Beginning a career focused on digital accessibility can be intimidating as technologists new to this professional field struggle to define the specific role that aligns with their skills and interests. Perusing job ads can certainly shed some light on the variety of accessibility professions that exist. For example, in software development, there are many product […]
Author: Equal Entry
Encounters with barriers to built environments, education, employment, entertainment, and healthcare in virtual reality (VR) can shape our understanding of issues faced by diverse demographics in the real world. In this presentation, Mark Bookman discusses how he uses VR in his classes at the University of Tokyo to help raise awareness about otherwise invisible obstacles […]
Adding Alt Text in Social Virtual Reality
Aug 2, 2022Imagine trying to navigate a virtual space without being able to see the objects in it. If a host tells everyone to move to the outside space and you can’t see where is outside and where is inside in the virtual world, then how do you do that? If the host says, please line up […]
How Can a Blind Person Use Virtual Reality?
May 5, 2022Virtual reality is a very visual medium. It might surprise you to learn there are people who are blind or have low vision who enjoy virtual reality. Jesse Anderson is one of them. Unfortunately, many virtual reality experiences are not accessible for them and other disabilities. Jesse shares advice for creating accessible virtual reality experiences […]
Most of our time online is typically spent reading text, yet we don’t often consider how accessible that text is. The typefaces, fonts, and text styling used can have a significant impact on the user experience — and there are few accessibility guidelines that relate to text accessibility. In this presentation, guest speaker Jared Smith […]
Equal Entry audits hundreds of web pages, from retail shopping sites to news aggregators to custom web apps that solve custom problems. We manually navigate your sites with a keyboard and screen readers, we interact with every one of your controls, and we use automated tools where useful. Our accessibility consultants logged over 7,500 instances […]
What’s the State of Accessibility in Gaming?
Apr 5, 2022It wasn’t long ago that most developers knew nothing about accessibility. Ian Hamilton talks about the accessibility of gaming and whether the industry is making progress. He also delves into the relationship between difficulty and inaccessibility. How did you get your start in accessibility? It was a three-step process. I started at the BBC in […]
Overlays Underwhelm | Accessibility NYC Meetup Recap
Mar 23, 2022Accessibility overlays bring promises of accessible sites in one line of code, but experiences from users tell us the opposite. At a previous A11yNYC Meetup, Adrian Roselli looks at the guarantees, the marketing efforts, the code efforts, and lived experiences of users. Resources Adrian’s A11yNYC presentation page Visit the Overlay Fact Sheet and consider signing. […]
Imagine you’re wearing a virtual reality headset and sitting in a chair or wheelchair. You start playing Job Simulator. In one scene, you need to reach low to open the mini-freezer to take out a burrito. Except, you can’t bend over and reach. Or maybe you can just get to the door handle, but can’t […]
Heather Burns is a program manager at heart, passionately curious, always looking for ways to improve anything she can. After a 20-plus-year career at Microsoft, she’s excited to work in the field she loves — accessibility! Heather provides training, project management, as well as software and hardware testing to improve the ability of individuals with […]