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I've updated my Sonos #accessibility blog post with more information. This includes a link to a statement issued today by Sonos, and info on dialogue I've been having with their product team. mosen.org/sonos2024




A brief reminder that our Call for Presentations for the next #id24 (scheduled for 12 September 2024) is still open until 7 June inclusivedesign24.org/2024/

(and a small note: have an idea for a talk, but perhaps you're not comfortable doing a whole presentation in English? let us know anyway ... in the past we've had a few presentations in other languages, so it's not necessarily a hindrance)

#a11y #accessibility #barrierefreiheit #accessibilité #inclusiveDesign #accessibilità


This week's In-Process is out, featuring all you need to know about copying text in Word, using Browse mode in Word, getting help in NVDA, and a special thanks to our friends at ISCB! All online now: nvaccess.org/post/in-process-6…

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Accessibility #Microsoft #MicrosoftOffice #Office365 #Office #Keyboard


Happy 25 years of WCAG!

On this day in 1999, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 were published. WCAG 2.2 is still one of the most important standards on the web, ensuring a base level of access for everyone.

1.0 – May 5, 1999 w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
2.0 – Dec 11, 2008 w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
2.1 – Jun 5, 2018 w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
2.2 – Oct 5, 2023 w3.org/TR/WCAG22/

#wcag #a11y #accessibility



I believe this is the first of its kind implementation on the web, i.e. first-letter navigation, so kudos to the Drive team! :) #accessibility #ux unmute.community/@payown/11236…


Google Workspace Updates: Updated keyboard shortcuts and first-letters navigation now available on Google Drive web workspaceupdates.googleblog.co… workspaceupdates.googleblog.co…


Sonos is considered a recommended speaker brand in the blind community.

Both because many blind people are audiophiles, and because their app is screen reader accessible.

However, Sonos is about to release a new version of their app and at the moment it looks like it will be practically unusable for the blind.

Screen reader users that will not prevent their devices from updating will lose access to the expensive hardware they have purchased.

mosen.org/sonos2024/

#accessibility #blind #sonos #IOS #android


Editted to fix link. Please boost for reach if this kind of stuff interests you. Will post more on this later.

Once upon a time, there was a cool emulator frontend called Retroarch. This emulator wasn't accessible until I and a few other gamers went to them and asked about adding accessibility. An amazing person known as BarryR made it happen. Now, if you turn on accessibility mode in settings, or pass the "--accessibility" (or something like that) flag on the command line, you get spoken menus, including the emulator's pause menu, good for saving states and such. Then, using PIL and other image processing Python utilities, running a server and hooking into Retroarch, the script allowed players to move around the map, battle, talk to NPC's, ETC. The only problem was, no one wanted to test it. The blind gaming community pretty much spoke, saying that we want new games. We want cool new, easy accessibility. So that's what we have no, follow the beacon or get sighted help in the case of diablo and such. It's sad, but meh. It's what we wanted I guess. No Zelda for us. So, this is about as far as he got:

To expand on what devinprater was saying: I am working on an accessibility pack/service for Final Fantasy 1 for the NES (this was what was shown in the latest RetroArch update). The idea is similar to how Pokemon Crystal access works, but it's using the RetroArch AI Service interface to do so.
Right now, the FF1 access service is mostly done, but I need more testers to try it out and give me feedback on how it's working. Right now, you can get up to the point where you get the ship, but there's no code to deal with how the ship moves, so that still needs to be done. Likewise with the airship later on.
The service works the latest version of RetroArch, on linux and mac, but not windows. This is due to how nvda reads out the text and until the next major update to nvda (which will have a feature to fix this), it'll have to wait. If you have those, I (or maybe devinprater) can help you set it up on mac/linux to test out. The package itself is available at: (new link cause old one broke yesterday): dropbox.com/scl/fi/ggffl769fx6…
#accessibility #finalFantasy #RetroArch #blind #emulator #emulation #Python #ai #ML #MachineLearning


Thanks to Jonathan Mosen on the @podcast Living Blindfully podcast for an informative review of
Phonak's hearing aid technology. I am currently in a trial of Phonak devices, and Jonathan's helpful review coheres with my experience. I haven't yet tried any of the accessories, such as remote microphones, that are also addressed in the review.
livingblindfully.com/episode-2…
#HearingAids #ScreenReaders #Accessibility


Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, May 2, 2024 - Volume 961
toptechtidbits.com/tidbits2024…

The Week's News in Access Technology
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #technology #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #toptechtidbits

Top Tech Tidbits. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access technology.

