Category Archives: Accessibility and assistive tech

Audio podcast search technology

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A friend and fellow U. of MN grad student pointed me to an article in Wired called Podcast Chaos Be Gone which brought me to Podzinger, an online service that scans audio podcasts and uses speech recognition technology to create transcripts.

I submitted the Savvy Technologist Podcast recently and was informed a few days later that my podcasts had been analyzed and were ready for searching. A quick search for “digital storytelling” brings up my recent podcast with Michael Searson with links to the sections of the podcast where that text was spoken. Pretty cool. Unfortunately, it appears that RealPlayer and IE 5.0 are required to play the clips directly from the search results page. RSS feeds are available for all search results which means that you could subscribe to a feed that should notify you if any particular word or phrase is spoken in any podcast that Podzinger has indexed.

podzinger, speech recognition, savvy technologist podcast

NSBA: Roundtable on accessible Web sites

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I got to facilitate a roundtable discussion on accessible Web design today. The lack of an Internet connection in the room prevented us from showing some live sites, but I promised to post some links here. I showed a bit of my presentation on the topic from last year’s TIES conference. There are a number of useful links on that presentation—which was built using Eric Meyer’s S5 system—including some book recommendations. One that isn’t there is for Eric Meyer on CSS, an excellent project-based book on the subject. Designing With Web Standards by Zeldman is also excellent.

We ended up discussing content management systems a fair bit and their usefullness for building standards-compliant, manageable, and accessible sites. There are a number of education-specific content management systems exhibiting here in the vendor hall, and I recommended some other open source options including Plone, Drupal, and Joomla! (formerly Mambo). My previous post on the topic might be useful too. Readers interested in accessible Web design, and universal design more broadly, might be interested in my recent podcast with Earle Harrison which touched on many Web issues.

We also talked about the challenges associated with using parent or student volunteers as Web site builders and the time crunch that school Webmasters often feel. No magic bullets, unfortunately, but I think most walked away with something new to chew on.

If anyone from the session has any questions or feedback, feel free to post a comment.

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Earle Harrison: Assistive technology and accessible web design

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My guest for this edition of the Savvy Technologist Podcast is Earle Harrison. Earle is an assistive technology consultant and owner of Triumph Technology, a source for adaptive technology and adaptive media solutions. We talk about universal design, assistive technology, and accessible Web design. I learned a lot during my conversation with Earle, and I think you will too.

Earle mentioned many different hardware and software products during our conversation. I’ve included a list of as many of them as I could find. If you’re using iTunes 5 or the new iPod nano, then you’ll be able to read this message and the product list in the lyrics section of the ID3 info.

Screenshot of iTunes 5.0 support for lyrics in the ID3 tags

Download: STP-EarleHarrison (18 MB, 39:10)

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New typeface combats dyslexia

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As a certified typography geek I was very interested to discover the new Read Regular typeface that is designed specifically to address the letterforms that cause difficulty for persons with dyslexia. A quick look at a type sample reveals some significant changes. Two examples: the “b” and “d” letters are no longer mirror images and the “a” looks the way people usually write it. Additional information is available in the background documentation. According to an article in The Guardian at least one textbook manufacturer, Chrysalis Books, is planning to use the new typeface.

No purchasing information is available yet, so it’s unclear how expensive it would be to buy this typeface and install it on a school’s computers. And it should be said that there’s no scientific evidence that the new typeface is actually easier to read. We’ll have to take anecdotal evidence for now.

First seen at the STLI blog.

Check your accessibility

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I usually recommend that Web designers use lynx to get an idea of how well their site will work for visitors who use screen readers. As a text-only browser, lynx quickly exposes overly complicated markup, images without alt tags, and other basic Web accessibility faux pas. Lynx is installed by default on most Linux distributions and Mac OS X, but Windows users will have to work a little harder to get it installed.

In a perfect world designers would use an actual screen reader to test their pages. Unfortunately, the software is pretty much Windows-only and quite expensive. JAWS for Windows, one of the most popular screen readers, costs almost $1,000 for the standard version. So what’s the budget-conscious Web designer to do? Install Firefox and the Fangs extension. When invoked from the browser’s context menu, Fangs “creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by a modern screen reader.” (View a screenshot.)

If you build Web pages for your school, add Fangs to your developer tool belt.

TIES Conference wrapup

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I’m happy to report that my presentations went well on Tueday. I was easily outnumbered by the audience which is never a sure thing at a conference, especially when the topics are fairly specialized. I gave Eric Meyer’s S5 presentation tool a try and it worked great. It was an especially appropriate tool to use for the Web accessibility talk. Both presentations are available online for your viewing pleasure.

I’m sad to report, however, that I won’t be able to podcast either of them since I wasn’t able to get my podcasting rig working in time. The problem, it turns out, is that the YEPP is expecting line level input and the lapel microphone only puts out mic level input. I need to find a small (preferably portable) pre-amp or transformer to make it work well. I’ve got some other ideas, but I’m afraid I’ll probably have to spend a little more money to get this thing to work like I really want it to. So you’ll all have to wait just a little longer for the debut of The Savvy Technology podcast.