Axxlog

After nearly three years of postings on two different servers, Axxlog, the Media Access Weblog with the Vaguely Risible Name, closes up shop.

But, my opponents and detractors, wait! The news isn’t all good.

I’m simply switching everything over to my personal Weblog. I had originally separated the two Weblogs because I wanted to maintain the illusion of some professional/personal distinction. Really, that boiled down to “On my personal Weblog, I can be as gay as I want and I can swear as much as I want.”

After one contretemps too many with genteel homophobes in the broadcasting industry, I simply give up. And as for swearing, I’ve managed to do it onstage twice in the last year and it hasn’t hurt me any, so really, [expletive] ’em if they can’t take a Joe. Whether you’re reading me or hiring me, you’re getting the whole package. And no, I won’t make a pass at somebody in your office or run through George Carlin’s list of cusswords while I’m there. Give me some credit.

In addition, the name Axxlog has simply become too risible.

Follow along at home

But the news just keeps getting better!

If you have an RSS reader – and really, who doesn’t? – you can subscribe to posts from the personal Weblog on accessibility-related topics and never see anything else. As far as you’ll be concerned, I’m a happily-married Mormon who thinks Mickey Mouse is a racy and unhealthful influence for his many blond children.

1. Accessibility (in general) & feed
2. Captioning & feed
3. Audio description & feed
4. Subtitling & feed
5. Dubbing & feed
6. Web accessibility & feed
7. Cinema accessibility & feed

Not all topics have actual postings yet.

Thanks, Matt!

I express my gratitude to Matt Müllenweg for hosting Axxlog in its hour of need. Since cool URLs don’t change, all the links you have come to know and love over the last three years will continue to work indefinitely.

The state of New Jersey is carrying out a human-rights investigation against Regal Entertainment Group. Previously, Regal was served with a complaint, as were many other theatrical exhibitors in New Jersey, because Regal allegedly discriminated against deaf moviegoers by refusing to provide captioning. Every other movie chain caved immediately and agreed to install Rear Window® captioning, while Regal argues that Rear Window is unpopular and expensive compared to open-captioned films, which some of its theatres already show.

Interestingly, I made myself aware to all parties in that proceeding and explained that I have expertise that could be useful. Nobody took me up on my offer. Perhaps at least the state of New Jersey should have, since a recent press release contains many errors that could have been avoided by somebody with half a clue. (Interestingly, some of those errors have been copied by the Associated Press, which responded to my complaint with a defense that they were simply working from the press release.)

It seems that New Jersey has finally realized that deaf people are not the only disabled group that has trouble enjoying movies. (Lots of deaf people would tell you that only they’re the only important ones, but they would of course be wrong.) Now New Jersey is extending its complaint against Regal to include audio description. Let’s fisk the press release, shall we?

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And no more shitty subtitle fonts, either.

Well, they will admittedly remain shitty for a while, but the end of shittiness is nigh, for I have launched a project that will commission and design and then test a series of fonts custom-engineered for the demands of reading captions and subtitles. This is for real.

Read the new site, Screenfont.ca, and for the love of God stop using Arial.

The Vision 2005 conference takes place in April in London. And there seem to be dozens of presentations of interest, listed here in chronological order. I’ll certainly be looking these up.

