For those who are seeking prosthetic limbs, or just require a little bit of robotic gripper help, the choices are very few and very costly. A newcomer to the area is hoping to change the costly part with their door opening arm. Costing only $2,000 to build, it is quite cheap compared to the other offerings. This arm can grip, twist, and swing its arm at the same time using a single motor thanks to a slip clutch.

[via Poular Science]

Have you ever seen a website whose interface is ‘way out there’?  Of course you have – there are many.  Sites where, for better or worse, the designer has chosen to make her own path rather than follow a tried and tested design.

Individual design is a highly creative discipline; it forces the designer to think about every little detail, how those details fit together and how they combine as a whole.  It allows the designer to express personality, demonstrate their technical and aesthetic capability, and challenge accepted norms.  To be brief, it’s something of a clean sheet with all the possibilities that this brings.

Conformity is the contrasting approach; it’s more constrained, conforming to established rules, guidelines, accepted practice, you name it.  It prescribes ways of doing things and in practice frees the designer from the tyranny of that ‘clean sheet’ which can be daunting. 

Neither approach is ‘all-or-nothing’; the designer will find a balance that suits their own preference, experience and abilities, tempered by the requirements of the customer.  We’d like to consider some benefits and drawbacks of either approach.

First of all, let’s consider conformity.  The driving force behind conformity (in a software design context) is to take advantage of the hard-won experience of those who have gone before.  Over time, a solid body of accepted practice has built up, shaped by the lessons learnt about what works and what doesn’t.  There’s a good reason that things are the way they are. 

In conventional software development, for example for Windows forms-based applications, a great deal of the hard-work is already done.  There are standard form styles, controls, menu conventions, buttons and so on.  A user, having never seen SomeCompany’s new ThingyApp tool, will at least be presented with something which has a basic familiarity.  A conforming design will behave in much the same way as other applications.  The minimise button will be where it always is; there will be a File menu, perhaps a tool-bar, et cetera. 

What we as designers gain from this is a greater consistency with the ecosystem of other applications.  We also benefit from the re-use of common components and frameworks, which are probably more stable and better tested than anything we could come up with ourselves, if truth be told.  A common UI is, then, a starter-for-ten which enables us to concentrate on the functionality without getting bogged down too much in how we’re going to let you control that functionality.

The drawback to conformity is of course that everything tends towards… well, bleh.  ‘Bleh?’ I hear you say?  Unashamedly non-technical, it’s our instinctive reaction to the ordinary, the familiar, the taken-for-granted – dare I say it, the dull. 

If you want to make a big impression with your software, it has to stand-out in a good way.  Maybe this can be achieved by solving some hitherto difficult task, or by improving radically on something that already exists, or perhaps by doing things in a novel way.

Individual design tends towards this ‘doing things in a novel way’ approach.  Rather than be constrained with the common UI, the designer can really go to town on a design.  No longer bound by convention, then, the outcome is completely at the hands of the designer.

And this is where it typically falls down.

You see, many designers want to express their individuality into their designs.  Especially in web development (whose actual content doesn’t have a common UI as such, beyond standard html controls and the typical page lifecycle).  Flash has a lot to answer for here.  Many potentially great website ideas have been compromised by the use of bad Flash design.  Slow, confusing, overly graphical and exclusive (in the sense that they exclude people who might have no choice but to surf using assistive technology, for example the Jaws screen-reader).

The difficulty is that deviating from well-worn path of convention is a real risk to the usability and accessibility of a design.  Whilst it’s possible that a designer might come up with something which improves upon convention, it’s far more likely that what is designed will fail.  A radical design may well please a small proportion of its user-base, but by messing with the accepted norms, it will doubtless alienate or at best confuse a significant number of its users also.

So, where does this leave us?  Well, the point of this article was to weigh up ‘individual’ versus ‘conforming’ designs, and the short answer is that we can’t really rule on either.  After all, designs exist for a reason, and that reason is to facilitate the use of the thing for which the design was created.  An individual design may well achieve this goal better than a conforming design – we can’t really judge this on a hypothetical basis.  What we can do, however, is look at human nature and suggest that anything which challenges our understanding of how to interact with a system, or forces us to leave our ‘comfort zone’, is likely to require greater effort than a design which plays to our existing understanding and experience in interacting with a system.  Where greater effort is required, we are more likely to make mistakes.  With mistakes come frustration, and frustration quickly turns into dislike and abandonment.

