Presentations

Video: Using YouTube with a screen reader and Easy YouTube

This is one of the demo videos that Kath Moonan of AbilityNet showed during her presentation. It is a user testing interview of a blind user trying to use YouTube with a screen reader and then try the same task with Easy YouTube.

• Watch the video using Easy YouTube
• Watch the video on YouTube

Antonia Hyde on learning disabilities

Antonia Hyde explained to the audience the impact of web design on people with learning disabilities. There is not enough data out there on user testing covering learning disabilities - this was a very welcome exception. Antonia also pointed out the necessity of collaboration as the first and foremost mean of building systems that work, going into detail about our collaboration on building easy youtube.

Jonathan Hassell on Dyslexia

Jonathan Hassell of the BBC did a joint presentation with Phil Teare on the impacts and symptoms of dyslexia on web design and usability. Jonathan goes through the results of a BBC research and gives some tips on how to not block out dyslexic users completely.

Kath Moonan - Why I hate the interweb

Kath Moonan of Abilitynet showed in her presentation user research with users with disabilities and how frustrated people can get by barriers that just are not necessary. There is a lot of good content in this one, make sure to go through all of it.

Denise Stephens at Scripting Enabled

Denise Stephens did a wonderful presentation on how the world is in her eyes and senses and what problems she encounters online suffering from MS. There are some good tips there but in general we got a great insight into good interfaces being about adaptability more than anything else.

Artur Ortega and Leonie Watson - Screenreaders and JavaScript

Artur Ortega and Leonie Watson showed and explained the audience at Scripting Enabled what it means to use a screen reader, what screen readers are out there and how you can help screen reader users by building your JavaScript applications the right way.

Here are Artur’s links:

• A first glance of javascript and a screen-reader:
  • Javascript and JAWS
• Examples how javascript can improve accessibility:
  • Simple, accessible data tables to YUI Charts
  • Youtube captioning
  • Yahoo! Video with off-screen video-controls
• Flash & making Video Accessible
  • Making video accessible
  • nomensa: mechanism for displaying case studies
  • nomensa: Flash game demonstrates how Flash can be accessible to all users.
  • nomensa: JavaScript to dynamically add a style switcher
• The intersection of accessible flash and SEO:
  • Searchability of flash
• Taking Javascript a step further
  • Accessible Web 2.0 Applications with WAI-ARIA
• Other Web 2.0 Obstacles without javascript:
  • Problems with microformats and abbr
• How non-visible meta data improves usability for users with disabilities
  • Natural language hack for Yahoo! search
• Beyond our horizon - our users:
  • Yahoo’s LIVE Deaf Chat Room! for our deaf users
  • flickr - Blind Photographers
  • flickr - Visually-impaired photographers UK
  • flickr for blind people using the new touchcolor system
  • flickr - Color-Blind Photographers
  • flickr - Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge - this photo challenge was inspired by a new book called, Seeing Beyond Sight: Photographs by Blind Teenagers (Chronicle Books 2007).
• For the end:
  • Example of the (singing) speech synthesizer Alex of the new Mac OsX