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Welcome to the Microsoft Accessibility blog!
This is a central blog all about accessible technology from the Microsoft community of people passionate about accessibility. Various people will blog here on topics such as the end-user experience, the developer experience and the underlying technologies that enable accessibility.
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Recently, Microsoft participated in a field hearing held by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. There are critical issues for people with disabilities relating to broadband access. For a description of Microsoft's technology solutions and collaborative approach, please read the blog article, Promoting An Accessibility Ecosystem of Choice and Opportunity.
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Hi. I am working on a research project to understand how people optimize their computer to make it easier to see. We just kicked off an online survey and are recruiting people who have vision impairments. So, if you have low vision or color blindness, we’d really appreciate your feedback. And if there’s someone you know who does, please pass this information to them.
Microsoft product teams will use the survey findings to guide them as they strive to improve our display features. Your responses are completely anonymous. The survey will take approximately 30 minutes to complete. To participate, please fill out our Microsoft survey for making the computer easier to see.
Thanks!
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The research presented at the 2009 DSAI conference proved to be representative sampling of the types of research happening in universities around accessibility. (DSAI: Development for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion) Areas of study included web 2.0 accessibility (e.g., tag cloud reader), mobility (from dexterity, wheelchairs, and navigating the physical world); speech control and speech engines; and vision imaging. I was especially interested in the research around cognitive disabilities, such as social networking ideas to support people with autism. Plus, there was some research around supplementing person-to-person communication, like computer recognition of facial expressions. There was also a compelling workshop demonstrating how motion sensors can be used to precisely capture, and analysis, physical movement. By calibrating the sensors, they can track gross motor movements and fine motor control. You can imagine the potential implications for assessing changes in physical ability as we age, or fine-tuning a prosthetic.
So, in sum, the conference was great food-for-thought and its promising to see academic research in accessibility deepening.
The conference web site is: http://dsai2009.utad.pt/.
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If you're interested in the presentations and awards happening at the Web4All conference, follow our tweets at http://twitter.com/MicrsftTech4All. The theme for Web4All this year is meeting the needs of the older demographic, a hot topic! Also, Microsoft sponsored a design competition and you can learn about the winners at the conference web site.
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The deadline for entries is is coming up soon, March 31. Please take the time to read up on the competition and submit your entries.
http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=33
Since we launched the Accessibility Award, we added on to the Prize Package. Both the first and second place winning teams will get a trip to Washington DC to attend the National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI). This conference is held in November 2009. It specializes in education for kids with special needs. People attending include technology vendors, academic researchers, government policy makers, and educators.
Part of the conference is a Tech Expo, with various booths with research and new products and ideas. You'll be invited to participate in the Tech Expo, to share your Imagine Cup ideas and experiences.
Good luck, everyone!
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Are you a researcher or vendor working collaboratively to study the impact of technology in education? If so, there is a wonderful funding opportunity through the U.S. National Center for Technology Innovation.
http://www.nationaltechcenter.org/index.php/funding/tech-in-the-works/2009-tech-in-the-works/
I like this program because it encourages two aspects that are very important to NCTI: improving education for kids with special needs, and collaboration among people with different expertise (research, software, hardware, special education, learning tools, and learning environments). The past projects are interesting to contemplate: http://www.nationaltechcenter.org/index.php/funding/tech-in-the-works/past-competitions/. They highlight areas that technology can help with learning, and offer the potential for some meaningful findings, especially given NCTI's criteria of a short turn-around time.
If you are involved in this type of research, encourage you to submit a proposal.
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Announcing the launch of the Accessibility Award!
This is the 2nd year that the Imagine Cup has a competition specifically for a creating a new accessible technology solution. The competition is open to University students around the world. The solution idea needs to solve a real-world accessibility problem with technology access. You can learn more about the competition, and the realm of accessible technology at: http://imaginecup.com/Competition/mycompetitionportal.aspx?competitionId=33. There are lots of scenarios to explore - education, mobile computing, communications, Windows, workplaces, Information Technology, social networking, and more!