The designer should bear all of this in mind before she departs from the ‘standard designs’, and have good reason for doing so.  If she does take this route, then it places a far greater responsibility on her to ensure that her design works, and justifies its ‘individual’ nature.  There are many techniques which might be used to do this – requirements prototyping being one of the best choices – but at the end of the day a radical design is a challenging proposition and carries increased risk.

We don’t like unnecessary risk.  We can either mitigate it, with careful feedback using prototypes, or avoid it, by sticking to tried-and-tested ‘conforming’ designs.  What we mustn’t do, however, is bury our heads in the sand and hope it all works out…

The best web domain names are often taken or expensive. The cheapest domains, on the other hand, are not always effective. If you want to enjoy cheap domain name registrar, adding a suffix can turn a highly popular domain into a low cost domain name for your website.

Top Suffixes for Private Domain Registration

To help you get started, here are some of the most popular and commonly used suffixes that you can include in your domain name.

YOUR PREFERRED DOMAIN NAME + CENTRAL

When people hear the word ‘central’, the mind generally envisions with a professional place where all their essential needs are met. It’s for this reason that most websites add the word ‘central’ to their preferred web domain. Other similar suffixes include house, depot, spot, base, and site.

YOUR PREFERRED DOMAIN NAME + PORTAL

If your online business is related in any way to technology or the Internet then the word ‘portal’ would make a great suffix. Your target market is no doubt well-versed with terminology in these fields and they’ll immediately understand why you’ve used ‘portal’ in your web domain name. Others may not understand, but they’re unlikely to be part of your target market and thus, their opinions are mostly irrelevant. Indeed, in this case, you derive one of the essential rules for buying domain names. Always choose words that speak your target market’s language and they’re sure to find interesting. Words like ‘camp’ and ‘garden’ can also work as great suffixes as long as they’re used for the appropriate website.

YOUR PREFERRED DOMAIN NAME + NOW

The word ‘now’ is a simple but effective suffix for web domain names because of two major reasons. Firstly, it connotes a sense of urgency or a speedy process. Consider businesses that offer insurance and loans. When the word ‘now’ is included in their domain name, readers can’t help but think that these websites may offer a quicker way to obtaining what they want. Secondly, the word ‘now’ can be considered synonymous to anything current or new. This is essential when your business depends on the latest trends like fashion or news sites where the latest reports are always of interest.

YOUR PREFERRED DOMAIN NAME + TALK

When you use the word ‘talk’ in your domain, people will always expect an interactive feature. This could be provided by way of forums, chat rooms, chat boxes, or even any platform that allows people to post their comments. Similar words that connote the same idea include ‘voice’, ’share’, ’speak’, ‘cafe’, ‘connect’, or even ‘board’. With these suffixes, we hope you’ve found the best words to help you register domain names cheap.

This post has been stimulated by exchanges following two recent presentations I attended:

On the 18 November my colleague Robin Stenham (OU Disabled Student Services) gave an internal OU presentation on a new strategy seeking to better embed accessibility for disabled students across OU course production and presentation processes and in all areas of responsibility. For those interested another colleague Doug Clow (IET) did a live blog of the talk and subsequent discussion at:

http://dougclow.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/enabling-greater-accessibility/

One of the questions raised afterward was by a visiting professor from the China Central Radio and TV University: Prof Sun Fuwan. He pointed out that in China they have 60 million (sic. – that must be an underestimate) disabled people, but at university level have separate institutions for disabled students. He was looking for suggestions and potential collaborations to help Chinese universities to be more inclusive.

Then this week I have been trying to participate in the JISC online conference “Innovating e-Learning 2009” (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elpconference09). The Opening Keynote by Charles Leadbeater was entitled “The role of innovation in education”. Charles presented a framework for analysing types of innovation in education in which he classified innovation as:  Improve, Supplement, Reform or Transform.

It is not the purpose of this blog post to discuss this framework. However a brief asynchronous exchange with the presenter afterward, Charles made the following point:

“At the moment Transform is really seen as “Marginal Alternatives for Learners with Special Needs” but if this became the dominant pole would be much better.”

These two interactions have stimulated further thoughts for me on the old debate in education of inclusion verses special provisions. However this is now being set in my mind within my own work on content personalisation for accessibility and the wider area of personalisation in education.

My own position on the inclusion verses special provision debate is that it can never be that one way or the other will best meet the needs of all. The debate then falls into uncomfortable areas of:
• for who is inclusive education best?
• for who is special provision beneficial?
• equally controversially who has the power and right to decide?

I strongly wish to assert here the value of diversity of needs and preferences at the individual level. As in all areas of humanity apparently similar people can have different preferences. It is thus to be expected that two disabled people who, however defined, have similar impairments, might express different preferences  as to how their needs are best met.

