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David A. Paterson, New York Governor, Accessibilista?

According to the following NY Times Article:

“A Blind Governor Adjusts, and So Does Albany”

“Although Mr. Paterson often says he does not want people to go out of their way for him, he says society should recognize that he and other blind people cannot do everything on their own.

As one of his first acts as governor, he added instructions to his official state Web site on how to enlarge the type on the screen:

“It’s just being more sensitive to people who feel that government and institutions ignore them,” he said.”

Well… I didn’t waste any time, I went to his Web site! Continue reading “David A. Paterson, New York Governor, Accessibilista?”

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Learning From Users

My daughter, Siobhan, uses the Picture Exchange Communication System.

See: http://www.pecs.com/WhatsPECS.htm

Siobhan’<p>s Picture Exchange Communications Book

For some time, Siobhan was making icon placement errors. The icons and a sentence strip are held in a hard plastic notebook on Velcro strips. The way she uses PECS (she’s at Phase V with a very little bit of Phase VI emerging) she picks up an “I want” icon and puts it on the sentence strip. Then she goes shopping through the book for “taco” or “car” or whatever she wants. She wants taco and car a lot lately. She then puts the “taco” icon on the sentence strip to the right of the “I want” icon, rips the sentence strip off the velcro strip binding it to the book, and hands the sentence strip to her communicative partner. That’d be me. “I want taco” I say to her when I get the strip. After I say it she sometimes points to the icon of the thing she wants, just to make her point stick. I am, after all, by her definition, slow on the uptake, being her Dad.
Continue reading “Learning From Users”