DO-IT News June 2010: All Articles

2003 DO-IT Scholar, Patrick Baldwin

I am sad to report that Patrick Baldwin, '03 DO-IT Scholar, passed away this spring. We will always remember how Patrick refused to let Duchenne muscular dystrophy interfere with living a full and productive life. When we first met Patrick, he was attending Eisenhower Senior High School where he received several academic awards and was a member of the National Honor Society. Patrick graduated magna cum laude in spring 2009 from Central Washington University with a Bachelor of Science degree in information technology (IT) and administrative management. After finishing an IT internship last summer, he had begun working independently as a web designer. He developed the website, From Where I'm Seated: A Lame Blog from a Christian Perspective, through which he shared his personal spiritual journey with others.

DO-IT Visiting Scholar, Takeo Kondo

Hi, my name is Takeo Kondo. I'm a visiting scholar from the University of Tokyo (UT) in Japan. I am very happy to join DO-IT and live and work in Seattle for a year. While I am here, I plan to conduct a research survey to compare the differences between what is considered a reasonable accommodation in higher education in the United States and Japan. I also will be working on developing international activities for DO-IT.

I earned my Ph.D. in psychology in Japan, and I have been working at UT as an assistant professor since 2006. As some of you already know, DO-IT has been in Japan since 2007, and I have been working for the project since its inception. We already have more than thirty DO-IT Scholars and nearly twenty Scholars, have gone on to attend college. Although the number of students with disabilities in Japan is small, we are challenging educators to create better learning opportunities for students with disabilities and providing resources to do so. For more information about DO-IT Japan, visit www.doit-japan.org.

I came to Seattle with my wife and two-year-old son. We like music, and I sometimes play guitar and sing Japanese pop songs. I also like cars. I have a good-looking sports car built in 1965, the Toyota Sport 800. It's waiting in my garage in Japan for me when I return. In the meantime, I just bought an American SUV. I look forward to driving to the beautiful places around Seattle during my stay.

On March 22, 2010, students with disabilities joined hundreds of other high school students at the University of Washington's Twentieth Annual Math Day. From presentations such as "Robots that Run, Climb, Flap, and Swim" to "How Weather Forecasts are Made," students had the opportunity to hear from scientists directly about how they use math. Students were also able to participate in a variety of hands-on activities, including the mathematics of juggling, magic, and card tricks and the physics of boomerangs.

In addition to exposure to various math topics, students experienced the UW Seattle campus. Many of these students had never been on campus before. Moving from workshop to workshop allowed them the chance to navigate the large campus.

Five local high school students who were deaf or hearing impaired, along with fifteen students with hidden disabilities, gathered for a catered networking lunch during which computer science graduate students presented their current projects. Participants heard first-hand the importance of math in computer science research. The students enjoyed learning about the different projects, and they were especially pulled in by the "wow" factor of Mobile ASL, which allows users to communicate in sign language via compressed video through cell phones.

Participant comments included:

• I thought the field trip was excellent. I learned a lot about math and how it is used in everyday life.
• I liked the magic show. It was a good day, interesting facts in the robot activity.

DO-IT, in collaboration with three Seattle community colleges (South Seattle, North Seattle, and Seattle Central), hosted a series of transition to college events. More than 200 high school students with disabilities along with family members and teachers participated during the 2009-2010 academic year. Part of each event's success was due to the close collaboration between the disability services office and the campus outreach office.

From disability documentation requirements to managing their own accommodations, students glimpsed the adult world that is college. In addition to learning about DO-IT resources, students heard first-hand about the college system. The Disability Services Coordinator explained how to request and receive accommodations. Outreach Service Directors relayed information on the benefits of community colleges, programs offered, and social opportunities. During a campus tour, students were able to see the campus in full swing, viewing in-session classes in both associate and technical programs and visiting the cafeteria, library, and athletic facilities.

The highlight of the session was a panel of college students with disabilities who discussed their college experiences. Panelists shared some of the mistakes they made and described how they found success at college. They recommend registering with the disability services office before starting classes and letting others know what you can do instead of what you can't do. DO-IT plans to continue these successful events in the 2010-2011 school year.

Hundreds of students and teachers participated in hands-on activities this spring at the University of Washington (UW) College of Engineering Discovery Days on the Seattle campus. Demonstrations by faculty and graduate students showed participants what engineers do and how they work. Exhibits were spread throughout fourteen buildings and outside on the Husky Union Building lawn. It's not often that UW departments open their doors to the public. Some exhibits featured computer simulations, robots, wind tunnel demonstrations, biomaterial manipulations, and nanoscience experiments. The UW also offered information sessions about the university community and the admissions process.

DO-IT's exhibit demonstrated assistive technology and accessible science equipment, such as a microscope connected to a laptop computer for people with low vision. A networking event followed, and participants talked about the intersection and overlap of two career fields—psychology and computing. They also heard about mentors' experiences in college. For more information about Discovery Days consult www.engr.washington.edu/alumcomm/openhouse.html.

