Tag: accessibility
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Get on the Path to Accessible and Inclusive Design
In September I’ll be speaking at Design Matters in Copenhagen. Ahead of the event I was interviewed by Giorgia Lombardo about accessible and inclusive design.
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Accessibility in 2020
A few weeks ago I recorded a short video for the NYC School’s Tech Summit and the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Hackathon about accessibility in 2020. A lot of work went into it, so I thought I may as well share it with everyone!
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‘Normal’ Was Actually Not Great for a Lot of People
Written by Alice Wong on Esquire.
“In this critical time, when scarcity is a reality, you see the hierarchy. Certain groups are valued over others. This is the world that so many disabled and chronically ill people already live in. Our lives are still seen as expendable. Now the magnitude is much greater.”
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“My hope for coming out of this pandemic is that we don’t return to the status quo. Many don’t realize that “normal” was actually not great for a lot of people. Just because all of the nondisabled people go back to work—or to Burning Man, or to Coachella—that doesn’t mean we should stop thinking about accessibility.”
Read ‘‘Normal’ Was Actually Not Great for a Lot of People’ on the Esquire site.
Tagged with: accessibility, disability, coronavirus.
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Building the Woke Web: Web Accessibility, Inclusion & Social Justice
Written by Olu Niyiawosusi on A List Apart.
“Not having access to the internet is expensive, locking you out of essential services and a surfeit of helpful information. Giving people full access to the splendors and knowledge of the online world should be imperative for everyone who works on it.”
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“People with disabilities are more likely to be a captive audience to apps and websites using their data inappropriately or engaging in other unethical practices. This may be because they rely on a particular site to interact with other people with disabilities, because they lack the tools to visit other sites, or lack other suitable websites or apps to use.”
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“All the tenets of intersectional feminism, web accessibility, and diversity and inclusion are inextricably tied up in making the web a better place, for all and by all.”
Read ‘Building the Woke Web: Web Accessibility, Inclusion & Social Justice’ on the A List Apart site.
Tagged with: accessibility, inclusivity, justice.
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Facebook didn’t mark ads as ads for blind people for almost 2 years
Written by Jeremy B. Merrill on Quartz.
“Americans with disabilities should not be an afterthought for tech companies. There is no justification for forcing them to spend extra time and effort to navigate past online ads,” said Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. And they should be able to easily learn why they were targeted by those ads, just like everyone else.”
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“Not including legible labels on ads “certainly violates the spirit if not the letter of the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] and raises questions about whether Facebook is engaging in deceptive practices under the FTC Act,” said Blake Reid, a law professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder who studies accessibility and technology law.
Via Claire Brotherton on Twitter.
Read ‘Facebook didn’t mark ads as ads for blind people for almost 2 years’ on the Quartz site.
Tagged with: accessibility, Facebook, adtech.
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Accessible unethical technology
I’ve written a little section on accessibility for the Ethical Design Handbook. I’m really grateful that Trine Falbe asked me, as well as including a section by Aral talking about Small Technology and our Ethical Design Manifesto from the Ind.ie days.
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My Fight With a Sidewalk Robot
Written by Emily Ackerman on City Lab.
“The advancement of robotics, AI, and other “futuristic” technologies has ushered in a new era in the ongoing struggle for representation of people with disabilities in large-scale decision-making settings.
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We need to build a technological future that benefits disabled people without disadvantaging them along the way.
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Accessible design should not depend on the ability of an able-bodied design team to understand someone else’s experience or foresee problems that they’ve never had. The burden of change should not rest on the user (or in my case, the bystander) and their ability to communicate their issues.
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A solution that works for most at the expense of another is not enough.”
Tagged with: accessibility, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles.
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Why much of the internet is closed off to blind people
A few weeks ago, I chatted to James Jeffrey for a BBC article on Why much of the internet is closed off to blind people. In particular, I spoke to how easy it can be to make a website accessible, and why it should be part of our everyday practice as designers and developers.
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Tech is not neutral and we need to do better
The best bookmarks I saved in Week 12, 2019.
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Dangerous data and understanding privilege
The best bookmarks I saved in Week 10, 2019.
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