The teams submit an abstract and storyboard or prototype to describe their solution. All entries must be submitted by March 31, 2009. Then, up to 30 teams will continue on to Round 2.
First place prize is $5,000! And Second place prize is $3,000!
You can post questions here or on the Imagine Cup site. We are looking forward to your participation and thoughtful entries!
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Jeff Bigham and Professor Richard Ladner, from University of Washington, are in D.C. today for the 2008 Mellon Awards Ceremony. Their project, WebAnywhere, is nominated for an award, which celebrates technology collaboration in higher education, especially benefitting non-profits. WebAnywhere is a wonderful example of how we can apply technology to solve accessibility problems - in this case, surfing the web and needing the information read aloud to you.
WebAnywhere won the Accessibility Award in Microsoft's 2008 Imagine Cup. So, yes, I'm biased, but I think it has a great chance at today's Mellon Award. The award ceremony is in about an hour. I'll post again, once the winners are officially announced.
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At the TechEd EMEA conference in Barcelona a few weeks ago, during a talk on making web experiences accessible, we gave our first public airing of a video player written in Silverlight which is capable of meeting all of the WCAG 2.0 Time based media Guidelines up to AAA (assuming a suitable media source). The code has been released for use in your own projects under the Microsoft public license and is available at www.codeplex.com/amp.
The media play shows how a video can be supplemented with captions and sign language (for people who are deaf) and audio descriptions (for people who are blind). Other users may like these features well (think cognitive and loud environments), and we hope to build upon them with a community of developers.
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We've started twittering to share announcements, links to research and technology articles, plus to chit-chat with the Twitter community. The blog will be more expansive & detailed naturally, given that Twitter micro-blogs are limited to 140 characters. <grin>
Follow us http://twitter.com/MicrsftTech4All.
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In June 2009, Microsoft is co-sponsoring the International Conference on Software Development for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion (DSAI 2009). The conference is a forum to discuss innovations and research in the accessible technology field. We hope to find synergies between university and industry goals and efforts.
I'm on the research paper review committee and we are launching our call for papers. Areas of interest are:
Software and Web accessibility
•Software engineering for accessibility
•Web accessibility tools and evaluation
•End-user development for accessibility
•E-learning and accessibility
Technologies
•Virtual environments
•Augmented reality
•Assistive technology
•Computer vision
•Automation and robotics
•eHealth
•Smart homes
•Advanced prototype systems for independent living and active ageing
Interfaces and interaction
•Ergonomics
•Accessibility and usability
•Adaptive interfaces
•Novel and multi-modal user interfaces
•Improving digital TV and electronic communications access
•Human computer interfaces
•Computer simulation of the user interaction
•Non-invasive brain computer interaction~
•Gesture interfaces
•Speech interfaces
•Natural language interfaces
•Tangible and Organic interfaces
Case studies
Full papers are due January 31, 2009. You can find all the details at the conference web site: http://dsai2009.utad.pt/index.html.
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If you don't know, Windows 7 was demoed and reviewed during last weeks Professional Developers Conference. One of the first reviews by CNET mentions one of the accessibility updates we are working on. Read the Review at CNET. A more complete demo of the expected accessibility updates in Windows 7 will be made at a few upcoming conferences. The ATIA conference in January is held in Orlando and the CSUN conference in LA will be in March.
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The University of Washington is conducted a study about a security feature on web sites. This feature, called "CAPTCHA" is often used when you are logging onto a web site for the first time and creating a user name and password.
The research team is hoping to get responses from a wide-range of people, both those using assistive technology and those that don't. I encourage YOU to participate in this short online survey at http://webinsight.cs.washington.edu/webeval/captchas2/.
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Hello blog-world!
A few days ago, Microsoft launched a new blog all about the next version of Windows, Windows 7. The blog is at: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/. Today's post talks about the organization of the feature teams. If you're wondering where accessibility fits in, it's primarily in the User Interface Platform feature team.
Happy reading!
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