Category: accessibility

Will work ethic and a plan get you anywhere you want in the galaxy?

My Exploitative employers vs. lazy employees piece prompted someone to comment in private that there is a catch: Just because
some disabled people are good enough to compete with able bodied workers does not mean that everybody can.

My position is that as long as someone has enough of work ethic, he (or she) can always find something to do, which other people would not do. They might learn faster to do his job and eventually do it better than him, but they are busy with some other job, and do not have the time to master his job. So eventually he gains experience and does the job better than anyone, who might try to replace him after only a brief training.

However, there is a real problem: people with disabilities often get stuck with dead-end jobs, with no built-in career path or prospects for promotion to a better-paying job. What can someone, who knows to work, do then?

  1. Set aside time for his own advancement by ensuring that his current job does not demand more than a normal workday per day.
  2. Form an idea what kind of job and income he wants.
  3. At his free time, study something, which may help him do his dream job.
  4. Volunteer for tasks in either his workplace or for a nonprofit serving his community. The tasks are to be such that they demonstrate his ability to handle a more responsible position. Of course, he needs to perform those tasks well.
  5. Be willing to do some tasks, which are within his ability to do, and which other people hate to do.
  6. Be familiar with the political situation in his workplace.
  7. Establish a network of contacts who will tell him about job openings in other places. Even if he does not switch places, the information will put him at better bargaining position at his current place of employment.

Of course, people do not learn on their own the above advice. How do we reach out to the people with disabilities, who are desperate, are unemployed and do not know how to work and how to make work get them the kind of satisfaction from life that they deserve? How do we point out successful role models to them?

This problem is complicated by the fact that a specific plan, which works for someone, would not work for someone else. Each person needs his own plan, but not everyone seems to be able to plan ahead on his own.

Inaccessibility by fiat

A friend’s mother has passed away, and I attended the funeral. The deceased mother was to be buried in the new Netanya cemetery. When I entered the parking lot and parked my car, I noticed a sign saying that it is forbidden to drive cars into the cemetery, except for people with motor disabilities. And even their cars are allowed only until 12:00 noon. All this was in the name of “respecting the location and the feelings of other people”.

I wondered to myself what will do a wheelchair bound person, who needs to attend a funeral held at 13:30 (like the funeral which I attended).

Later I noticed that there is an old man, who has great difficulty walking, and who needed to use a walker.
During the funeral procession itself, I noticed that a car followed us. When we were near the burial place, the same old man went out of the car and walked slowly toward the burial place.

Turned out that he was the father of the deceased woman (my friend’s grandfather). He was allowed to enter the cemetery by car even though it was after 12:00.

Apparently, this time the Israeli custom of bending regulations saved accessibility.

SIUA 05 Exhibition – accessibility of seminars

In the past, when an event was held, such that parts of it were about deaf people, only those parts were made accessible to deaf people. For example, when there was a deaf-related item in a news programs in TV, only that part was subtitled. Other parts, not directly related to deaf people, remained inaccessible.

This week, the SIUA 05 Exhibition is being held. This exhibition exhibits assistive equipment for people having all kinds of disabilities. One day (today) was designated as the Hearing Day.

During the SIUA 05 Exhibition, there are also some conferences and workshops.

Originally, only the conference scheduled for today was planned to be accessible to deaf people.

However, I was interested in another conference (held yesterday) – “Healthy Mind in Active Body”, because of a panel about “Accessible Community”.

A week ago, I inquired at the organizers of the exhibition whether this conference will be accessible to deaf people. The answer was – No. Only the conference to be held on Hearing Day will be accessible to people with hearing impairment. I CC’ed Bekol about this.

I do not know if and how much cord pulling and arguments were held behind my back, but few days later I was informed that a Sign Language interpreter will be available for the conference, which I wanted to attend. I wrote back, informing when I plan to come there (I did not plan to be there all day).

I arrived at the designated hour, and was delighted to find that they booked Sign Language interpreter for the entire day, in case other deaf people would be interested as well. The interpreter told me that he was informed ahead of time that someone is due to come at the hour which I said, but he enjoyed listening to the conference starting from the morning.

I came. I sat through the relevant part. I had an opportunity to speak as well (the interpreter translated my “deaf accent” into standard Hebrew). When it finished, I went away with the relaxed and content feeling that a person with disability has when he has been in a place, whose accessibility is adequate for him.

Hopefully, next year they’ll announce ahead of time that all conferences, workshops and seminars will be accessible on demand. I hope that in the standard brochure about the exhibition, they’ll also give instructions how to ask for accessibility.

Memorial event for IDF and terror casualties in Tel Aviv

On Tuesday evening, I attended the memorial event for IDF and terror casualties, which was held in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv.
The event consisted of introductory words, appearances by singers, some music, speeches (by the mayor of Tel Aviv and the top man of IDF) and some video clips consisting of interviews with bereaved family members.

This was the first time such an event was fully accessible to me as a deaf. There was a Sign Language interpreter. We had two rows of chairs reserved for the deaf near the position of the interpreter. The video clips were fully subtitled (!).