In the UK at HE level there has been traditionally little specialist provision for disabled students; this has probably led to some disabled people being excluded. Whereas, at school level the inclusion verses specialist provision pendulum swings leading to a different balance of provision being available at different times.

There are interesting developments beginning to surface around the increasing emphasis on personalised learning and personalisation in technology mediating learning. This brings the whole idea of meeting diversity of needs and preference into the mainstream in a broader sense. The idea of special needs can be replaced with consideration of individual needs. If we can truly work out how to effectively and economically offer such personalisation of learning and fit it within our “formal” structures then education will exclude and under serve far less people (children and adults).

In early September, AGIMO launched a project to review the accessibility support of the Portable Document Format (PDF), for use on government websites. The project is being run in collaboration with the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the Department of Families and Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA).

The initial stage, the Public Consultation, began on September 16 and ran for about 6 weeks to 26 October 2009. We invited comments from many and in the end received just over 40 formal submissions from members of the public; peak disability groups; government departments; industry and accessibility experts.

The consultation was developed by following recommendations of the (cue product placement) AGIMO created Online Consultation Guidelines, and then launched through promotion on the Web Publishing Guide and Government 2.0 Taskforce Blog. Through FaHCSIA, we sent emails to the Peak Disability Groups in Australia, and also advertised the consultation via AGIMO mailing lists.

We were lucky too that many groups helped to promote and encourage participation by Twittering, blogging and spruiking it to all that would listen (big thanks to the Victorian e-Government Resource Centre among many others!).

We’re now in the tricky process of making sense of the submissions. For those that didn’t see it, we’ve included the Consultation Guidelines and Example Questions. This document was used to help our varied audience understand our goals for the consultation. Though it included example questions, we also welcomed general feedback. For the submissions that answered the questions, it provided a comparative measure, although these things are generally too complex for simple cross-checking.

What is already clear is that it’s a contentious issue… some people are very much for use of PDF’s, some against. Some in the middle somewhere, and others still were telling us we missed the point; claiming testing shouldn’t be about a particular technology, it should be about a holistic approach to accessibility. To a degree, we might agree with that. And we are considering greater accessibility issues through projects such as the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, or the review of the new web standard: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). But more about that later…

In the end though, we know people need more advice on accessibility, both policy based and how-to guidance. We’re confident this Review will help feed into that policy development.

Stage two of the review, Technical Testing before the final stage, User Evaluation. Policy advice on the use of PDF’s for government websites is due in early 2010, but until then, make sure you get in touch with the team if there is any advice needed or share your comments below.

A project by Inclusive New Media Design in England is evangelizing Web accessibility for people with intellectual / cognitive disabilities, which it also refers to as “learning disabilities”.  It has been running workshops to train Web designers and developers, and to include people with cognitive disabilities as testers.

Its Web site has a section of tips on making Web sites work for people with cognitive disabilities, which includes links to examples of Web sites designed for the population, and information about assistive technology.

Its Web site has several nice features I plan to incorporate into the future “Clear Helper” Web site.

• a design using HTML 5 and CSS 3;
• a Flash-based, text-to-speech applet on every page;
• CSS-based switching of page-background coloring (light / dark);
• large font sizes;
• breadcrumbs for site navigation;
• contextually-relevant icons;
• presentation of content in multiple formats (text, audio, video); and
• embedded, closed-captioned videos.

I anticipate learning much from this great resource.

Millions of people get sick each year because of food borne diseases. Food safety is one of the important concerns by many Health Agencies.

Food businesses make sure that aside from providing delicious food to their clients, they also give assurance that what they serve is clean and well-prepared. Staff in restaurants or any business cuisine know the standard procedures when preparing food.

Some of these are:

Hand washing

This is the number one rule in any food business. Prior to food preparation, hands should be washed. There are many illnesses that are air borne and can easily pass to others.

Food Preparation

Chefs or cooks or even you know that washing food before cooking is integral. Prepacked vegetables and fruits should be washed well to avoid bacterial contamination.

Cooking

Uncooked food served can cause illness. All food must be cooked following the right temperature. Bacteria can still grow if the food is slightly raw. The proper amount of cooking time is really important especially in meat.

Proper Defrosting

Frozen meat for cooking must be fully defrosted. It is safer to slice and cook meat or poultry when fully defrosted to avoid health issues concerning live bacteria.

Avoid a Congested Kitchen

It is necessary to keep unnecessary people out of the kitchen. This will keep food free from any dirt and virus from any person other than the chef/cook and helpers. The risk of contamination is lower.

