dotjay :: Blog

Ira Socal makes a couple of  passionate posts calling for:

It is time to make 2009 the Year of Universal Access: in education. in employment. in communication.

It is time to stop making - and stop accepting - excuses. It is now 2009. The tenth year of the 21st Century, and more than a dozen years after court and US Department of Ed decisions made it clear that everyone has a right to information and communications in real time and in 'equivalently effective' forms. 25 years after the Macintosh PC appeared and 15 years after "Windows95" created standard, accessible, computer platforms. All the reasons, all those "we wish we coulds" have now fully expired.

[snip]

What is the hold up? We could do away with 90% of "special needs" today, and instead make all those tools and resources available to every child to use every time "this way" would make education work better than "the old way." Stigmas would drop away, as would the self-limits of low-expectations. Student interests would create groupings rather than measurements of single abilities. Students would find lifespan methods to support their learning. 

Amen to that Ira.

In a fascinating report on the progress of NVDA Screen Reader work funded by the Mozilla Accessibility Grant scheme, James Teh outlines the excellent progress he and Mick Curran have made in the last year. It also shows how mature NVDA is becoming and is now an Open Source Screen Reader suitable for everyday use by most people. NVDA also has leading edge features like IAccessible2 and ARIA support for the best possible user experience with web applications. This neatly demonstrates how effective Mozilla Accessibility grants can be, as recently described by Frank Hecker.

An interesting side note that provides a good example of how Open Source working methods add value to the wider community is that James just contacted me to explain a feature they had discovered that will be useful in our  DKey project and pointed me at his code. Such open sharing of information and time makes better tools for users and a better environment for developers.

Thought you might like to know that Mick recently discovered that you
can actually set global keyboard and mouse hooks in pure Python using
ctypes; i.e. without needing a dll or extension. NVDA has now switched
to using this technique. The relevant modules are called keyHook.py
and mouseHook.py in our svn.

Thanks James. FTW!

I spotted that Prof Chris Bishop gave a detailed demonstration of Dasher in the 5th Royal Institute Christmas lecture as an explanation of prediction in text. Several other technologies we have discussed on oatsoft.org were on show as well; Microsoft Surface multi touch table, one of Johny Lee's wii remote projects, a fun demo of gesture recognition and others. I always enjoy the lectures and these provided a good introduction to computers and the web.

You can watch again on Five's on demand TV web service. However this comes with a health warning as it's Windows only, for Firefox requires an unofficial add-on, which then does and unauthenticated update to the system, and the streaming quality is hopeless (must be all that DRM baggage). Perhaps they will appear on
the RIGB site in a better format

http://demand.five.tv/Series.aspx?seasonBaseName=RoyalInstitutionChristmasLecturesSeason2008

I spent a very happy hour lost in the construction of one of Tom Bug's little WorkshopOscMachine kits. It was wonderful to get back into the 'flow' of selecting components, inserting them, soldering and clipping leads. After a slightly nervous start with rusty tools and skills I soon got the knack and timing it just right so the solder flows into the through plated hole just enough. My trusty old Antex X25 soldering Iron still got hot enough though i learnt how much my eyesight has degraded, doing much by feel. Somehow I never quite manage the same state of relaxed proficiency with coding software - there are just to many angles to think about.

It was also great fun to pour over the circuit diagram (schematic) and work out how it works. Again all that neglected knowledge learnt as a teenager with no mates came flooding back.

The kit is excellent and reasonable value considering the work put into making it up. It is complete, including battery, and the instructions are exceptional, including many tricks and tips that I have learnt over the years (I have spent thousands of hours soldering both my own hobby circuits and a vacation job making large commercial circuit boards and wiring looms). It worked first time which is very satisfying  and we've spent some time making entertaining nosies and 'music'. It sounds great through a keyboard combo. I highly recommend it to any one who fancies dabbling in a little electronics construction and wants a fun device at the end of it, even if they have not done anything before (though the workshops might be a safer bet)

The only things I would improve are that the silk screen numbers for some of the ICs are obscured by the holders (the many photos in the instructions soon resolve that) and you need to figure out which way to fit the speaker (the square pad is used for the +ve lead as with the polarised caps, a nice touch that is new to me) 

Tom decided to make the kit completely board mounted to reduce wiring errors, something that I think is an excellent idea. My very first project was a box encased amplifier from a magazine design with many mounted controls and sockets which I don't recall ever getting working properly. Still I persevered, and eventually build my own multi board rack mount computer.

