Blacktelephone: Accessibility Calling!

Blacktelephone Sites

These are the sites that we found have passed accessibility checks using the ten checkpoints, WAVE tool and Cynthia Says.

Online Video in American Sign Language Showcases Verizon Wireless’ Nationwide Messaging Plan

by David Mascarina on July 21st, 2008 under Blacktelephone Sites, Current Events

Screen grab from the Verizon Wireless ASL videoWeb Video One Of Many Services Provided For Customers With Disabilities

By: PR Newswire

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., July 21 /PRNewswire/ — Verizon Wireless, the wireless industry leader in customer-friendly policies, announced that the company now offers information about its Nationwide Messaging plans in online videos in American Sign Language (ASL) to better serve customers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Continue reading Online Video in American Sign Language Showcases Verizon Wireless’ Nationwide Messaging Plan

New TTS service aims to boost accessibility

by David Mascarina on July 17th, 2008 under Blacktelephone Sites, Current Events

A new text-to-speech (TTS) conversion service could help to significantly improve website accessibility and help businesses make the most of their text-based assets.

This is according to UK firm Textic, whose Talklets Web 2.0 offering is unlike similar solutions in that it is the first TTS application to make use of a commercial software as a service platform. Continue reading New TTS service aims to boost accessibility

Accessibility of Campaign Web site: Barack Obama - The Closed Captioning Page

by David Mascarina on April 22nd, 2008 under Best Practices, Blacktelephone Sites, Current Events

Screen grab of the Captioned page

Since the blog article was published, we got some feedback and reactions from the web community as well as the Barack Obama camp. They fixed the video caption page. Well… issues of accessibility remain:

  • Why ghettoize” or create a “digital divide” on the video page, and why can’t the videos be captioned (or have an option to turn on captioning) already? This is synonymous to a “text-only” page.
  • Why Lightbox? It is NOT accessible!
  • Also, when the script is turned off, so is the capability to access the videos.
  • And, when the style is disabled, the links to the video player disappear.

David A. Paterson, New York Governor, Accessibilista?

by Joseph Karr O'Connor on April 21st, 2008 under Best Practices, Blacktelephone Sites, Current Events, Web Standards

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?

Accessibility of Campaign Web site: Barack Obama

by David Mascarina on April 18th, 2008 under Best Practices, Blacktelephone Sites, Current Events

Sen. Barack Obama\'s homepage

Part Two: is another possible candidate for the Democratic Party, Senator Barack Obama. Barack Obama’s website structure is no different than his counterpart Senator Hillary Clinton. This blog took out all the politics, all their policies, the tears and hair, the compelling stories. Just condense your judgment into the topic of Web Accessibility. I ran an automated scan using AccVerify/Repair® scan of the Barack Obama website (www.barackobama.com). And here are my findings. Continue reading Accessibility of Campaign Web site: Barack Obama