Have you ever heard the expression, "a picture is worth a thousand words?" If you have a blog, images are a great way to show your readers what you are up to, what your environment looks like, or what you look like. Images can give your blog character and help create a sense of personality and style.

How do you convey those same elements to someone who is not able to see the images? Sometimes people on mobile phones don't download images because it takes too long, and some of your friends may use screen readers to access your blog. This article will give you a few tips on how to make the images on your blog accessible.

Adding an Image

I'm using WordPress as an example in this article because wordpress.org hosts blogs for free; it produces standardized, accessible HTML by default; and there are tricks you can use to edit blog posts via the keyboard only. Unfortunately, the toolbar buttons in the "Visual" interface are not accessible to someone using a screen reader. (WordPress is aware of the issue and looking for someone to work on it.) If you are comfortable learning a little bit of HTML, you can include images in your blogs.

If you use a mouse or other pointing device, click on the "Add an image" icon in the editing toolbar (the first icon to the right of the text "Add media").

If you do not use a mouse and use Firefox without a screen reader:

1. Make sure you've configured Firefox to navigate via the arrow keys. To turn it on, from the Firefox menu select "Preferences." In that window, select "Advanced." Check "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages."
2. Create a new post or edit an old one. After the page has loaded, press the down arrow keys until the cursor is blinking near "Post." Press the right arrow key until you get to the image icon.
3. When the cursor moves onto the left-most icon, press return. A window will pop up that prompts you to upload an image or provide a web address for an image that already exists online.

If you want to edit the HTML directly (this is a good option for someone using a screen reader and knows some HTML), select the "HTML" link at to the top of the edit area. Or you can use this keyboard shortcut: ALT + SHIFT + e to toggle between the visual and HTML editing interfaces.

Writing Alternative Text

The cool thing about WordPress is that part of this dialog is to prompt you for an "Image Caption." This is the text that will be used as a text equivalent to the image. In other words, when someone using a screen reader encounters this image, the image caption will be read as text.

How do you know what to write? Writing alternative text (alt-text) is an art, and there is a lot of debate about how to write good alt-text. As with other arts, it is up to you to determine how you want the alt-text to affect someone's experience of your blog. Here are some questions to consider:

1. Why are you including this image? Does it convey data (like a graph) or does it simply give the page character?
2. If you were reading your post out loud to a friend over the phone, what would you say about the image?
3. Is the image surrounded by text or does it stand on its own?

Here are some examples:

1. In a blog post about adding images to a blog post, the author includes a screen shot of the pop-up window that prompts for information about the image. The alt-text might read, "Screen shot of the dialog box that prompts for image information." Or, if the blog post doesn't talk about the options in the dialog box, the alt-text might read, "Screen shot of the dialog box prompting to upload images or provide image details. Options are: source, image title, image caption, alignment, link url."
2. In a blog about cats, the author is writing about the difference between Calico and Siamese cats. Accompanying the article is a photo of each type of cat. If the author uses alt-text with each image, this is what a person using a screen reader would hear. "Calico cats have spots. In this example, the cat is white with black spots. Graphic Calico cat. Siamese cats typically have blue eyes, an obstinate personality, and silver and black fur. This is a photo of my cat, Tippy. Graphic Tippy." In HTML this may look like:

   <p>Calico cats have spots. In this example, the cat is white with black spots.</p>

   <img src="https://www.washington.edu/doit/calico.jpg" alt="Calico cat"/>

   <p>Siamese cats typically have blue eyes, an obstinate personality, and silver and black fur. This is a photo of my cat, Tippy.</p>

   <img src="https://www.washington.edu/doit/siamese.jpg" alt="Tippy"/>

3. If an image is purely decorative and you want a screen reader to ignore it, type a single space for the alt-text. This will tell the screen reader not to read anything aloud or indicate that an image has been encountered.

When I use an image, I include as much information as is reasonable about the image directly in the body text so that the alt-text can be short, preferably one or two sentences.

More examples and information about writing good text equivalents can be found at these resources:

• Writing good ALT text: www.gawds.org/show.php?contentid=28
• Appropriate use of alternative text: www.webaim.org/techniques/alttext/
• Non-text content (from the W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 specification): www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/text-equiv-all.html

Editing HTML Directly

The above instructions are for using the preview view, which doesn't show you any of the HTML that is being created for your blog entry. If you are comfortable editing HTML, determine what the alt-text should be. Then add the following code to your blog entry:

<img src="https://www.washington.edu/doit/%3Ca%20href%3D"http://example.com/image.jpg"">http://example.com/image.jpg" alt="example text equivalent">

Adding text equivalents to images is one of the easiest things you can do to increase the accessibility of your blog, yet it is one of most commonly forgotten things to do.

For more information, check out Tim Noonan's article at www.timnoonan.com.au/consulting/vocalbranding.

I am on a search for the best blogging platform for someone using a screen reader. If you have suggestions, please email me at chiswa@uw.edu.

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