Safety in cooking is important. From planning to preparation until the output – cooked meal, it is a rule that cleanliness is a must for every step.

Margaret & Lap review of their stay at Caroline Apartments Brighton – After moving from the United Kingdom. Margaret describes the accessibility for wheelchair users and how they find their way, are around the flats and Melbourne in general. They were traveling by public transport to visit their Spotswood dog in quarantine while they wait for their rental property to provide for the family to be in motion.

Tags : DIY home http://homedepot.baywords.com/

“I have to keep celebrating that I’m alive. I shouldn’t be here now. I’m on borrowed time”. These were the words spoken by Jayne before she sat down and told her story about how Individualised Budgets has changed her life, the life of her husband Mark and her wider family including her Mum.

Jayne’s life as a high energy career nurse was thrown into chaos at the age of 30 when she was diagnosed with cancer. She describes how treatment offered structure to her weeks following the original announcement and how she found a sense of purpose in simply trying to stay alive. “By finding structure and purpose something positive will merge” Jayne says. This model of chaos, structure, meaning and emergence has seen Jayne through eight years of fighting cancer and all the ups and downs that entails.

Jayne explains how time became her greatest commodity because no one could say how long she had left to live. Following her first round of treatment Jayne took a part-time job which allowed for flexibility and days away; days spent with Mark on an canal barge – “We like canal barging – it slows life down”. However, one afternoon Jayne was plunged back into chaos as she fractured her spine pushing the boat through a lock. The cancer had spread to her bones. At this point the nature of the problem had changed. It was was no longer an illness, but a disability. This was going to take away her independence and this was the one thing that scared her the most.

It was at this point that Jayne was offered Direct Payments, but this proved to be rigid and outside of her desire to regain independence – “I was trying not to be a disabled person. I didn’t want many of the installations that were being offered. I did need help though, especially with my food shopping, but the times were fixed and no matter what I had to be well on that prescribed day, but I wasn’t”. Outside of this chaos Jayne found meaning attending a local college to study art, but was soon hit with a real problem. She was reliant on other students to lift the wheelchair from her car – “you can’t describe how helpless it makes you feel”.

This is when Jayne was introduced to Individualised Budgets (IB) and she was able to purchase a floating chair and trailer for her car. “All of a sudden my life was transformed. I could go shopping on my own. I could get to and from college and also take part in local field trips. I felt independent again”. The IB payments also allowed Jayne to compartmentalise the six hours of support she was offered through Direct Payments. It was broken into different instances allowing Jayne to take the burden of cleaning the house from her busy Mum and instead spend quality time with her at the local swimming pool. “The IB budget has really allowed me to understand where I want to spend my time and what I want to spend it doing. In the end, this is not about having a service, it’s about having a life”.

Jayne does however state that there has been periods where she has been able to reduce the budget – “We are very conscious that this is not our money. I keep returning to the IB panel and asking if it’s okay to procure a particular service. There have even been instances where I have even been able to give money back”. Jayne now has support on a daily basis – a position that Jayne gave great consideration to – “This is the person I am going to choose to share the last parts of my life and it was important that I was able to make that choice”.

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The full report is now available. Please click on the link below to read the report or left-click and download.

Unpacking Service Transformation – Oldham In Control

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This morning, as normal, I switched on my iPod Touch just after getting out of bed and downloaded tweets posted overnight. And via a tweet from Jonathan O’Donnell I discovered that during the night I had given the opening keynote talk of the day at the OZeWAI at OZCHI 2009 conference. Yes, I had given a talk at a conference held in Australia before breakfast!

As I pointed out after spotting this: “A few hours ago I gave a keynote talk at the OzeWAI conf in Australia. I was asleep at the time! #a11y http://bit.ly/6Z8AN1“. Of course this provided the opportunity for the response “so were the audience! “

Later on in the day, after returning from a meeting in Birmingham I came across a tweet from Joss Winn: “42% of US data centres expect to run out of electricity by 2012. 39% will exceed cooling capacity within that period http://j.mp/8UMPXS” which highlighted a comment from a newly-published report on “Low carbon computing: a view to 2050 and beyond” by Paul Anderson, Gaynor Backhouse, Daniel Curtis, Simon Redding, David Wallom which is available from the JISC Web site.

At the recent CETIS 2009 conference Joss told me of his interests in environmental issues and his heartfelt concerns of the needs to reduce energy usage. On his blog Joss recently asked “What will Higher Education look like in a 2050 -80% +2c 450ppm world?“.

