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Re: Inclusive Design 24, by The Paciello Group for GAAD

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: May 16, 2014 8:41AM

Greetings.

Thanks TPG for the tremendous effort you put in, and a lot of good
lectures (yes, please do post videos, transcripts and slides as well
as copies of the text chat somewhere. If you can only post part of
that, such as slides and text, just that would already be a goldmine
of a11y information).
I had issues with Adobe connect and it was frustrating (also note no
support for Flash based content in the infamous Apple empire is
another source of trouble, but the a11y prophet Denis predictd the end
of the evil Flash before the dwn of 2015, so here is to hoping that
prediction turneth out to be true).
It is frustrating as an attendee to any seminar, let alone one about
accessibility, to not have the fully accessible experience, and it is
a little bit of a mental blow to see how far we have yet to go as a
community for changing the world.
I do not blame TPG for that, and, as Denis dais, I am super impressed
with the effort they put in to this.

Suggestions for either now or next time:
- organizers, could you write a blog of the choices you faced and the
difficulties finding an accessible meeting platform. The rest of us
can share that via social media and help carry feedback back to the
platform vendors. It would have been brilliant if that was done prior
to the actual event, but it could be done in retrospect or before the
next event (and hopefully the story will be a little bit different
next year, if we collectively keep up the fight).

- I like the idea of IRC as a chat platform. As a community I am sure
we can come up with guides to accessible IRC clients on different
platforms. That is something we can work on over the coming months, if
that is the way we decide to go.
Access to text chats are an essential part of a productive and
accessible experience. Audio alone very often is not enough.
In text questions get answer, discussion happens, links, quotes and
other highlights are often posted there.
As an example, the lady that was talking about Word and document
accessibility at 9am EST yesterday )I am too lazy to go dig up her
name just now) mentioned a brand new color contrast analyzer plug in
for Firefox. I could not find it, because the audio wasn´t very good,
I know it was some sort of a "gimp". This would have been a perfect
item for a text chat question, and probably was posted in the chat.

So let´s turn this effort into positive energy. The problem isn´t TPG,
they had nothing good to choose from. The problem are the lack of
accessible options out there. This is frustrating for everybody, and
shows us that the fight has just begun.
Onwards!

On 5/16/14, Don Mauck < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Seems like that would be a good idea.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Léonie Watson [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2014 2:11 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Inclusive Design 24, by The Paciello Group for GAAD
>
> Paul J. Adam wrote:
> "If the Chat interface is a major barrier can we get an alternative chat
> going for future adobe connect events? I know it's rare to find a perfect
> software that's totally accessible and meets all the feature needs like
> handling tons of users at once. The W3C uses IRC, that would work right?"
>
> This sounds like a really good idea. I know there are IRC options that work
> well on Windows with a couple of different screen readers. Do you know what
> the options are like on other platforms by any chance?
>
>
> Léonie.
>
>
> --
> @LeonieWatson Carpe diem
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Paul J. Adam
> Sent: 15 May 2014 22:40
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Inclusive Design 24, by The Paciello Group for GAAD
>
> If the Chat interface is a major barrier can we get an alternative chat
> going for future adobe connect events? I know it's rare to find a perfect
> software that's totally accessible and meets all the feature needs like
> handling tons of users at once. The W3C uses IRC, that would work right?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Paul J. Adam
> Accessibility Evangelist
> www.deque.com
>
> On May 15, 2014, at 11:35 AM, Lucy Greco < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Well said:
>> I am proud to call you a friend. We need to keep trying if we don't
>> let's all just pack up our #a11y hat and go home. The sad thing is
>> that what the people that are complaining about is that this is not a
>> presentation form screen reader users and some of the presenters are
> screen reader users.
>> This event and an amassing one at that is for people who need to learn
>> about making a more inclusive web so stop focusing on how those of us
>> that know the content can get to it and lets focus on getting the
>> #a11y news out to as many devs as we can Lucy
>>
>> Lucia Greco
>> Web Accessibility Evangelist
>> IST - Architecture, Platforms, and Integration University of
>> California, Berkeley
>> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
>> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
>> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jennifer
>> Sutton
>> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 9:07 AM
>> To: WebAIM Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Inclusive Design 24, by The Paciello Group for
>> GAAD
>>
>> First, let me commend Adobe for its ongoing commitment to
>> accessibility, in terms of supporting organizations in the community
>> who are offering so much free content. It is unfortunate that
>> accessibility is often so much harder than it would appear.
>>
>> Given all of the negativity about Adobe Connect being posted on this
>> list and on Twitter, and given Karl's responses to concerns, as raised
>> yesterday, I'd love to know what people *would* suggest that TPG, or
>> Knowbility (for that matter) should have chosen instead.
>>
>> It's easy to criticize, I think, but perhaps much harder to come up
>> with a positive and workable solution.
>>
>> As an example, while I participated on the phone in a virtual seminar
>> held yesterday, using Collaborate, all of the hoopla with Java
>> AccessBridge felt like too much work to me. Would those who are
>> frustrated have preferred that?
>>
>> Who's got a positive contribution to offer? What's the best thing
>> going out there?
>>
>> Yes, many of us in the blind community know of Talking Communities,
>> but I suspect that it is not as feature rich as necessary. But I'm
>> willing to be corrected.
>>
>>
>> I'm eagerly looking forward to knowing what the secret feature-filled
>> seminar platform is.
>>
>> Best,
>> Jennifer
>>
>> >> >> list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> >> >> list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
> > > messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
>
> > > > > > >


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