Category: Accessibility

The Practical and Legal Reasons Behind Designing for Accessibility

Writing for UX magazine, Gregory P. Care and Dan Ross  discuss The Practical and Legal Reasons Behind Designing for Accessibility. This informative article examines the benefits of designing their mobile apps and websites for accessibility, including avoiding legal liability.

Accessibility is a central and, in many ways, fundamental component of user experience, so designers of mobile applications and mobile websites should feel compelled to make their products accessible to users with disabilities. Inaccessibility can frustrate an individual with a disability and create a longstanding negative consumer association that can preclude that individual from taking full advantage of a mobile device, app, or website. Accessibility in this context makes good business sense, because it maximizes satisfaction and use by the growing number of individuals with disabilities who have mobile devices.

But it is more than just good business—it’s also a legal responsibility.

From Classrooms to e-Accessible Classes: Making e-Learning Inclusive

This post from blogger Lucy Greco  who writes about accessibility in education for the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict), is an articulate reminder that the technology and tools used in online classes may all too easily exclude students with disabilities.

Today’s fastest-growing trend in education is online teaching (or the resultant e-learning). As instructors want to reach out to audiences around the globe, they find that online education makes their classrooms virtually limitless. Academics everywhere are turning to the Internet as their new classroom. Students around the world are now able to take classes at the university of their choice without having to travel. However, for students with disabilities there are perils in online education which may almost outweigh the benefits. Students with disabilities may be excluded from this online experience when universal design principles are not followed.
 

Driverless Car at the Stop Light Near You by 2017

Ours is an automobile dominated society and most of us couldn’t imagine what we would do without our cars. Henry Ford, the Studebaker brothers, Ransom Olds, the Duesenberg brothers and Charles Nash all would be astounded at the modern automobile and innovations on the horizon may change driving as we know it. According to ExtremeTech, Ford predicts that driverless cars will be a way of life in 2017.

Google Developing Driverless Automobile

Google has mad headlines with its driverless car project.  It  isn’t the only one out there working of driverless car technology, Google is the most prominent. And because of that, their driverless cars steal a lot of the spotlight. The family of driverless cars has been driven  over 300,000 miles now without incident). The gears are already in motion for self-driving cars to hit the roadway as soon as the technology is deemed stable. Google’s already been talking to automakers in Detroit, and have begun to get patents as well..

Ford Developing Traffic Jam Assist

If you think all the hubbub about Google’s fancy self-driving cars is just a fleeting novelty, Ford, it of the automobile industry, thinks you should check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Ford expects that smart car technology called Traffic Jam Assist will help reduce traffic by at least 37.5%. In other words, if you commute an hour on a freeway during rush hour, your commute would drop down to 38 minutes thanks to self-driving cars. Aside from giving you back some time on your life, Traffic Jam Assist can handle unforeseen events like a car cutting you off.

Take a look at the demo of Ford’s Traffic Jam Assist technology in the video below.

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