I wonder if sometime in the near future travelling to another country to deliver a talk at a conference will be regarded in the same way that lighting a cigarette in the lecture theatre would be – something that is just not done.

And as well as recycling paper will we recycle our talks? The talk which was used at today’s OzeWAI conference was a slidecast (PowerPoint slides with audio hosted on Slideshare) of a rehearsal of a talk entitled “From Web Accessibility To Web Adaptability” which I presented recently at the RNIB’s Techshare conference (and is embedded below).

Is this approach likely to become more prevalent, I wonder? And if so, what are the best practices which should be adopted – and what are the mistakes to be avoided?

Google announced last week that they are introducing an automatic captioning facility for YouTube videos.  In the official Google blog they state that every minute 20 hours of video are uploaded.  The chances of each individual video owner taking the time and effort to caption each of their videos is unlikely.  It means that most user generated content on the video sharing site is inaccessible to people who are Deaf or hearing impaired.

It uses their own automatic speech recognition (ASR)  technology combined with the existing YouTube captioning system to automatically produce captions – auto-caps for short.  It is initially only available on a number of mainly educational channels.  Although ASR has been around for a while in the GoogleVoice application it has never been deployed on such a large-scale before.

An additional facility that has also been introduced is automatic timing.  If a video owner already has a transcript, they can upload this as a text file with the video and the software will automatically link the words in the transcript with the sounds on the video.

Both of these features are not only suitable for viewers with hearing difficulties but make content available in more languages.  The facility is only available in English but using the Google translation tool they can be translated into a number of languages.

Obviously this is not an exact science and mistakes are bound to occur but even with the problems, auto-caps is a major step forward in making all videos accessible.

Modern architectural design combined with contemporary and modern twist interiors makes The Waves Resort an enticing place to stay. The resort offers self-contained apartments, with gourmet kitchens and top of the class bathrooms.

Why I fell in love with Wave Resort is its accessibility to Broadbeach dining and shopping centres. It is situated right above central Broadbeach. The best part of it all was seeing the beautiful views of the Gold Coast coastline, Surfers Paradise skyline and Gold Coast Hinterland views.

The moment I step right in to the reception area, I was mesmerized by the interior design of the resort’s waiting area. It’s marvelous.

I am quite meticulous about cleanliness and sanitation. I give this resort a 10 out 10 rating for its clean apartment and modern kitchen to die for. The resort has top of the line facilities that cater to the needs of every guest.

I really do like swimming and Wave Resort never failed to satisfy me with my desire to take a dip and just enjoy. The resort’s plunge pool is a winner! I even had the chance to try out their roof top jacuzzi, and I am glad that I did as the views from the roof top are spectacular.

The different array of Broadbeach cafes and restaurants found within walking distance from the resort are a sure hit to every one who wants to dine in and have a taste for fancy meals or maybe just a cup of coffee.

Truly, Wave Resort is indeed the perfect accommodation located in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast.

I recently downloaded the Allods beta.  I still haven’t recieved an email with a beta key, but I wanted to get the game installed and patched so I’d be ready to jump in.  I installed to get a corrupt file warning that fixing didn’t correct.  I uninstalled and tried 2 more times before redownloading.  The new download was the same.  I checked the forums to find a large thread that had various techno-babble that “might” help solve this problem for some people.  It is now the next day and I’m redownloading so I can attempt one of these manual fixes.

This is a typical scenario for many free to play MMORPGs.

For me and some of my past game jounalism acquaintances, we always loved to discuss the business side of the gaming industry as much as the games themselves.  I came to a personal belief that one of  World of Warcraft’s biggest claims to fame is its accessibility.  The game is extremely approachable by many demographics.

I found that playing WoW was about as easy as playing a game on my Playstation 2.  I just pop the disc in and I’m practically up and running.  It had me thinking of all the people that aren’t playing other MMOs because they take more effort on the users part.  Many people aren’t some determined MMO lot that is accustomed to this, or even understand how MMOs work at all.  They just know that it’s a game that looks fun and would like to try it.

I consider myself to be averagely skilled with computers and am still reaching a frustration level cap with getting Allods to work.

Runes of Magic, my current favorite game, is not without this problem.  We see new posts from new players daily on the official forums with errors and other problems just getting the game started.

Two good friends of mine, who aren’t really MMO players as much as they are video game players, loved WoW but they’ve told me they want stuff to work period.  If they are buying a game, if it doesn’t work it’s total and utter useless junk to them.  These are guys who’ve owned every gaming system imaginable and have played PC games for over 10 years.

