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Items tagged with: accessibility
Well, on the front of the machine, there is a dedicated customer service number embossed in Braille where you can call and tell the representative where you would like to go. They are able to remotely operate the machine, find your connection, choose the right ticket options for you and bring you to the payment screen. Once the payment is complete, the ticket comes out as usual. Kind of makes me wonder: if the railway staff are able to access these machines remotely, why isn't this possibility open to those who might need it for accessibility reasons?
I am not sure whether this works in other Austrian cities, I haven't also heard of this implementation in any other place.
Unfortunately, I have never had a chance to use this so no recordings or first-hand experiences this time.
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Railway #Transport #Trains #Austria #Innsbruck
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel
There were many devices invented to make Minitel accessible to the blind, although the system itself wasn't designed with this target group in mind. Mostly, they were external speech synthesizers like in the case of Lectel:
lemonde.fr/archives/article/19…
or the Valentine text-to-speech card for the Apple II:
blog.atalan.fr/valentine-carte…
The history of the Eurobraille company, the makers of the popular Esys, Esytime and B.Note Braille displays, starts also with a speech synthesizer for the Minitel terminals.
eurobraille.fr/notre-histoire/
As I found out, however, most of France's blind community at that time did not have access to this kind of technology and Minitel only became accessible on a global scale in the 90's when regular PC's did but then it was almost the time of the Internet so it never gained the same momentum as it did with the society at large. Pity as this could have been an opportunity to push the inclusion of blind and partially sighted people to whole new levels.
Always design with accessibility from the start!
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #France #Internet #Minitel #Videotex #RetroTech
Les ordinateurs ont la parole
Un Salon vient d'être consacré aux machines parlantes et aux innovations techniques destinées aux aveugles. Le matériel existe, pas encore le marché !CHRISTIAN TORTEL (Le Monde)
GitHub - AccessKit/accesskit: UI accessibility infrastructure across platforms and programming languages
UI accessibility infrastructure across platforms and programming languages - GitHub - AccessKit/accesskit: UI accessibility infrastructure across platforms and programming languagesGitHub
This might not be the most uplifting "2022 wrapped" list - but we hope it helps teams prioritising #accessibility in 2023 to find and fix the most critical accessibility issues we found over hundreds of accessibility reviews in 2022.
Here's to a more #inclusive 2023! Stay safe and merry holidays 🎉
intopia.digital/articles/top-5…
Top 5 Accessibility Issues in 2022 - Intopia
In 2022, the most critical accessibility issues were: keyboard accessibility, supporting smaller viewports/zoom, using semantic markup and ARIA attributes correctly, and managing focus visually and programmatically.Larene Le Gassick (Intopia Digital)
To celebrate another win, for the time of the contest's duration, the audible traffic lights at some of Stockholm's locations have been revamped to play Loreen with "Euphoria" (winner of the 2012 ESC) when the lights are red, then when they turn green, they ticked to the beat of Mans Zelmerlow's "Heroes", the song that brought the contest back to Sweden in 2015. What a fun twist on an accessibility feature!
youtube.com/watch?v=pj3V06Thvo…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Sweden #Eurovision #ESC #UrbanEnvironment #Music #SoundDesign
Music Traffic Lights Stockholm Eurovision Song Contest 2016 (Take 1)
This was take 1 - I decided to re-record this a second time.YouTube
Now they have to be accessible, so read well with screen readers, and be fully keyboard navigable. This includes things like lists, tab bars, menus, etc.
So here's the problem. I have some things that need to be inside a container. A list for example. So you have the list container, and then the list items inside it.
When you tab around, I want the container to be tabbable, not the list item. So you don't tab through the list, you tab to the list, and then use the arrows to move around.
Now here's the problem. When the container is tabbable, and not the list item, when you tab to the container, it either:
* reads something like "List title section" and then nothing, not even the item you have selected. Or
* Reads all the list items at once.
Either of those are not great obviously. Ideally, I'd like it to read the list title, then list, and then the selected item.
So the way I get it to do this is by detecting when you tab/focus the list container, and then immediately set the focus to the selected list item instead.
Now this works fantastic. You can tab around, and it automatically puts you right on the list item you have selected, and it even gets read.
But somehow, when you don't just tab around, but also shift tab around, this shift tab lands you back on the list container. And that automatically moves your focus back inside the list. So effectively, once you're in a list, you're trapped.
