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Computer store bridges technology gap for seniors and disabled - Fort Worth Business Press

There’s a scene with his son and daughter-in-law on his birthday that stayed on my mind.  They arrive with presents: a reacher and a big-button phone.  Needless to say, Clint does not express his appreciation; his subsonic growl builds as they cautiously suggest moving to an assisted living facility.  We don’t get to see Clint’s explosion, but we do see the pair hurriedly leaving in exasperation at their own attempt to reach out to him.

My first reaction, of course, was “Thanks, Eastwood, you dipstick, for thoughtlessly stigmatizing accessibility and usability to score shallow cinematic points!  Just what the world needs, another portrayal of comfort and convenience as sissified and demeaning.”  I slept the righteous sleep of the professionally self-justified.

I awoke less so.  People on the receiving end of our beneficence *do* have reactions of reluctance, resistance, and rejection.  Are they all dysfunctional fools, or are they just paying resentful attention to the social markers invisibly embossed on every manufactured object?  If an upscale watch means “I’m stylish and rich”, what does a reacher mean?  And what does giving someone a reacher mean?

When “practitioners” look at a reacher we see an elegant interaction between the sophisticated, painstaking domains of clinical insight and design excellence, and we’re right.  It’s just that someone else looking at it sees a prop for a tragedy, and they’re right, too.

I’m sure we’re all doing as much as we can to trim the stigmatic overtones from highly usable and assistive products, and I wouldn’t want anyone to slack off because those efforts are not always rewarded with elder-glee.  But I think we’d better pay more attention to how the recipient views the exchange.  Sometimes it’s not the chrome-plated heart of the gadget I can’t do without; it’s the chrome-plated face on the dipstick who gives it to me.

Spinalstips - Tips och ideas for people with spinal cord injuries (SCI)

Although some regulation of online distribution will probably arrive sometime, it’ll probably only cover large-market, for-profit content that’s similar to what’s broadcast now.  It’s unlikely that you’ll ever be forced to caption the funny things your kids say at family reunions.

Jared’s Global Microbrand » Blog Archive » SubPLY offering free captioning of YouTube video clips

In Brief: Google Upgrades Accessible Search

MAKE: Blog: Crib Modification for Accessibility

We all agree with the goal, but what’s the best way to achieve it?  Is this really a technological problem, or is it an organizational and distributional one?  Anyone who’s visited one of the assistive technology conferences knows that we’ve got the technological answers to almost all the accessibility problems we face.  Where we fail — and we really are failing — is in getting those solutions into the hands of the people they were intended to benefit.  Price can be a barrier, but so can lack of awareness or confidence, and poor implementation and support networks.

An alternative approach is not to build any new hardware, but to piggyback on existing hardware and technical support networks that are succeeding at the tough task of massive global adoption.  This means “infiltrating” the wireless phone and One Laptop Per Child ecosystems.  It means finding all the existing channels for communicating about accessibility solutions, and amplifying our message there.  We may be able to do more good per dollar with an accessibility how-to poster in every Internet cafe in the developing world than a technology-driven development project.

Technology: A Love-Hate Story | Tania Says

So many of the problems arise from implementation rather than the “raw” accessibility in the products or environment:

• C-Print can only be used on “special” devices
• these devices require AC current, which is only available at the back of a large lecture hall
• transcriptionist scheduling
• speakers with strong accents
• insufficient training for teachers on accessibility and accommodations
• unreliable wireless connections
• incorrect (or unexpected) routing for audio
• classes held in disadvantageous environments such as darkrooms

Accessibility is a lab course!