As my primary interest is in disability services, the technology that I focused on was primarily adaptive technology and other things related to accessibility. As a directed field worker and volunteer for the Library Equal Access Program (LEAP) of the Seattle Public Library, I worked closely with the program's adaptive technology, including computer screen readers and magnifiers, Braille displays and embossers, CC-TVs, Teletypewriter machines, video phones and web cameras, text-to-speech processors, and numerous other devices and technologies that SPL makes available to its patrons. LEAP's equipment were the common types and brands that people with disabilities generally use in the U.S., making this knowledge useful to me in the future. Besides becoming proficient with these devices myself, which took from about an hour to much longer depending on the device, I also learned them adequately enough to teach patrons and staff how to use the equipment and developed a technology manual for the equipment. While LEAP had the original instruction manuals for each piece of equipment, the information was contained in dozens of books and pamphlets spread throughout the LEAP area. To solve this disorganization of important information, I created a single document, the LEAP Technology Manual, that outlined what each technology was for, where it was located, basic instructions on how to use the technology, and simple troubleshooting guidelines. The tech manual has been reviewed and edited, and is currently awaiting acceptance as the official LEAP technology manual.
With the help of my LIS 541 and CSE 590 classes, I also learned how to create a web site by hand, with a slant on the ability to create accessible web sites. Evidence of this skill can be seen on this very web site, crafted by myself and designed to be accessible to people with disabilities. Web site accessibility is vitally important, as without properly created web sites, people with disabilities will have an incredibility difficult time using internet sources and accessing online information, with the worst offending web sites being completely unusable by certain people. Besides learning the basic HTML skills needed to create a web page, I learned about specific features an accessible web page should include and why they are needed. For example, all images that are relevant to the user should have alternative text assigned to them to describe the image to the user (and even a long description added in addition if the image is particularly important and difficult to describe in a short amount of space) so blind people can get important image images provide. Invisible "jump to content" links should be included to allow screen reader users to jump directly to the content of the page without having to listen through all of the preceding directional links. Color should only be used aesthetically and not for navigation or instructions (such as required questions in surveys not being solely designated by the color red), as people with color-blindness may not be able to distinguish between the colors. Text and background should also have strong contrast colors to prevent the text from blending into the background and being difficult to read. All videos and sound bites should include a caption for people who are deaf. The width of the web page should be relative instead of a fixed pixel length to allow low-vision users to magnify the text without the formatting disrupting the information. Many of these accessibility features are included in this web page and can be viewed by looking at the web page's source code. Accessibility is not my only skill with web design. This web page is designed to be simple, as simplicity and accessibility goes hand in hand. I am capable of using more advanced, aesthetic CSS and also able to troubleshoot HTML and CSS of other people's web sites
This page was last updated on Saturday, 19-Apr-2008 17:28:25 PDT.
Created and maintained by Timothy Shockley