1. Paciello, Michael: “Enhancing accessibility through usability inspections and usability testing”
2. Krister Inde: “See Bad – Feel Good and the impact of Rock ’n’ Roll on Low Vision: How to live a meaningful life with control of context, a good feeling of satisfaction and rock and roll”
3. Lagace, Ivan: “The introduction of DAISY talking book services for the learning disabled”
4. Gardner, Jeff: “Transforming computer and paper documents to be accessible by vision, touch and audio”
5. Hillis, Catherine: “Inclusive leisure provision through audio description”
6. Snyder, Joel: “Audio description: the visual made verbal” (yet again)
7. Jayaraman, Deiva: “Positives and negatives of E-learning by visually impaired students”
8. Marston, James: “Improving the user interface of GPS navigation systems for blind people: spatialized displays that augment speech information”
9. Zelek, John: “Seeing by touch (haptics) for wayfinding”
10. Drescher, Lucy: “Technology and the needs of deaf-blind people”
11. Wiener, William: “Comparative study of auditory output of hybrid vehicles and internal combustion vehicles”
12. Paciello, Michael: “Assessing usability and accessibility using remote evaluation environments”
13. Hager, Rachel: “VisionConnection: an accessible, global internet portal for people who are visually impaired, their friends and family and professionals”
14. Petrie, Helen: “Accessibility of the World Wide Web for visually impaired people: findings from the Disability Rights Commission Formal Investigation”
15. Smillie, Donna: “Euroaccessibility: seeking a consistent approach to Web accessibility in Europe”
16. Smith, Audrey: “Assessment of functional visual fields and pictorial representations in narrative reports”
17. Cook, Geoffrey: “The legibility and conspicuity of emergency escape route signage for people with visual impairments”
18. Mann, David: “The same book, at the same time and at the same price: turning rights into reality”
19. King, Stephen: “A better way to watch TV: all you need to know to enable your client to get more from their TV viewing”
20. Vasilko, Milan: “a-TV: a new inclusive digital television technology”
21. Evans, Denise: “Digital broadcasting: threat or opportunity”
22. Alam, Shamsul: “Not just a technical fix: rethinking rehabilitation for visually impaired people from minority ethnic communities”
23. Dickinson, Anne: “Don’t panic (smile)! How visually impaired students access online learning and giving realistic guidelines to academic staff at Coventry University”
24. Dahlander, Torbjörn: “Digital distribution of DAISY talking books in Sweden”
25. Gold, Deborah: “Nation-wide study on the needs of people in Canada who are blind or low vision”
26. Schroeder, Paul: “Developing researched-based guidelines for improving access to small-screen visual displays for persons who are visually impaired”
27. Gregg Vanderheiden: “Interface Sockets and Virtual Assistive Technology: Are They Key Elements of the Future?”
28. Nikolic, Tihomir: “The visually handicapped working in the profession of translator”
29. Inde, Krister: “Visual desire and efficiency through Peakabooks and PC games for low vision children”
30. Gomez, Lucia: “Maestro, the first accessible mainstream PDA”
31. Plumpton, Stephen: “Introducing the OS X spoken interface for Apple Macintosh computers”
32. Aitken, Janice: “Making the company intranet accessible: a case study”
33. Watson, Billy: “ ‘If I can’t read it, I can’t learn it’: digital audio in visual impairment education – making the curriculum more accessible”
34. King, Stephen: “A better way to read: developing the UK strategy for transforming the audio reading experience”
35. Petrie, Helen: “Accessibility of museum and gallery Web sites for visually disabled people”
36. Bailey, Ian: “Determining print size and magnification needs for students with visual impairment”
37. Wolffe, Karen: “CareerConnect™ – an interactive Web-based tool for job seekers with visual disabilities”
38. Legge, Gordon E.: “Wayfinding in buildings with vision impairment: research and adaptive technology”
39. Zimmermann, Sally-Anne: “Modified stave notation – encouraging musical independence through accessible, easily produced scores”
40. Gill, John: “Priorities for technological research for blind and partially sighted people”
41. Kusayama, Kozue: “Access to museums for visually challenged people in Japan”
42. Best, Anthony: “Deaf-blind people: they are our responsibility. Recent surveys of the population and services”
43. Corcoran, Christine: “Network 1000: surveying the changing needs and lifestyles of 1000 visually impaired people – indicative results from generative interviews”
44. Ray Kurzweil: “The Future of Blindness and Disabilities in an Age of Accelerating Technology”

In “Big, Stark & Chunky” (Axxlog passim), I described a set of design guidelines authors could use to transform their multicolumn sites with small type into single-column sites with big (and usually reverse) type. The resulting site is more usable to low-vision people who blow up the screen display to a nice big size – and you avoid the disadvantages of “alternative” sites that aren’t updated as frequently as the main site. It still is the main site, merely with a different graphic design.

Now, how do we implement these zoom layouts?

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