Subscribers: 17,060 Opt-In Subscribers were sent this issue via email. 170 Premium Subscribers were sent this issue via email.


Thank you to everyone who have boosted, and thank you to the people who have taken the time to 💟the feature requests.

Before the hearts were still in the single digits, and now its closer to 20. This is good, but it's not enough for it to get attention.

Please boost this post, and please 💟 the #obsidian feature requests for #screenreader support, essential for #blind and #partiallysighted users.

forum.obsidian.md/t/accessibil…

forum.obsidian.md/t/accessibil…

#accessibility #pleaseboost


Hi friends,

The alt-text.org alt text library project needs a new leader, I have brain cancer.

I built a working, scalable, proof of concept library of shared alt text with fuzzy matching.

I'd like to connect with the #accessibility dev community. I want to hand the project off to a team or a leader if anyone is willing to take it over.

Github: github.com/alt-text-org
WIP MVP: a site designed for writing alt text with a private library: my.alt-text.org

Boosts appreciated


A few extra seconds of your time it takes to add a good image description can really improve someone's day.

"To a totally blind person like me it means a lot to have a picture in my mind of your images, especially the animal pics."

"I don't know what it is, but as a blind user it's making me emotional to be able to actually interact with content."

alttexthalloffame.org

#accessibility #a11y #AltText #ImageDescriptions



The Stardew Access docs have finally been updated with fabulous new guides and config references. There's now a guide for constructing farm buildings with the updated tile viewer. No more buildsel command! Also character customization has been greatly improved. It's looking really good for the next release, but you can load the beta right now if you can't wait to play Stardew 1.6.
github.com/khanshoaib3/stardew…
#stardew_valley #smapi #blind #accessibility #a11y @mastoblind


We got up to 71 followers in not even a day. That is honestly meteoric.
Tomorrow at 3 PM EST I'll do a first #stream. We'll make us a #TryHackMe account, go through the new user flow, maybe do a room or two while looking at the various #accessibility gotchas we run into. In future streams we'll do similar for HTB, HTBA etc. as well as more #programming related things but tomorrow ...we leave pallet town all mozie-like. See you all then! #twitch #infoSec #selfPromo



So ...let's face it. A LOT of folks in tech circles are somewhat amazed a fully #blind person can even find the power button on a computer, let alone operate it professionally. I am such a person, and I'd like to bust that myth.
It's also true that many #hacking tools, platforms, courses etc. could use some help in the #accessibility department. It's a neverending vicious circle.
Enter my new twitch channel, IC_null. On this channel, I will be streaming #programming and #hacking content including THM, HTB and who knows what else, from the perspective of a #screenReader user.
What I need, is an audience. If this is something you reckon you or anybody you know might be interested in, drop the channel a follow or share this post. Gimme that #infoSec Mastodon sense of comradery and help me out to make this idea an actual thing :) twitch.tv/ic_null #tryHackMe #streamer #selfPromo


#SocialCoop has been discussing whether to disable images on May 16 and October 10 for #WorldSightDay, as suggested here stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/1….

One concern raised about this proposal is that it is symbolic and might not do anything to improve the lives of people with visual impairments.

I would like to hear perspectives from people with visual impairments on whether this kind of action is helpful.

(boosts welcome; please only reply if you rely on alt text)

#accessibility
#a11y
#AltText


If you're #blind, #VisuallyImpaired, or otherwise rely on #AssistiveTecnhologies and #AltText, your thoughts on this proposal to temporarily disable images across the fediverse to highlight the importance of well-written image descriptions would be very much appreciated.

social.coop/@dynamic/112349215…

Please boost the original post for reach!

