No matter where your political feeling may lie, there is no doubt that our troops are among the finest in the world. They deserve our thanks and support for their sacrifices.
Those who suggest that these soldiers are less intelligent or unable to gain regular jobs show their ignorance. Being a veteran myself, I served with many intelligent, hard-working, and dedicated people, who just happened to be soldiers as well. These brave men and women are deserving of our respect and admiration, as they and their tradition are the reason that we have the freedoms that we enjoy.
When I found out about this organization, I had to bring it to light here at the Accessibility Blog. It is called Project Valour-IT.
Project Valour-IT stands for Voice Activated Laptops for our Injured Troops. This organization is attempting to purchase and install accessibility software for wounded troops. The majority of accessibklity software is voice recognition software, as many of the wounded have suffered hand and arm injuries, or have an amputated limb. This organization wants to get this technology to the Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines recovering at home or in military hospitals.
As of October 2006, Valour-IT has distributed nearly 600 laptops to severely wounded soldiers across the country. Here’s how it started:
Project Valour-IT began when Captain Charles “Chuck” Ziegenfuss was wounded by an IED while serving as commander of a tank company in Iraq in June 2005.As he began to recover, CPT Ziegenfuss wanted to return to writing his blog, but serious hand injuries hampered his typing. When a loyal and generous reader gave him a copy of the Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred software, other readers began to realize how important such software could be to CPT Ziegenfuss’ fellow wounded soldiers and started cast about for a way to get it to them.
A fellow blogger (blog author) who writes under the pseudonym FbL contacted Captain Ziegenfuss and the two realized they shared a vision of creating libraries of laptops with voice-controlled software that could be brought to the bedsides of wounded soldiers whose injuries prevented them from operating a standard computer. FbL contacted Soldiers’ Angels, who offered to help develop the project, and Project Valour-IT was born.
If you are interested in donating or supporting this cause, I urge you to go to the Project Valour-IT site and see some of the stories of soldiers that have been helped by this great charity.
Dr. T.V. Raman posted to the Official Google Blog yesterday, explaining audio CAPTCHA’s and Google’s policy. While explaining the need to be accessible, he also asks for user feedback on the current methods being used by Google. (A trademark action by Google - getting user feedback)
Here’s your chance to let your voice be heard. Help Dr. Raman improve the accessibility at Google!
Via “Captial One Hates Deaf People” at consumerist.com
In a non-web related story, a deaf customer of Capital One was attempting to apply for a Capital One credit card. She needed to finalize the information, but Capital One would not accept relay calls. She attempted to put her mother on the line to explain that she was deaf and needed the relay to communicate. Capital One would not let her speak through her mother or accept the relay call, again.
Here’s part of her experience:
The verification department immediately said they did not accept relay calls and would not talk to me, but instead would send me back to customer service dept which had told me that they could NOT help me. I got angry at this point and told them that I was not happy with being shuffled about because as a deaf person, I’ve had to deal with this sort of crap before the ADA laws came in place. I then told them that I would be reporting them to Better Business Bureau and asked the relay operator to hang up on them (which she happily did because she was not happy with the mistreatment either!)”
Read the entire account at The Consumerist, then Digg the story!
Access keys are a method commonly used by web developers trying to make their sites more accessible. They allow the use of keyboard triggers to navigate your website. This navigation is most commonly achieved using the Alt key plus the designated trigger key.
Unfortunately, Access keys have a flawed implementation in almost every circumstance.
There are two major problems with the access key conundrum: discoverability and software conflicts. First, discoverability.
How do you know what access keys are available? Unless the designer has made special efforts to inform you, it’s very difficult to know what keyboard shortcuts a site is using. Usually, designers attempt to either use logical and easily remembered choices, such as Alt + F for the FAQ and Alt + H for the home page, or externally recognized “standard” key assignments.
But that will still only enable a user to guess at the possibilities. There are a number of methods for developers to reveal their choices of accesskeys: but these are of little use to the user visiting a site which has not taken advantage of these methods.
The second problem is conflict with other keyboard shortcuts. By default, an assigned access key will override any other available keyboard shortcut. Thus, in the example provided above - Alt + F will visit the FAQ page - and not the “File” menu. There are so many possible key combinations in use by different user agents that it is practically impossible to select a keyboard shortcut which will not conflict with somebody’s browser, screen reader, or other assistive technology. John Foliot prepared an extensive chart or keyboard shortcuts regularly in use, to give you a sense for what possibilities are available.
Firefox 2.0 has recently been released, and has attempted to rectify the problem by employing a multi-key invocation for access keys. Instead of the simple “Alt + key” combination, they’ve designated Shift + Alt + key as the required sequence.
Well, it’s a good try.
Unfortunately, they’ve created two problems with this system. First, one of the user groups which benefits the most from access keys is those with motor skill disabilities. Adding an additional key to the sequence makes the process more complex, and requires greater dexterity: therefore increasing the barrier for that population. Second, they managed to disable numeric access keys. Really, it’s just a mistake: the normal Shift key behavior has remained active, so it is impossible to type a number while pressing the Shift + Alt key combination. Instead, you type the alternate characters for the respective numeral.
Given that the UK recommended access key set (referenced above) predominantly consists of numbers, this bug renders the access keys of any site using the UK standards almost entirely irrelevant.
It’s a disappointing attempt: clearly not fully thought out before being released. As much as I can’t recommend access keys under any circumstances; they are used on many sites, and it should be the responsibility of the user agent to make certain that the method works according to the W3C guidelines.