Kudos to the organizers, who made the event accessible to the Israeli deaf and allowed them to share the grief with the other Israelis.

Will deaf people in Israel and other countries without relay services be able to use MS-Windows XP?

The Slashdot article http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/02/25/0350219.shtml?tid=201&tid=109&tid=164 mentions that as of February 28, Windows users who purchased their PC will no longer be able to reinstall without calling Microsoft and answering a series of questions. See also http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Closes_Activation_Loophole/1109293194
.
Deaf customers of Microsoft in USA will be able to reinstall MS-Windows XP, because USA has a well-developed infrastructure of relay services. Those services allow the deaf to use alternative communication technologies (such as TTY) and mediate between them and hearing people, who use regular voice phone.

However, several other countries have no well-developed relay services. And, if those services operate at all, they operate at limited hours.

This new development means that deaf persons may be unable to reactivate their MS-Windows XP installations at all, or have to wait until the next day to reactivate their installations, and if this is for their home computers – they may have to take few hours off their work. (Microsoft probably won’t pay for the time of the friendly hearing neighbor, whom the pressed-for-time deaf repeatedly summons to call Microsoft in his behalf.)

The lecture in Telux is now behind me, at last!

With the exceptions of my car and Eddie’s absence, everything worked by the book.
My car misbehaved previously, so I didn’t use it to arrive at TAU.
Eddie notified us ahead of time that he’ll be unable to come and nominated Shlomif to act as his deputy.
The Sign Language interpreter arrived exactly on time for pre-lecture rehearsal with me, as my laptop was booting in preparation for rehearsal with her.

I started the lecture with few words about my “job” as Accessibility Coordinator.
Then I plunged into the general subject of accessibility and its division into six relevant categories.
Rafi Cohen, a blind software developer, told us how he works with a PC (by combination of Braille display and screen reader which voices the screen’s contents). He is about as oldtimer with computers as I am, give or take very few years. When I worked with IBM punched cards, he worked with terminals connected to mainframes.
The second blind lecturer, Gidi Aharonovitz, told us about the need for accessibility in Web sites and told us the scandalous story of the Web site of the Library for Blind in Israel. This Web site is not accessible to the blind, and the library’s manager advises the aggravated blind patrons to enlist their family members to help them surf the Web site.

After those lectures, I declared a break of 5 minutes. Shlomif declared a break of 10 minutes. He declined my offer to settle the difference by arm strength comparison, so I settled for 7.5 minutes. The actual break was closer to 12.5 minutes.

I breezed through my second lecture, which was about the accessibility provisions available from Gnome desktop. When I mentioned that Gnome has no easy way to set the minimum font size, someone from the audience told me the command to use (gnome-fonts-properties). I then pulled the trump card – I explained that I searched for the appropriate dialogs the way a naive user would search for. If I didn’t find the dialogs, this means that there is an usability problem, which needs to be fixed.

We finished the lectures a bit before 20:30, about 15 minutes after the ending time which I planned when budgeting the lecture times. Since we were allowed to be in the room until 21:00, this was not that bad timing.

Accessibility Coordinator in Hamakor

After complaining that I did not have real time access to the information about the winning number in the lottery which was conducted in August Penguin 2004, some people (notably ladypine) agreed that some attention should be paid to accessibility in future events organized by Hamakor (http://www.hamakor.org.il/).

So I volunteered to be the Accessibility Coordinator. My “job” has two parts:

  1. Provision of information to event organizers about the accessibility needs of people with disabilities.
  2. Education of the general population of Free Software users about computer usage by people with disabilities and their accessibility needs.

What I did so far was to give a lecture about accessibility in Linux, together with Ori Idan. The lecture was given in a meeting of Haifux (http://www.haifux.org/lectures/112/). Today in the evening, it will be given again in Telux meeting (http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/telux/ and press the “Advanced lectures” link).

The organizers of August Penguin 2005 are now looking for a place for the event, after having issued the CFP and making some silly arguments about dates. I provided them with information about the accessibility needs of wheelchaired people (hint: push your sensitive nose into the restrooms). Let’s hope they’ll be able to find a place with which everyone will be happy.

A Big Dilemma and its Resolution

I am satisfied with the decision, which I made.

Exactly a week ago I saw, in http://www.whatsup.co.il/, an announcement about a “Business models of Linux and Open Code” track to be held as part of the Go-Linux Q4-2004 conference to be held on Wednesday Dec. 22, 2004.

At this time, this subject is very dear(sic) to me. So I decided I want to participate in the aforementioned track. I registered for the free conference.

I needed to book a Sign Language interpreter or a notetaker to make the conference accessible to me. The service, which provides them to deaf persons, needs at least one week advance notification to be able to find a free interpreter or notetaker. I needed to know the exact hours of the track to be able to book someone for those hours. So I made inquiries. The administrative organizers (People&Computers) were not so cooperative. The technical organizer, whom I contacted (Eli Marmor from netmask.it), was very cooperative.

