Videos of people using assistive technology
Via ATMac I recently came across AssistiveWare videos on computer accessibility, a number of videos that show how people with various disabilities use assistive technology with their computers.
What is especially good with these videos is that they don’t only show people using screen readers or other assistive technology for people who are visually impaired. Not that there is anything wrong with showing how screen readers work, but many aren’t aware that Web accessibility is about more than visually impaired people.
A few examples of what these videos show:
- A guy with spinal muscular atrophy playing World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament 2004 using only his thumb: One Thumb to Rule Them All
- A woman with ALS controlling her computer with a switch taped to her cheek: A pivotal role in the household
- A girl with athetoid cerebral palsy who can write and draw thanks to the computer: Me and my computer
- A woman with cerebral palsy who uses her computer to do graphic design work: We can because we think we can
All of these are also available in high resolution formats from the AssistiveWare website, where you can find several more videos.
These videos are really great, and I highly recommend that you watch them to get a better idea of how assistive technology can improve lives.
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About the author
Roger Johansson is a Swedish web professional specialising in web standards, accessibility, and usability. More about me and this site.
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Comments
Great videos!
Sure, great videos. And a great push to make websites accessible as much as possible.
Inspiring and humbling stuff. Thanks for posting those links, Roger.
Truly amazing. Watching this, I feel incredibly humble about my work. We have a huge responsibility as (web)developers and IT architects, making our solutions available to the impaired.
These kind of info and videos really help us to understand why accesibility is very, very important!!! Thanks!
Great find Roger. Accessibility for these folks isn't a choice of preferences, but a real required functionality that is either present (trhough good design) or it is not.
Wow...that's really cool. Thanks for sharing.
Always good to get hold of these videos Roger as verbally people don't really get it. But the moment they watch they have a whole new paradigm about the use of the web pop open in their minds.
thanks for sharing.
Roger, here in Brazil, me and some friends created a group -- that is meant to become a firm -- to advocate, teach and do consulting on web accessibility. The group is called Acesso Digital http://acessodigital.net/ (Digital Access in portuguese). Earlier this year we made a video to show how difficult is to visually impaired people to access the web. We show people with other disabilities too, but since there are two blind people in the group, we focused on them. The video is here: http://videolog.uol.com.br/video.php?id=230205 I'd appreciate if you take a look at it. Unfortunately it's only in portuguese, but we want to translate it to english as soon as possible.
Oh, Roger, that's an outstanding find.
Thanks Roger, very inspiring D :)
Thanks Roger!
It's great to see assistive technologies, rather than just reading and talking about it.
Great find!
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