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Re: Screen Readers as a Development Tool for Web Developers

for

From: Mike Bicknell
Date: Jul 19, 2015 3:11PM

Another option for some, but not all:

Another option is for developers (professors, companies) to partner with
an organization for the blind or deafblind to gain first hand knowledge of
how users interact with their products. For instance, the Washington State
School for the Blind has had a multi-year partnership with Professor
Andreas Stefik from UNLV. He is the developer of Quorum
(http://quorumlanguage.com/), an evidence-oriented programming language.
He found that debuggers weren¹t friendly to the blind, so he set about
developing one in Sodbeans, the standard development environment for
Quorum. For several years WSSB has hosted a computer programming camp to
teach general education Teachers and Teachers of the Visually Impaired how
to use Quorum as part of their curriculum. We are now hoping that Quorum
will soon be officially accepted for use in LEGOs robotics competition.

We¹ve had a mutually beneficial relationship--One that has contributed to
the educational blindness field and to their language development. We also
partnered with Microsoft Lync¹s accessibility team a few years ago to the
benefit our synchronous distance learning math program and to make Lync
more accessible for all.

Just a thought.

Mike Bicknell
Digital Learning, Research, and Development Coordinator
Chief Information Officer
Washington State School for the Blind
Phone: 360-947-3331
http://www.wssb.wa.gov/Content/offcampus/DistanceLearning.asp





On 7/18/15, 7:26 AM, "WebAIM-Forum on behalf of Jonathan Avila"
< <EMAIL REMOVED> on behalf of
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

>> When I refer to education for developers however, I'm not talking about
>>empathy and understanding of the AT user, I'm referring to the mechanics
>>behind the technology. These are two very different things.
>
>Yes, no disagreement here that developers need to be trained on how
>assistive technology accesses, interacts, and interfaces with content,
>apps, APIs, and specifications. All the points are valid and I agree on
>the education bit as indicated by my bullet on education that these
>things need to be a part of the curriculum and code examples used in
>books, courses, etc.
>
>Jonathan
>
>--
>Jonathan Avila
>Chief Accessibility Officer
>SSB BART Group
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
>
>703-637-8957 (o)
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