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Thread: Accessible Synchronous Online Communication

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From: Christopher Phillips
Date: Wed, Feb 25 2004 3:16PM
Subject: Accessible Synchronous Online Communication
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I've been looking into synchronous communication/ web conferencing
systems and am trying to
find out if there is anything out there that is accessible. Obviously
there are going to be problems
with any type of system that facilitates live audio or video, but at
this point I'm just looking at the
interfaces of this type of software in general. Besides accessibility,
I would also love to find
something that is cross-platform- am I dreaming?

I wrote up some thoughts with some links to some of the systems that
I've explored at:
http://www.communityinclusion.org/curbcut/archives/accessible_design/
000019.html
if anyone is interested. Again, I'd love to hear any thoughts that any
of you have...

Thanks,
Christopher Phillips
Curb Cut Learning
http://www.communityinclusion.org/curbcut/
Institute for Community Inclusion
http://www.communityinclusion.org/


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From: Jared Smith
Date: Wed, Feb 25 2004 3:36PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Synchronous Online Communication
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I've participated in broadcasts with both iVocalize and HorizonLive in
the last few weeks. Both seem to do pretty well as far as
accessibility goes. Both allow screen reader access to all? components,
though I'm sure some orientation to the interface is required. The
audio from the broadcast may interfere with screen reader audio, but
I'm not sure if this can be avoided (other than disabling the audio).
HorizonLive has built in functionality for synchronized captions and
iVocalize supposedly supports them as well. Norm Coombs from EASI was
able to use the chat, browser, and audio portions of iVocalize easily
with his screen reader. Neither of these systems I
used were streaming video, but I was pretty impressed with both the
usability and accessibility of both products. Too bad they are so
outrageously priced.

Jared Smith
WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind)
Center for Persons with Disabilities
Utah State University

***
On Wednesday, February 25, 2004 you sent:
> I've been looking into synchronous communication/ web conferencing
> systems and am trying to
> find out if there is anything out there that is accessible. Obviously
> there are going to be problems
> with any type of system that facilitates live audio or video, but at
> this point I'm just looking at the
> interfaces of this type of software in general. Besides accessibility,
> I would also love to find
> something that is cross-platform- am I dreaming?

> I wrote up some thoughts with some links to some of the systems that
> I've explored at:
> http://www.communityinclusion.org/curbcut/archives/accessible_design/
> 000019.html
> if anyone is interested. Again, I'd love to hear any thoughts that any
> of you have...

> Thanks,
> Christopher Phillips
> Curb Cut Learning
> http://www.communityinclusion.org/curbcut/
> Institute for Community Inclusion
> http://www.communityinclusion.org/



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