I've now been re bitten by the bug and am wondering what to do as my next project. I've always lent towards audio and music and as I love valves (tubes) I might just start a side business with valve amps or some such. Well it's good to dream....

Todd Kloots provides valuable information on setting up JAWS, Window Eyes and NVDA in his article Configuring Your Machine For Testing With A Screen Reader.

Via the Paciello Group Blog

With an emphasis on WAi-ARIA this post provides a clear tutorial on how to get setup to test modern accessibile web sites and applications. It's great to see NVDA listed more often along side the big commercial screen readers.

SchoolCentral  = COMPLETELY FREE

My name is Michael Chua from Zebra Mobile, and I would like to introduce you to a new, COMPLETELY FREE service called SchoolCentral.

SchoolCentral is a custom-built web based communication platform, built upon the latest Internet and mobile technologies.  This platform is not a call system, but serves as a mobile notification system, organizational tool, and communication hub between administration and the community.  SchoolCentral will enable administration to improve the districts communication with parents and students, and will measurably impact parental involvement, staff communications, school organization, and community out-reach.  Functioning as a supplement, this platform supports existing emergency procedures, providing different options of how important school information is sent and received.


10 Ways SchoolCentral Will Benefit Your School District:


1. Real Time Communication -SchoolCentral has the ability to send up to 9,000 messages per minute, via email, text message, web, mobile web or RSS.  Capable of notifying the whole community, faster than any call-system, some districts under 60 seconds.

2. Platform Independence -School administrators and community are enabled to decide how they want to receive and respond to important information. School notifications are sent via Internet or SMS.  If a district alert is sent from a cell phone, SchoolCentral deciphers what phone number it is sent from, and where it should be delivered.  More frequent messages of less importance can also be sent to notify families when an event such as an awards program is cancelled, or if their child on the soccer team is returning late from an away game.  Each member of the community now has the option to select what methods of communication are best preferred.

3. Communication Hub –SchoolCentral is a protected, moderated communication platform that provides each school, and groups within, its own online community.  Parents and teachers can connect easily and engage in what is most important to us, our students.

4. Tool For the Classroom – Everyone benefits when using SchoolCentral in the classroom.  Teachers are enabled to compliment a student for a job well done, or connect to a parent with underlying concerns.  Our filing system allows teachers to store documents of unlimited size, giving students the option to access school material outside the classroom, or to reprint an assignment accidentally forgotten at school.

5. Tool For Athletics –Coaches can instantly notify students and parents, if practice is cancelled, when riding on the bus, or standing on the field.   They also can address the community with the winning scores, stats or rosters.  Each sports team now has a web presence, and their own calendaring, filing and alert systems.  This enables them to share important notifications, drum up support, organize team practice and game schedules, or post pictures of the winning touchdown.  The potential is endless.  SchoolCentral’s group’s for athletics is a powerful tool, easily engaging parents and students throughout the community.

6. Easy to Use Calendaring –The RSS Feed calendaring system checks for new events or changes, and automatically updates every 60 seconds.  It also can be synced with Ical, Gcal, and Outlook.  Now all school related events are synced with your personal, work, and mobile calendars.  Besides Alerts, the calendar is the second most utilized feature in the SchoolCentral platform.  It allows parents with multiple children, to organize their schedule more efficiently with color-coding.  It also has a reminder and invite feature, easily allowing reminder and event invitations sent to friends via Email, SMS, RSS, and Desktop Widget.

7. Upload Your School News Letters -Our News Section is a big hit with Superintendents.  They now have the option to blog messages addressing the community without third party help.  School newsletters of any size can be uploaded, and the community has the option to be notified by text, Email, or neither every time new material is released.  This could save the district money by reducing cost on postage.

