Feature Writer John Christie - Tools for a More Accessible Internet A website in England is attempting to fix the web for the disabled and elderly. In order to assist in fixing the web, you can actually sign up and help them out by going to their website, http://www.fixtheweb.net/ and become a volunteer or a reporter.
In order to give feedback on fixing the web, you can also go to the Web Access Initiative of the World Wide Web consortium on its website at http://www.w3.org/wai/. This web site documents problems the disabled have with various web sites. Many of us are well aware that there is a serious accessibility issue with most websites. While there are a few who are paving the way and making accessibility a crucial element of their design, there is much work to be done. It must be said, though, that it doesn't seem that the problem lies in an unwillingness to create accessible material as much as there is a misunderstanding about what it means to have an accessible site. That's where the importance of these new groups comes into play. By educating website designers about how to make their sites accessible--and involving the people who require accessible websites to evaluate them--they're helping to change the fundamental way in which websites are designed from the ground up. For those designers who may be curious to know if their site is as accessible as it should be, there are also organizations who provide testing services to help them reach their accessibility goals. Thankfully, there are multiple resources available to website designers. The World Wide Web Consortium offers quick tips for designers who may have questions. Their web site is http://www.w3.org/wai/references/quicktips and serves as a quick reference card for making sites accessible. Another resource that can help in assisting to make sites accessible to the disabled is the Bobby Accessibility Checker. The Bobby software can generate a report on a website's overall accessibility. This is a good site to use if designers want to see whether their site has either a few or a lot of accessibility issues to contend with. The web address is http://www.cast.org/bobby. A great publication that can assist in designing web sites is http://trace.wisc.edu/world/web/. This publication is published by the Trace Center from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. IBM also has a list of accessibility guidelines that is available at http://www-3.ibm.com/able/guidelines/web/accessweb.html. All of these resources that are available to web designers are great news for the visually impaired community. By creating a standard for accessibility and offering education, the future internet will no longer be a place of frustration and barriers, and instead will become something that is built, from the ground up, to serve all of its users equally. Health and Lifestyle - VI Fit: Bringing Active Video Games to the Blind It's a well-known fact that maintaining a sedentary lifestyle is not conducive to good health. Lack of physical activity has been linked to heart disease, obesity, and even cancer. It's also true that individuals who are visually impaired tend to have fewer opportunities to engage in physical activities that promote good health and provide enough stimulation to maintain proper fitness. This is especially true in visually impaired children, and results in lower performance motor skills, reduced physical fitness, and an increased chance of obesity. Ever since the release of the Nintendo Wii, a video game system designed around physical interactions with the video games, people have been heralding the design for its ability to not only entertain, but to actually serve as a way to improve physical fitness and motor skills--so much so, that they're even used in rehabilitation centers. These types of games have been called "exergames" since the player must be physically involved in order to play. Now, a group called VI Fit has devised a way to use the Nintendo Wii platform to create games that can benefit the visually impaired. Up until now, these games required the user to be sighted. However, with programming tweaks, they've developed multiple games that can utilize the audio and vibration functions built into the motion sensing controller to make these types of games accessible. One of the games offered is a take on the classic "Whack-a-Mole" game. Called, Pet-n-Punch, the player helps a farmer get rid of varmints by bopping them on the head, while at the same time avoiding the cats that pop up from time to time as well. While it may not seem like something that will cause you to break a sweat, this game is VI Fit's most physical offering and it gives the player a much higher workout than the other two that they feature. A second game is a take on the popular Wii Bowling game. By using vibration feedback in the controllers, the player can find the direction they need to throw their ball while receiving audio and speech effects giving the result of each throw. After evaluating the type of physical exertion needed to play this game, they found that the player's activity was comparable to walking. Two players can play at a time. Their third offering is a take on Wii Tennis. The controller offers vibration and audio feedback to let the player know when to serve and when to return the ball. As with the bowling, this game can be played alone or with a friend. They tested this game at Camp Abilities with 13 blind children and found that the amount of physical activity needed to play the game was enough to maintain proper physical fitness. By offering accessible versions of these new exergames, VI Fit has given blind children a huge opportunity to stay active, stay healthy, and have fun in their homes with their family and friends. What's even better is that you don't actually need to own a Nintendo Wii game system to play the games. All that is required is a $30 Nintendo Wii controller and a Windows PC with Bluetooth (or a $15 USB Bluetooth dongle) to connect the controller wirelessly. The games mentioned above can all be downloaded from their website for free at http://vifit.org/. Register for AccessIndia convention 2011(November 12-13) at: http://www.accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in