Does anyone have an idea how to get around this without doing ugly hacks like stealing tab and shift tab and implementing tab order myself? I want to use as many native browser features as possible so if there's another way to do this, please feel free to tell me.
#HTML #JavaScript #accessibility
So I realized that all the time I have been doing this calendar, I haven't mentioned Poland, where I come from, once. Shame on me! Let's try to make it right.
Inpost is the pioneer as the provider of parcel locker technology in Poland. It's quite common to order something and, instead of requesting that the package is delivered directly to your door, have it dropped at one of the lockers which are often located quite centrally, at a post office or another place of significance in a given city, town or village.
Inpost have come up with quite a clever way of allowing blind people to open these lockers and find the right door. Not only is the app itself accessible so you can track your delivery all the way through but once your order arrives, all you have to do is go to the place where your locker is located, open the door for your parcel from within the app and read the instruction telling you which door is yours E.G. third up, sixth to the left of the touch screen. The system has become so useful for the general public that in order to become more sustainable, Inpost have begun installing screenless lockers so that everything has to be done with the app. This way, it is also possible to send a package somewhere without the need to stick a physical label on it. Other accessibility accommodations include the "easy access zone" as per the link below.
inpost.pl/en/help-easy-access-…
What are you ordering this Christmas and how is it delivered to you?
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Poland #Shopping
It works by first downloading an encrypted, I believe, copy of the movie's audio and then when we want to watch it described or subtitled, we just start the app, let it listen to the sound around us and it will tune in at the right spot in time with the accessibility accommodations we need. Should you forget your headphones to hear the audiodescription in, you can still listen to it over the earpiece. The system is not context-aware so it can tune into the movie at a cinema or at home when watching on the Internet or on TV which gives universal access to all the accommodations. The only wish I would have is more independent cinema productions and the ability to combine multiple adjustments so that I could watch that movie with a lot of Austrian dialect in it with both audiodescription and subtitles.
Today's update brings sound amplification. If I understand correctly, you can also have the actual audio track of the movie played through your phone in sync with the original.
I believe the concept was replicated in other countries already so you might know it under another name.
gretaundstarks.de
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Germany #Culture #Movies #Audiodescription #Cinema #TV #Subtitling
Kino einfach gemeinsam erleben mit GRETA und STARKS
Barrierefreies Kino für Alle! Audiodeskriptionen und Untertitel überall und einfach auf dem eigenen Smartphone mit den Apps GRETA und STARKS.GRETA und STARKS | Audiodeskription und Untertitel
You know the talking info boards at public transport stops, right? The ones that you press a button on and it reads the next few lines that will depart even when all you really need is the next one? I'm pleased to tell you that Luxembourg is doing it differently:
The spoken information is given only as long as you hold down the button that activates it so it is a kind of walkie-talkie that does the talkie part instead of you. This way, you can hold it down, listen to the next train or two arriving then release the button and be done with it. Not a perfect design as it excludes those with limited dexterity but it is a start.
Sadly, the information is given only in French which goes to show that accessibility should also include those who can't speak the country's language. This is in Luxembourg which boasts three official ones so most of the native population has grown multilingual from the start. Unfortunately, I have seen these info boards only at some train stations in the Luxembourg city - would be amazing to see the availability expand.
Again, no links and also sadly no recordings so have some more interesting facts instead:
1. Luxembourg is the first European country to make the public transport completely free of charge to everyone. Bear this in mind if you ever come to visit.
2. The city of Luxembourg has been awarded the European Commission's Accessible City Award of 2021.
#Accessibility #Blind #Adventcalendar #Luxembourg #PublicTransport
Normally, I have difficulties relating what I touch on a tactile plan of a building to the real world. That station made a heavily simplified version of the experience by placing a pole at each crossroad of the tactile floor marking, with a simplified tactile plan at the top telling you where each of the forks of the floorline would take you. It looked a lot like the four navigation keys and the confirmation key on a classic mobile. Each of the arrows ended with a Braille description of the destination in both French and Dutch. This was a great help.
Also QDos to the sound designers who created the jingle for the Brussels public transport company. It's a pretty dancey beat of five notes played on a synthesizer which would make a nice text tone. Find it at the end of the company's promo video below:
youtube.com/watch?v=kmNBW0jdms…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Belgium #PublicTransport
Go Easy MIVB
http://goeasy.mivb.behttp://www.stib-mivb.be/https://twitter.com/STIBMIVBhttps://www.facebook.com/lastibhttps://www.facebook.com/mijnmivbhttps://www.linkedin...YouTube
The recording is a 1:26 long collage of several clips taken in the park.