I played the Vanguard trial over a year ago.  I had extensive problems and confusion over Sony’s Station.com site with registration, getting ID codes, and the like.  Personally I went through it and loved the game, and plan on playing in the future, but I’m one of those determined type that will go the extra mile and know how to.

MMOs in general are not always as easy to play as console games.  Adding a flood of free to play MMOs with constant corrupted file problems can immediately make a persons decision of whether they will ever play that game or not.

Have you had mainly friendly experiences with MMOs? What games do you think do a great or poor job with handling accessibility?

Should companies start beefing up tech support and waiting longer to put out well tested downloads, and making user experience smoother and more easily understood.  Or is this too fine a line where people have it too easy and just need to put the work in, if they want to play?

I recently learned during a presentation that iClicker has created a web interface, austensively to give users a choice as to the device they can use to vote in class.  The website would allow the student to use a smart phone or other web enabled device instead of the iClicker.  This has some interesting ramifications.

From the prospective of accessibility, it is a great idea.  It is nearly impossible to make a small device like a clicker accessible to all users, whereas a computer has a much more flexible interface.  For example, a student who has limited mobility could use the web interface in conjunction with voice recognition to answer questions in class.  The addition of voice recognition to the clicker device would make it prohibitively expensive.

The interesting side effect of this would be that users who are actually not in class could also answer questions.  Depending on how long and how predictably the instructor uses the clicker, a student could, for example, evade the attendance policy.

More information on the iClicker web interface can be found at <http://www.iclicker.com/dnn/Products/webclicker/tabid/156/Default.aspx>

Just the other day Google announced its intentions to automatically generate closed caption files on a select group of YouTube files.  The story quickly made it to the NY Times and all over the blogosphere, as it rightfully should.  The idea is to eventually rollout the capability across YouTube for all users to test.  With 20 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, that’s a lot of text being created!

At its core, this is a brilliant move by Google to improve YouTube search (and advertising) capabilities.  But Google’s announcement, largely because it’s Google, also puts the accessibility issue in front of the entire country for a change.  Captions are mandated for much of television, but they are only beginning to get some attention on the internet, well until now.  Representative Ed Markey, the same Congressman who made the original push for closed captioning on television, introduced H.R. 3101, the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009, during this session of Congress, and it currently has 19 co-sponsors.  This is actually the second attempt at getting a bill passed that would mandate an improved user experience for the hearing impaired.

Thanks to one of the most talked about technology companies of our time, closed captioning is getting attention all over the internet.  Anyone who works with online video is now paying attention to closed captioning.  Not only are we empowering the hearing impaired, but in a virtual world that seems to be driven by search and discovery, video can now be made more “accessible” than ever.

So for a business that is centered on providing high quality, time synchronized transcripts, what does this announcement mean?

Well, it could mean a lot of things.  First, let’s look into this new Google service.  Google will deploy the same technology that powers Google Voice across YouTube to enable the creation of text.  This means they will be using automatic speech recognition (ASR) to create the caption files.  Using ASR on audio and video is not a new concept, but it’s new at this scale.  We’ve commented on our experiences with ASR capbilities in the past.  In fact, we’ve even played with the very engine that will be front and center for the YouTube initiative.

We’ve spoken with many people who have tested ASR solutions.  Usually, if they are talking to us, they weren’t satisfied!  The truth of the matter is that ASR will be good enough for some people, and it won’t be good enough for others.  80% accuracy (at it’s best and in studio quality recording conditions) leaves a lot to be desired.  In fact, Google even admits that results can be somewhat amusing when they’re off.  On the search front, the most critical keywords tend to be the most unique and, therefore, least common to be recognized accurately.  Google’s announcement does not change that, it just makes an ASR solution easier to use and free to consume.  In many cases, Google has likely provided a medium for people who may never have put captions on their video with the ability to do so with very little effort.  Google has also made the search benefits of captions glaringly obvious.

Ultimately, the organizations that require (or believe in) high quality output for captions and search will be willing to pay for cleaned up text.  There are significant benefits to the high-quality approach, whether it be accurate search results or truly legible transcripts.  Branding is also a critical issue for many organizations who add a text component to their video offering.

We at 3Play Media will continue building high quality solutions that make multimedia more accessible for everyone.  More people than ever are aware of the benefits of captions and time-synchronized transcripts now.  We have some new product launches on the way that will build off these very benefits, and we can’t wait to show the world how their online video experience can be changed forever.

I read at the weekend that an appeal by RBS to over-turn a court order ordering RBS to carry out £200,000 worth of remedial works to a branch in Sheffield has failed.

