol Voss pointed out a wheelchair-accessible weight scale, something that is very rare, even for hospitals.

It’s probably pretty obvious that I came away from visiting IndependenceFirst with a deep appreciation for their services. Four straight blog posts about my experience ought to prove it! After building a rapport with IndependenceFirst through social media, I was glad to finally see the place and meet people like Carol Voss.

I feel I’ve learned a lot in my first year of delving into web accessibility, but I’m coming to realize that there is a huge difference between reading insightful articles and online materials, and actually firsthand watching how disabled people interact with the world around them.

Watching Scott Mayer cruise — and occasionally stumble — through web sites, just trying to do basic tasks like pay bills online, really phased me, in a good way. Even someone who’d like to think of himself as enlightened to web accessibility has a lot to learn!

For me to call myself a true web accessibility expert, I’m going to need more direct contact with disabled web users. You can’t truly understand what they go through by solely checking web sites yourself and running automatic tests.

(Special shout to to friend and colleague Michael Seidel for sharing the photos of the assistive equipment and the computer refurbishing room)

Tags: assistive technology, disability, IndependenceFIRST, milwauCHI, milwaukee

Last week Monday when I attended “Multiple Facets of Accessible Design” at Milwaukee’s IndependenceFirst, I came away with a treasure trove of excellent material to share.

In my last couple posts, I recapped the insights of Shawn Henry and Scott Mayer. That was only part of the experience. After their presentations, we were treated to a tour of the IndependenceFirst facilities.

Carol Voss, the Public Relations and Marketing Director as well as the Twitter voice for IndependenceFirst, took our small group around the building. It was really great to finally meet Carol in person, after many months of Twitter conversations as well as the email interview she had done for this blog in summer. (See IndependenceFirst interview part one, two, and three)

It wasn’t news to me that constructing a building for an organization servicing the disabled requires special considerations. However, it was both surprising and deeply impressive to see the extent of it.

For example, consider the floors. In the hallways, the floors have darker borders, to serve as a visual waypoint where the halls continue and where they lead to doorways.

Also, no matter the flooring material — carpeting, tile, wood, whatever — all surface transitions are completely flat and even. This is very important for those traversing room to room via wheelchair or with difficulties walking. It also requires a tremendous level of attention and detail by the building constructors.

Something else that I hadn’t considered before but makes perfect sense — there are activation buttons for opening doors just about floor level, in addition to their typical higher location. This enables somebody unable to use their hands to open the door with their foot.

Similarly, door handles as well as scanners for security access are lower than you typically see at other offices, to further increase accessibility to wheelchair users.

This is the just the physical makeup of the building, but such details go a long way in making it easier for those with disabilities to fully utilize the facilities. If you think that’s impressive, in my next post, we’ll share even more examples. From copy machines and weight scales to cafeterias and library rooms, there are a whole lot more accessibility considerations within the walls of IndependenceFirst.

Tags: IndependenceFIRST, milwaukee, wheelchair accessibility