Clip 1: Birds chirping with some cars driving past in the background (the park was located directly over a highway);
Clip 2: The call of a group of peacocks mixed with footsteps and somewhat strong wind blowing into the mikes;
Clip 3: A waterfall flowing to my right and footsteps over a wooden bridge;
Clip 4: Moving further past the waterfall so that it's moving in the stereo spectrum and a white cane hitting the wooden bridge;
Clip 5: Another perspective of the waterfall;
Clip 6: Clearly can't get enough of waterfalls;
Clip 7: The last sounds of a waterfall, peacocks and the white cane;
I recommend listening in headphones for the best spacial experience.
#Accessibility #Blind #Austria #AudioRecording #BinauralRecording #FieldRecording #Nature #AdventCalendar
- A tiny version of the Czech remotes system, at that time capable of triggering the audible traffic lights, currently also the talking public transport info boards;
- an exceptional training of the public transport drivers who always stopped the bus right in front of you as long as you stood at the designated, tactile spot; opened the door and told you the bus/tram line they were driving;
- a tactile line going across what seemed to be all of the city's market square which made for a nice walk through the city center;
- the general feeling of safety that encouraged me to take long walks and explore the city by myself;
- the amazing community around my former workplace, Freirad, the social, community-driven radio station that focused on giving voice to those who wouldn't find it in the mainstream media. This meant tons of content from marginalized groups, a wealth of diverse cultural, music and linguistic spectrum and plenty of social initiatives on air. Of course, blind and partially sighted radio hosts were more than welcome and I was happy to be a part of this journey, organizing workshops for prospective hosts with visual impairments, including a really fun group of kids and spreading the word about the importance of accessibility which was always well-received. My former show on Freirad aired for the last time today so it's a bit of a chapter closing.
#Accessibility #Blind #Austria #BuildEnvironment #PublicTransport #Radio #AdventCalendar
People who use the #accessibility stack on Linux, do you use anything other than Orca?
I'm trying to map out unused code paths in at-spi2-core, and so far I'm considering orca/dogtail, but I'm sure I'm missing something.
ecq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/p…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Australia #NewZealand #Voting #Phone
One of the great things about coming over to Mastodon has been raising my awareness of alt text for images.
Including this by default when uploading files is a great move. Not only is it better for accessibility on this platform, but it upskills people on how to do this creating content elsewhere online.
One of the best resources I have found and can highly recommend is this webpage from Harvard: accessibility.huit.harvard.edu…
#mastodon #accessibility #website #AltText
Write good Alt Text to describe images
Alternative (Alt) Text is meant to convey the “why” of the image as it relates to the content of a document or webpage. It is read aloud to users by screen reader software, and it is indexed by search engines.accessibility.huit.harvard.edu
⏩ I'm available again in January!
⏹️ My contract with Nomensa will end. I'm looking forward to support new people with topics like accessibility, inclusive design and improve all things organisational
▶️ Let me know what I can do for you!
(picture may or may not be related)
#accessibility #inclusiveDesign
Folks, I want to boost your lovely posts, I really do but I won’t if you don’t write image descriptions (alt text) so people who use screen readers can also experience them.
It doesn’t take long to write one.
And if you’re posting an image of text and you have an iPhone, you can select the text from the image with a long press and copy/paste it.
Even Linux has apps that do this (like Frog: tenderowl.com/work/frog/)
#accessibility #a11y #fediverse #altText #images #screenReader #mastodon
Super post from @SaraSoueidan on how to set up a screen reader testing environment.
sarasoueidan.com/blog/testing-…
Sara, do you or anyone else know of a way test VoiceOver on Mac if we don't have access to a Mac? One of the perennial frustrations in the web industry is the assumption we're all on Macs. For many, Macs are well out of our budget ranges, but we still want to do the best we can with the tools at hand. Any advice?
#accessibility #a11y #inclusion #mac #macos #windows #testing
TTS: Elevating Art Over compliance | LinkedIn
TTS (text to speech) Audio Description has mixed reception from AD users, though the majority think it’s awful.www.linkedin.com
#OpenAccess journals, please take heed.