The case involves a successful claim by a customer that, as a service provider, RBS had breached its obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (the “DDA”) – in particular that it had failed to make “reasonable adjustments” (as required under section 21 of the DDA) to make the branch accessible to wheelchair users. The case is signifcant because it is the first time (as far as I am aware) that, in addition to a finding that discrimination had taken place, a court has ordered a defendant to incur capital costs to prevent discrimination from re-occuring.

Whilst this case relates to access to a physical building, it is also relevant for the purposes of considering the DDA and the accessibility of websites by users with disabilities. In particular, it confirms that the courts are prepared to order a defendant to incur substantial costs and carry out remedial work (whether to a bricks and mortar site or a clicks and mortar website). That doesn’t mean to say that costs of £200,000 fixing an inaccessible website will automatically be deemed “reasonable” (RBS did not appear to challenge the reasonableness of that figure), but it does set a precedent in respect of the use of court orders under the DDA.

It’s also interesting to note that the court rejected RBS’s argument that the claimant could access the same services through RBS’s Internet banking website, and therefore that RBS had discharged its duties under the DDA. The court differentiated the channels through which services are offered to customers on the basis that there are certain things that can be done in a branch that cannot be done online. This may make it harder for operators of inaccessible websites to say that other, alternative, channels offer the same functionality as the website.

“For: The Institue of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephens University, Essentials Green Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.”

I must first of all say I am thoroughly enjoying doing the Essentials Course in worship studies. I have found their materials so thought provoking and yet so balanced and mature. Definitely check the course out if you have a heart for worship!

Anyway back to what I wanted to say…In the church I grew up in there were often differing opinions on worship, and some pretty strong ones at that (I see those heads nodding ). One of them was on “cultural relevance” and “accessibility”, i.e. we were dealing with issues of how we make the “church” cool to other people and maybe even to ourselves because even though most “religious” people won’t admit it, they are bored out of their minds.

It sad to know that these “wars” still continue today, when really the problem isn’t with the other guy who wants to rock out or sing hymns. The problem was us all along. (swallowing bitter pill…). The way I see it the problem has never been should we sing hymns or not or should we sing the latest songs off the Worship Top 40, the problem is about who we are serving.

We all know that worship is about us (wait quick double take, what did he say?) At least that’s what we believe if we are honest with ourselves. Even us worship leaders make worship about us rather than first God and THEN others.

I think worship should be directed towards God but we should also be serving each other by choosing actions, meditations, prayers and songs that help others to connect with God. Far too often worship leaders under the banner of “cultural relevance” choose the songs they want to sing instead of the songs the community, in front of them needs to connect with God. As leaders we need to keep at the front of our minds the question “what is going to help these people connect with Jesus today?”

The other issue goes a little deeper. I have always found that in these churches where there are struggles in worship it is because choosing the right song has become the focus. It’s sort of like if you choose the right song (or my favourite song at the moment) then worship will be awesome, but if you don’t then worship will be rubbish.

That’s also not the point, I mean isn’t this about God and His presence? What God wants isn’t a song or sacrifice (depending on which Testament you choose to live in… jokes) he wants people who will come to Him in faith (Heb 11), He wants people who will worship in spirit and in truth (John 4) and He wants people who are humble (Psalm 51).

I once heard Graham Cooke say that as long as God’s presence is manifesting, that people are getting saved, that miracles are happening on a weekly basis and the poor are being looked after, you will always be relevant. Pretty powerful stuff hey. I think so often we hide behind “being culturally relevant” and choosing cool songs so we don’t have to own up to the fact that God left the building a long time ago.

As always I welcome any comments

I plan to use a consistent set of navigation icons for the future Clear Helper Web site.  My first attempt is represented by the “BACK” and the “NEXT” icons below.  Others in the set will follow.

The development of them is not derived from research, which is beyond the scope of the project at this point.  However, they were created following WebAIM’s “Creating Accessible Images” guidelines.  In particular, they: are not animated; don’t use color alone to convey meaning; look okay even when enlarged to 500%; and use good color contrast between the text and the background.

Of these guidelines, the last can be objectively measured with the following tools.  Each is based upon the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0).

Accessibility Color Wheel created by Giacomo Mazzocato.  This tool is used to choose a color pair, especially of foreground- and background colors, that is accessible to people with any of three color-blindness conditions. This tool rated the color contrast of the icons below as “13:1 ok”.

Luminosity Colour Contrast Ratio Analyser from Juicy Studio.  This tool also rates color contrast.  It reported the ratio as “12.96:1 … very good … ” and passing at WCAG 2.0 Level AAA, which is the highest standard.