8. Easy Effort for Schools –This is an End-User-Based Platform.  There is no database management, staff allocation, or maintenance required.  Each member manages their own account, self-registering through a setup wizard, choosing how they would like to receive their school updates and information.   Zebra Mobile custom-builds every platform for each district.  Schools can choose what they want to use SchoolCentral for and we will make all the arrangements.  We customize the look and feel to your districts needs.  You can pick your school colors, and can even choose your own U.R.L.

9. 24 Hour Support -It is Zebra Mobiles commitment to accelerate, and provide your district with superior service and support, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

10. COMPLETELY FREE -We are currently offering this service completely FREE to early implementers, as a thank you for helping us get SchoolCentral started.



Please send me a message to arrange a short (10 min.) web demonstration.

 
Please feel free to contact my direct line listed below, or send me an email.

 

Warmest Regards,


Michael Chua
Zebra Mobile's
SchoolCentral Team
Direct line (513) 729-6973

mike.chua@yourschoolcentral.com

www.yourschoolcentral.com

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer?entry=

Testing web site accessibility is complex, not least due to the very large number of permutations of browser, platform and Assistive Technology, not to mention configuration options and individual user interaction style. This is one reason why user testing is essential and why focus is now shifting to ensure this is done.

However some level of automatic testing is required, both to allow checking for regressions when new versions are released and to establish a base line of known quality. While services like the W3C accessibility validators and tools to check WCAG compliance are invaluable the picture is more complex, especially now interactive web applications are becoming a common feature of the web landscape.

For accessibility to work the web site, browser, platform and Assistive Technology must all work together to allow the user to monitor and interact with the web site in the way that works for them. Dynamically changing and complex user "widgets" that provide a rich user experience require rich infrastructure to provide 2 way communication without loss of meaning or control. A scaffold of standards have been developed to achieve this that build on the basic web standard and make this work, some are proprietary and some Open. THe result is that Assistive Technology gets a view of the web site or application as a tree of  components and is notified of changes. All this complexity has made it difficult to develop a comprehensive test strategy that ensure all these parts are working correctly on all permutations

Now a new tool is available that help's tame this complexity. Eitan Isaacson has released Speclenium a tool that:

1. provides a means of comparison between two static accessible heirarchies of different browsers.
2. providse a means of comparison between two different event sequences with the same interaction in different browsers.
3. runs automatically, and will be able to flag discrepancies between two browsers.
4. Includes a finite set of test cases that will provide a generic benchmark for conformance.
5. A user should be able to throw it at any URL or interaction script, two browsers, and do a more interactive comparison (without preset rules).

With funding from Mozilla Foundation Eitan has built on his experience with the Linux accessibility explorer, Accerciser, to make Speclenium a flexible Web accessibility test suit and explorer. Taking advantage of Open Source Eitan was able to build on the work of the mature Selenium test suit.

In the process Eitan has also developed another tool for programmers to create Accessibility programs. Pyia is a Python programing API for accessing the Windows MSAA Accessibility API that is similar to pyatspi on Linux. This will ease the creating program that work on both Windows and Linux.

As Eitan says 'Go Use it!'.

Speclenium home

Mark Shuttlworth describes an interesting Ajax dialog system that aims to provide flexible and yet easy workflow.

The key ideas behind morphing dialogs are:

• Only show one primary decision at a time, and make it obvious what that is. Sometimes, there are several directions you could take in order to get something done, but there is usually a single normal path for users to follow, and we always want users to be able to do the easy things easily.
• Give users a sense of how far they are in the process, but don’t be too dogmatic about that, since getting one thing done often involves stepping off to the side to take care of preliminary business and those detours can also require several steps.

NV Access announce Microsoft's support for improvements to the fast developing NVDA screen reader. This is great news for screen reader users on Windows and also Open Accessibility.

 [Update] The NV Access team have just announced that their presentation has been accepted for CSUN 2009. It makes a good introduction to NVDA and also OATS and why open development is so effective.