aclJohn's Inclusion Finds

Here is one for "Web presence designers" - Designing for the colour-blind can be troublesome for designers who aren’t actually colour-blind.

How do we take into account accessibility when we do not suffer from the condition in hand?

Luckily, there’s a handful of accessibility “simulators” available on the web where a web page is rendered in a certain way. The Colour-blind Web Page Filter takes your website and filters it as if you were colour-blind.

The tool is still in development and ...
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Vischeck colour blindness simulator...

Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is colour blind. You can try Vischeck online-

• either run Vischeck on your own image files
  
• or run Vischeck on a web page.
  

You can also download programs to let you run it on your own computer.

Daltonize corrects images for colour-blind viewers.

Visit http://www.vischeck.com/ to raise your awareness.

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Alistair McNaught's blog entry explains it all; Ofqual has launched an open consultation on language accessibility in...

• national curriculum assessment tests; and
  

• general and vocational qualifications.

Your views are sought on two topics through a questionnaire: Deadline 15th September 2011.

Find out more from Alistair's Blog at http://blog.jisctechdis.ac.uk/?p=608, and follow the links to make your contribution.

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Providing a transcript – a textual version of a video and/or audio – increases accessibility of the content. Practitioners and/or learners who are deaf-blind can access the content by using a refreshable (dynamic) Braille display, which converts text into Braille.

Providing transcripts also has other benefits:

• The text is then searchable by search engines.

• People can double-check a point without listening to the audio/video again.

• Some people prefer reading rather than wa...

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The very popular digital media discussion service VoiceThread has launched a new accessibility option called VoiceThread Universal.

VoiceThread Universal...

• is designed for those who use screen-readers to access online media.

• removes extraneous visual and text elements;

• concentrates on providing clear and concise information;

• makes it possible for more learners and more practitioners to participate in online conversations about media.

Note: VoiceThread is popular with ed...

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Visuals Engine is a free useful resource from ConnectABILITY.

Visuals Engine provides six customizable templates for creating...

• achievement charts;
• choice boards;
• schedules; and
• story boards;

To use the Visuals Engine...

• choose a template;
• choose images or upload images for each box on the selected template;
• type text, if required, to accompany each image on the template.
  

When complete, users can print their chart or save it as a PDF.

Note: ConnectABILITY provides, at ...

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The Dynamic Keyboard program provides a "reduced target" on-screen keyboard with word prediction; it is also free.

The keyboard offers a simple interface to enter text using reduced keys on the screen. Watching the video below helps potential users understand how it works; note - Dynamic Keyboard is being used by a typist using the (also free) myEye eye gaze tracking program.

Other Dynamic Keyboard access methods include...

• Intellikeys;

• a mouse or mouse emulator;

• joyst...

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I missed the Office Platform Team's release of two new Microsoft Office 2010 Accessibility Add-ins on March 17th, however, better late than never.

The two new add-ins are the...

1. Subtitling Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint (STAMP); it helps Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 users add closed captions to the video and audio files that they add to presentations; boosting impact for those, in the target audience, with hearing disabilities.
   It also enables video and audio in PowerPoint to be localis...

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For those of you who are not aware, RoboBraille is an e-mail service which can convert digital text documents into either Braille or audio files. It is quick and easy to use RoboBraille.

• Users simply send an e-mail with an attached text document to RoboBraille.
  
• Shortly after, they will receive the document back from RoboBraille in the specified format - an audio file, for example.

The big plus - It is free for non-commercial users to use RoboBraille.

NOW - RoboBraille with a web...

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The Elizabeth FitzRoy Support <http://www.efitzroy.org.uk/> is a national charity providing practical, tailored support for adults with learning and physical disabilities.

Their aim is to allow the people they support to...

• live the lives they choose;
• make their own decisions;
• enjoy a full and independent life.

Many of the people supported are interested in ICT and using the internet. The aim of Sensory World is to create an interactive place for learning that is...

• fun;
• stimu...

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