New study: "Using a random sample of 300 English language open access journals, we assessed author guidelines to understand image requirements for submissions…We found that most open access journals do not include disability accessibility elements in their guidelines…While over half the journals had required parameters for image submission, none of them required alt text."
osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/zsj…
#accessibility #a11y #images #alt
Please include alt text with your images. Especially when your image is nothing but text. It's dead easy to do in #mastodon.
This seems to be becoming a habit of mine now as I begin to use Mastodon more and continue to learn more about it each day.
This one covers the options available to you when posting content such as Alt Text and Content Warnings but also talks about language settings and using filters to tidy up your timelines.
Any boosts will be greatly appreciated so we can help everyone get the most out of Mastodon.
#twittermigration #MastodonTips #accessibility #language #feditips
How to Compose a Post on Mastodon (all the options)
Whilst Mastodon is similar to other social media services, there are some really cool features available as part of Mastodon that can help you make your post...YouTube
I thought of including Handsome, a French fintech dedicated to serving customers with visual impairments, as a part of this calendar, as it offers an accessible voice payment card; a dedicated concierge service, insurance in case of damage to assistive devices or stranding with no immediate mobility options. They can be found at:
howtobehandsome.fr/
Imagine my shock this morning when I discovered that through cooperation with the Tales Group, Handsome's voice card has become global so it's a matter of time before banks start introducing it.
The card is equipped with a Bluetooth LE chip, connects to the customer's smartphone either through their banking app or a specially designed one; then, once its inserted into the terminal, it delivers all of the status messages to the app E.G. the amount to be paid or the current state of the payment process. This way it is possible to avoid being scammed on the amount and we can make sure all is well with our transaction.
I'm curious if any banks are going to introduce this any time soon.
thalesgroup.com/en/markets/dig…
#Accessibility #Blind #France #Banking #AdventCalendar
Thales Gemalto Voice Payment Card
Discover how visually impaired people can make each payment transaction more secured and trusted.Thales Group
The Unicode braille block starts from U+2800. The U+2800 character himself is a so called “blank braille pattern” which translates to a space sign in most cases. Stuff get more interesting if you want to make a braille pattern. In computer braille (8 dots) there are 256 possible patterns, it sounds like a byte, right? Right! Cause if you want to make a braille pattern, you just at a byte to the base character U+2800 as we already discussed. The bits in this byte are encoded in column order, so that 11100000 is the letter L, and 1101000 is letter F. The exception to this rule are of course dots 7 and 8. They have been added later and so putting them between dot 3 would break the compatibility with existing software. So, to reassume the encoding order is as follows (from bit 0 of the byte)
Dot 1
Dot 2
Dot 3
Dot 4
Dot 5
Dot 6
Dot 7
Dot 8
Tell me guys if you like such #programming and/or #accessibility posts from me.
Something that has worked really well for librsvg - and now I'm happy to have for at-spi2-core as well - is a development guide for the internals. Not a library manual, but an internals guide.
It's available at gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/a…
I want to make it a good reference for the implementation details of #accessibility - for how the system is built, the roadmap and the cleanups we're doing, how to make toolkits accessible, that sort of thing.
Whether you are disabled or not, accessibility is really useful for everyone. Accessibility makes social media easier to use and lets your posts reach a wider audience.
You can find out how to make your posts more accessible at:
➡️ fedi.tips/mastodon-and-fediver…
Special shout out to @norrumar who has just created a Spanish language article about Mastodon for users of the free open source NVDA screen reader:
➡️ nvdaes.github.io/mastodon (in Spanish)
#Fediverse #Mastodon #Accessibility #Disability
Mastodon and Fediverse Accessibility Tips | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediversefedi.tips
By the device of anecdotal evidence I know that a similar system existed in Slovenia.
Another thing that was available in Italy, and I haven't heard of it anywhere else before, are accessible audio menus on DVD's.
openstarts.units.it/bitstream/…
#Accessibility #Blind #Audiodescription #Italy #Slovenia #Radio #AdventCalendar
Inspired by a conversation I had with @adela, I decided to dedicate this one to the central purchase receipts storage system in Slovakia.