I would appreciate any constructive feedback about these icons.  They are being shown at the size I plan to use on the Web site.

Mashups are funny things – web applications that combine various data from third party sources presented in a creative new way. What are some of my favourites?

Twittervision 3D
http://twittervision.com/maps/show_3d

TuneGlue
http://audiomap.tuneglue.net/

Yahoo vs Google
http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html

But would they ever be effective for government or governance purposes? Well, at the very least, the government can be seen as a massive database of information – similar to the data from third party sources that mashups draw their information from. All this great information, if opened up to the public, would be a great resource for tech-savvy individuals to create these mashups. Not only would these mashups let people get easier access to information that the government possesses, like wait-times at the DriveTest Centres, database of family doctors by location, or even the current state of the highway in specific locations.

How would this make the government more efficient? Well, for starters, their information now becomes more easily accessed and citizens will be better informed and more knowledgeable. In addition, they would not have to spend huge amounts of money updating these mashups – creating an efficient API (Application Programming Interface) will allow mashups to draw information regardless on how often it is updated. Lastly, they will achieve a higher level of transparency and accountability, which will force them to be as efficient as possible.

I am all for making government information open-source, and I am sure that with the appropriate infrastructure created for mashups, government and governance would benefit greatly.

Blind advocates in Chicago are handing out free Pocket Money Marker Braillers this Wednesday morning, encouraging the public to use them to mark their paper money on behalf of those of us who can’t see. Hanni and I are doing a school presentation that morning, so we won’t be able to join the demonstration. We’ll be with them in spirit, though!

The demonstration – and the brailler giveaway — is intended to make the public aware that the Treasury Department should mark U.S. currency in order to prevent discrimination against those of us who are blind. An op-ed piece I wrote about this issue appeared in Friday’s Chicago Tribune:

180 countries use printed paper money, and the United States is the only one that prints bills all the same size and color, no matter how much each bill is worth.
Last year a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. currency system discriminates against blind people. The court decision was not a unanimous one, and some high muckity-mucks weren’t exactly happy with the ruling, either. The National Federation of the Blind, for example. NFB strongly opposed the 2002 lawsuit that led to the ruling. They figure that most blind people have found ways to cope with paper currency and say there are other, more pressing needs to address. Treasury Secretary
Henry M. Paulson, Jr. testified against it, too. He said the blind can function fine using credit cards or electronic scanners to identify different bills,
and if that didn’t work they could rely on help from others.

The NFB and Paulson do have a point. In the 20+ years I have been blind, I have never been shortchanged by a cashier. Even Chicago cab drivers – who have an undeserved reputation for being rude – have been honest with me, correcting me when I’ve made mistakes and tried to pay them too much. Still, I feel pretty stupid sometimes when a bill unfolds itself, or gets mangled up in my wallet, and I have to ask what money I’m carrying.

You can read the entire editorial online — it’s called Paper Money that Works for the Blind –and leave comments there at the Tribune site if you’d like. And hey, if you happen to be out shopping in Chicago this Wednesday morning, word has it that most of the free money-braillers will be handed out in front of Water Tower Place – check it out!

On the future Clear Helper Web site, I plan to embed videos as an option for visitors to take tutorials.  At the time of this writing, I know of three accessible video players.  On the Clear Helper Web site, I may experiment with each to see which works the best.

• ccPlayer, from the National Center for Accessible Media is the one I have been using for a couple of years on another Web site.  It was selected for use because of its accessibility features for screen readers and for keyboard users, for its closed-captioning feature, and for its ability to play well the site’s streaming-video files.
• Easy YouTube, developed by Christian Heilmann, may be an option if Clear Helper’s videos are hosted on YouTube.  It has big buttons and clear video-size options.  Visitors with cognitive disabilities may find those controls easy to use.
• Section 508 Video Player, was just released by Business.GOV, an official site of the U.S. Government.  Like Easy YouTube, The Section 508 Video Player is intended for use with YouTube videos.  One feature that may make it unique is that it “… plays a single video or a playlist, which is a group of videos within a single player.”

My first Amazon Kindle book, Putting People First: Human Issues in Instructional Technology, is now available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Y5VTG8. This text has been about two years in the making and students who have used the original edition have had a lot of good things to say about it. It can serve as an excellent supplement to any instructional design and technology course or training, as it covers those social and ethical aspects of IDT not always covered in depth in many courses. It can also serve as a guide or reference for practicing instructional designers, teachers, and even special educators in the field.
Check out http://www.zelda23publishing.com to learn a little more, and to view the complete table of contents. Enjoy!