Other: Lesson 1 Assignment

Dec 24, 2015 by Alyssa

1) C has a blood cancer. She’s been on chemo for a few months and, despite being an MD, is finding it harder and harder to remember things, read, or have a conversation. It’s calledchemo brain. She’s frustrated because she’s becoming more and more reliant on her smart phone for taking notes and keeping track of things at the same time that it’s getting harder and harder for her to use.

• Like many others on this list, C may need information to be as concise as possible, with minimal distractions. Many web sources are wordy or have distracting things going on, such as advertisements, which may be inaccessible to her.

2) F has been a programmer since junior high. She just had surgery forgamer’s thumbin her non-dominant hand, and will have it in her dominant hand in a few weeks. She’s not sure yet how it will affect her typing or using a touchpad on her laptop.

• As dealing with the aftermath of surgery is a new thing for F--as with some of the other people on the list who have acquired their disability instead of being born with it--there may be a learning curve for her in learning how to adapt to her new abilities and to any possible adaptive technology. As F is a programmer, accessibility issues in technology may effect her career and livelihood. 

3) I has epilepsy, which is sometimestriggered by stark contrasts in colors, or bright colors (not just flashing lights). I has to be careful when visiting brightly-colored pages or pages aimed for younger people.

• There is a greater risk involved for I than other people on this list as not only may content be inaccessible, but I may be unable to simply open content to ascertain if it is accessible to them without potentially dangerous consequences.

4) K served in the coast guard in the 60s on a lightship in the North Atlantic.Like many lightship sailors, he lost much of his hearing in one ear. He turns his head toward the sound on his computer, but that tends to make seeing the screen at the same time harder.

• K might benefit from captions, which are not always available or accurate. K may also decide to make use of headphones in one ear to access increased volume and see the screen simultaneously. However, this would make K unable to listen for background noises in his environment. Additionally, a lot of music is split, or panned between speakers or headphones, making K only able to access certain layers of the audio.

5) Q is ninety-nine. You name the body part, and it doesn’t work as well as it used to.

• As Q would have accomplished all of life's tasks without the web for much of their life, they are likely not being given much of an option other than to use it as many things, such as banking and so forth, are switching to online platforms. Facing physical and mental challenges, Q many not be able to keep up to date with technological advances as quickly as they are occurring. When people think of dis/abilities, they often only think of one at a time. Therefore, developers may only be providing singular accessible solutions. For instance, if Q is hard of hearing they may turn to closed captions. But if they are also low vision, reading captions may be difficult for them if they are not large enough.