#accessibility #a11y


Please Help Make #PKM and #obsidian accessible to #blind and #partiallysighted users!

If you haven't already, please #boost this post and 💟 these feature requests:
- forum.obsidian.md/t/accessibil…
- forum.obsidian.md/t/accessibil…

#accessibility #pleaseboost


I really appreciate the boosts regarding this important #accessibility issue within the #pkm community.

If you use #ObsidianMD please 💟 these feature requests and make #obsidian usable for #blind and #partiallysighted users.

- forum.obsidian.md/t/accessibil…
-forum.obsidian.md/t/accessibil…

You might have your sight now, but what if you lost it one day? How would you cope without screen reader support?

#boost #pleaseboost


Even if you don't code, this is essay presents a solid case on why #AI can't be relied on to replace work requiring any degree of empathy and nuanced understanding

Specifically, if you're building accessible web-based experiences, @hdv explains why "outsourcing" this work create more harm than good and offers some better alternatives to focus on instead (hint: invest in a #DesignSystem)

#accessibility #a11y #InclusiveDesign

hidde.blog/ai-for-accessible-c…



Sensitive content


Welcome to our newest GNOME Foundation member @eeejay 🎉

Eitan has been involved in Linux/GNOME accessibility for 20 years and is on the Mozilla accessibility team.

In the past he created Accerciser, and contributed to Orca as well as Telepathy.

Eitan makes Spiel; a speech framework for the freedesktop.

project-spiel.org/

I heard you might be able to catch him at GUADEC in Denver this year.

#GNOME #Linux #Mozilla #accessibility


On Tech Talk this week, I had a great conversation with Troy Otilio from @AiraVI about their new Access AI feature, which has recently been released as a beta in the Aira Explorer app. We spoke about where this feature came from, the impact the use of AI has on privacy, and so much more about AI and Aira in general. Have a listen here or wherever you get your podcasts

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/…

@rnib #aira #AccessAI #AI #chatGPT #gemini #blind #accessibility #podcast


@WestphalDenn I would say both have pros and cons. For example mate has traditional desktop and standard application menus with submenus and similar. Many #screenReader users prefer that classic style. However @GNOME is also technically fully accessible. In version 45 and 46 a lot of polishing has been made. The top bar is fully operational with the keyboard all the popup menus, dropdown buttons, toggles, sliders on the top pannel are now accessible. Gnome control center has now almost all its controls clearly labelled. The only place in the gnome control center where I expect some improvements in the future is redefining keyboard shortcuts. On my machine I have noticed memory usage has decreased after upgrading to gnome 46 so in this regard #mate desktop and @GNOME desktop are on par as well.
Also gnome is very likelly to pioneer #accessibility innovations in upcoming releases so for me the answer is clear. I'm on @GNOME since v3.4 and v3.6 days and I am not going to change that.



Is anyone free to help the developer of sway notification center out? I have opened an issue about sway notification center's accessibility regressions in the notification list, and I have also suggested that when the notification appears, the accessible event is fired. The dev doesn't know how to do this however, so any input or PR's that mention this issue would be greatly appreciated! github.com/ErikReider/SwayNoti…
If we get this sorted, we will have a fully accessible notification daemon for all wlroots based compositors, which will soon include XFCE. This could be the Wayland equivalent of notification-daemon for X11, but even better if the GTK notification centre list can be fixed up too. #Linux #accessibility #a11y



A little accessible and inclusive content creation hot tip:

Instead of just linking directly to xkcd, consider linking to the relevant entry on explainxkcd.com instead (or as well as linking to xkcd).

There, each xkcd comic has a full, descriptive transcript, and the hover text is printed as plain text, making the comic much more accessible for your blind (or otherwise screenreader-using) followers and for mobile users alike.

Plus, the joke explanations are helpful!

#accessibility