After troubles, tribulations, cancellations, and cancellation of cancellations, I sent an E-mail message to the organizers announcing that I am canceling my registration. Immediately I got the conference schedule and could at last book someone exactly for the hours which I needed. However, this happened two days before the conference itself.

The service was not successful in finding me a free interpreter or notetaker by the conference time.

Now I had a dilemma: to go there anyway, enjoy only partial accessibility, and at least get some useful information; or to boycott it altogether and forfeit the chances.

After long thought, I decided to give it a chance and to go there anyway.
I also notified the service my plans and that if someone else cancels his Sign Language interpreting assignment, they may send the interpreter to me even at the last minute. I brought a laptop with me just in case a notetaker shows up due to cancellation elsewhere.

No such miracle happened.

I arrived today at 14:00, as planned, because I was interested only in the afternoon lectures. Eli Marmor’s lecture was worth the time, thanks to its having been partially accessible (he lectured with a fairly detailed presentation). It was worthwhile for me to go there for the lecture. I stayed on for the next two lectures, which were accompanied by presentations as well.

Only when the final speaker, Dr. Yossi Vardi, who is a popular speaker in the Israeli Hi-Tech scene, started to speak, did I stand up and leave the conference. He gives lectures without presentations.

Accessibility

The lectures were fully accessible to hard-of-hearing people: the lecturers carried on their person a microphone connected to a small transmitter, which transmits the speech to receivers possessed by hard-of-hearing people in the hall. This was thanks to an hard-of-hearing participant (whom I know) in the conference. He arranged for the lectures to be accessible according to his needs. His job was simpler because all he needed was to bring equipment and get cooperation from the organizers and lecturers. I had to locate a warm body with functioning hands (for either signing or typing).

The accessibility needs of deaf people are different from those needed by hard-of-hearing people.

In an utopia, conference organizers would ask the participants if they need any special accommodations. If yes, the organizers also organize the needed accommodations. According to my experience with Israeli conferences, the formula which works is that the participant with special needs arranges his own accommodations, and the conference organizers do not stand in the way and fulfill small&simple requests.

My problem with the Go-Linux conference accessibility was that I was not given the maximum possible time (a bit less than a week, under the circumstances) for arranging my own accessibility accommodations.

Maybe, if I yelled that this is an emergency for me, I’d get someone. But it would not have been fair for those deaf persons, who have a real emergency (medical or legal).

Lecture About Accessibility in Linux

Yesterday I at last could tick off the top item in my ToDo list.

The Linux accessibility lecture has finally been delivered to the Haifux club in the Technion, Haifa (http://www.haifux.org/lectures/112/ and if you have trouble opening one of the *.pdf files linked to the page in your Web browser, download it and view it offline using acroread).

In this context, the subject of accessibility in Linux is naturally divided into three sub-topics:

  • General introduction to the world of disabilities – for people who are not familiar with the subject.
  • Accessibility provisions in Linux.
  • Comparison between Linux and MS-Windows.

So, after some planning, negotiations and buttonholing, a bit of interleaving was retained. At beginning I spoke about disabilities (except for blindness). Then Ori Idan spoke about computer usage by blind people, and entertained us with tales about some amazing (to us sighted) feats of blind people.

Then I declared 15-minute break (somehow I was silently nominated as the host of the “mini-seminar”). After the break it was surprisingly easy to get the attention of the people for the second part of my lecture. At least, for me it was surprising, because I am used to the difficulty of getting the attention of a group of deaf persons at break. This time, I did not have to ask the room lights to be blinked few times to get attention.

Then I spoke and demonstrated what Linux (X-Window, Gnome) has to offer in way of accessibility.

I did not notice signs of sleepiness or boredom among the participants. Some brave souls asked questions or made comments. Ori Idan’s lecture (being delivered by an hearing person) drew out much more comments, questions and anecdotes from the audience.

After the lecture I was rewarded by a can of beer (comment: “free as in free beer”).

There were two disappointments:

  • Ladypine, who suggested that Ori collaborate with me, and who organized the meeting – could not show up after all due to personal reasons.
  • Interpreting assignments, in which the deaf person delivers a technical lecture to hearing audience (rather than an hearing person delivering a non-technical lecture to a group having deaf persons) are very rare. The Sign Language interpreter, whom I booked for the event, needed to meet me before the evening to prepare for the assignment, but this was not possible due to geographic reasons. So there were some difficulties in communication between me, the interpreter and the audience.

I also botched up the demonstration of the virtual keyboard utility. But I did not consider this to be an important part of the lecture. The demonstration of the Emacs visual beep feature went well, however ((setq visible-bell t)). This was more important, as Gnome does not handle visual beeping in behalf of applications (as far as I saw). Someone from the audience pointed out that KDE does handle this.

Accessibility in Linux

Some time ago I made the mistake of stressing the desirability of having a lecture about accessibility in a meeting of a Linux Users’ Group. Now I am stuck with researching for the lecture.

Among other things, I found this link:
http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?197 – How does accessible Web design benefit all Web users.

This is an important link, in view of the current campaign to make several Israeli Web sites accessible to Mozilla users.