Len Burns and I have been setting up a MOO (an interactive site) on-line, called SerenityMOO that is mainly dedicated to making on-line access for those of us with disablities equal to those of us without. We've been running for almost three months now.
I'm very excited about a new project at SerenityMOO! Patrick Somers (known as LocalDude at Serenity) of Marysville, WA, had the novel idea of simulating blindness on-line and he made it so. Patrick himself is not blind, by the way. He created a room where you cannot identify a person by their name, but by a symbol. For instance, normally you would see "JennyLin says, Hiya all!". But in this room, you would see "$$Hiya all!$$". The point is to identify with the person by his or her MOOspeak (the way they type) or by his or her symbol, the way a blind person would identify with a voice and not a face. I was so incredibly thrilled with his invention, that I had to write this article to tell you all!
If you would like to visit this great invention first-hand, e-mail me and I will gladly give you a character. SerenityMOO will later be opened to the public.
jennylin@u.washington.edu