The Slovak government runs a central point where all of the receipts issued by merchands and service providers are registered. Upon issuing, a receipt is assigned a unique number in that system which then is printed onto the slip of paper given to the customer. What you can then do is, using a dedicated app for this purpose, load that receipt onto your phone by entering that number or scanning the QR code printed onto your receipt in order to have all the details of your purchase presented on your smartphone. This is a great way for blind individuals to check whether their transaction has been dutyfully conducted or to help in obtaining the necessary data to maintain your spending tracking record, so even though this solution was not conceived with blind people in mind, it is a valuable enhancement towards a more independent life.
technologiebezzraku.sk/2022/07…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Slovakia #Shopping
Over doklad – prístupná aplikácia na čítanie príjmových dokladov - Technológie bez zraku
Over doklad je aplikácia vyvinutá Finančnou správou pôvodne určená na overovanie príjmových dokladov, ktoré prešli cez eKasu.Michaela Dlhá (Technológie bez zraku)
Google Maps is expanding its “Accessible Places” feature, which helps people know when a place is wheelchair accessible and/or stair-free. The feature was originally launched in 2020, but it was limited to just Australia, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. Now, the feature is available worldwide on Android and iOS.
#Accessibility #Mobility #Travel #Disability #axschat
chromeunboxed.com/google-maps-…
Google Maps rolls out more AR and accessibility-focused features
Google has announced that beginning next week, it will start rolling out the "search in Live View" feature that it teased back in September, which uses the existing Live View technology found in Google Maps but makes it more interactive.Johanna Romero (Chrome Unboxed - The Latest Chrome OS News)
In France, TIER Mobility is piloting wheelchair-accessible electric scooters in partnership with Omni, a French startup that has developed an electric scooter attachment compatible with most wheelchairs.
#Mobility #Accessibility #wheelchair #Disability #Axschat #France
TIER And Omni Push For Inclusivity With Wheelchair-Compatible E-Scooters
TIER has joined forces with Omni, a French startup, to provide wheelchair-compatible e-scooter rentals in France, with plans to expand to other countries soon.inkl
To all #blind #ScreenReader users on various platforms who use #Firefox: The project to speed up web page and screen reader interaction, code-named Cache-The-World, is now at a phase where in Nightly 109, it has been enabled for all users. So if you spot anything that is unusual or not working as before, please let the #accessibility team know. Next step is an experiment for 50% roll-out on Windows in the 111 beta.
The page where you can track the progress is here: wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility…
RT @blindconfucius@twitter.com
#AudioDescription delivered by a synth is equivalent to casting a robot in place of a human actor because it's less expensive & more films can be produced. That's not how art works, and it shouldn't be how #accessibility operates in the arts. Join this #LinkedIn Audio discussion. twitter.com/nefmatoli/status/1…
with #AltText for #accessibility
if you're going to repost, don't forget the alt text!
![Illustration titled "The four ages of white innocence:
[A white child]: too young to understand
[A white teenager]: made a youthful mistake
[A white adult]: listening and learning
[A white elder]: from a different time](https://fedi.ml/photo/preview/640/386458 "Illustration titled \"The four ages of white innocence:
[A white child]: too young to understand
[A white teenager]: made a youthful mistake
[A white adult]: listening and learning
[A white elder]: from a different time")
Did you know that by 2004 Czech Republic was the second European country right behind Sweden with the widest network of audible traffic lights? Not only that but they already started installing tactile floor markings and my favourite invention, the remote controls for the build environment.
The Czech remote control is a tiny box with six buttons that each blind individual can purchase. Using this aid, a blind person navigating through a Czech city can check any public transport schedule available at any stop, confirm the line of the bus or tram that just came, alert the driver to their presence so that they can let them in or out of the vehicle, navigate around the Prague underground, trigger audible traffic lights to be switched on and locate some of the key buildings such as the Blind Union's HQ's.
Although many cities of Europe have meanwhile tried to implement a similar system, the Czech Republic is the only country I know of that offers such a wide range of services in the entire country this way. I was very impressed the first time I tested this and I love coming back to our southern neighbours. Ahoj a zdravim vas s Polska!
Below, an article of the Czech radio broadcaster back from 2004 explaining the accommodations along with audio samples in Real Audio, if you can still play that.
english.radio.cz/czech-blind-u…
#Accessibility #Blind #UrbanEnvironment #BuildEnvironment #CzechRepublic #AdventCalendar
"Czech Blind United" - making Czech towns and cities friendlier to the blind and visually impaired
Many foreign visitors to Prague or elsewhere in the Czech Republic are often puzzled by the ticking sound of traffic lights at pedestrian crossings. It is the acoustic…Radio Prague International