News, Links and Commentary
Friday, August 29, 2003
Mike May's Experiences of Low Vision Restored
'Seeing Again After 43 Years' (HealthDay at ABCNEWS.com, August 26, 2003). Mike May needed to learn how to see after his vision was partially restored. While May does not have retinal degeneration and was blinded at age three, his story gives some insight into how people perceive the world with and without vision. To read May's journal, visit Mike May's Perceptions.
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Artificial Vision Article at SF Gate
'Artificial vision in humans undergoes first trials' (AP/Wall Street Journal at SF Gate, August 27, 2003). Includes comments from Connie Schoeman, a 76-year-old woman who received a retinal implant at the University of Southern California's Doheny Eye Institute, as well as information about other artificial vision projects and funding in the US and Germany.
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Thursday, August 21, 2003
Running with RP
'He's 67 and blind, but Joe Zeigler isn't slowing down yet' (Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, August 19, 2003). Joe has Retinitis Pigmentosa, gets lifts to events and offers massages to fellow runners.
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Tuesday, August 19, 2003
'Can You See With Your Tongue?' Discover Vol. 24 No. 6 (June 2003). I'm not so keen to see with my tongue - I kinda like to use it for other activities. If we detect light with our tongue, is it still seeing? Could I taste with my eye? Feel with my ear? The research might not have a practical solution for people losing their sight but it's an interesting read all the same...
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Monday, August 18, 2003
Looking for a Culture of Listening
A member of RPList recently posted the article 'In a world of visual stimulation, listening culture is drowned out' (hosted at Friends of Canadian Broadcasting but published in the Toronto Star and elsewhere) by Mary Carole McCauley.
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Sunday, August 17, 2003
Web Accessibility Tools
E-Access Bulletin is a great source of information about technology for people who have a vision impairment. The latest issue includes a link to AccessifyForum.com, a new discussion forum for people interested in accessibility. Both web accessibility and access to the physical environment can be discussed and some useful threads have already started since the site opened on August 8.
From a thread discussing automatic accessibility checkers, I learnt about Cynthia Says, a tool developed by HiSoftware and the Internet Society Disability and Special Needs Chapter. The Cynthia Says report gives a table listing checkpoints (either the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) in the left hand column and then three columns indicating if you have passed (yes, no or other). It may have been more useful to separate automatic checks from those checkpoints that needed personal attention (or user checks, as Bobby calls them). While I didn't find this tool to be as useful as Bobby (possibly because I am more familiar with Bobby), I did discover that I've accidentally retained some deprecated HTML on my main RD and RP in Australia page. Once again I learn the value of using a variety of tools - or perhaps I should check all of my pages manually very soon.
The same thread lead me to finally check out the WAVE 3.0 Accessibility Tool from WebAIM. The WAVE report displays icons over a display of the tested Web page. The icons indicate accessibility problems as well as accessibility and structural/semantic features. At first I used the Opera browser to read the report and, because Opera doesn't show alternative text in tool tips, my first impression was that the report would be a hassle to work through. Fortunately, a legend is available on a separate page. Although the report display is surprisingly clean, despite the icons, looking at it with tunnel vision meant that I was scanning the report and hoping not to miss any icons.
I've blogged on about the accessibility tools before and was interested to read 'Notes on some tools for checking and improving Web page accessibility (Bobby and A-Prompt)' by Jukka "Yucca" Korpela. I'll hopefully seek out more useful comparisons and critiques of these types of tools in the future. The easier they are to use, the more likely people are to use them and to build accessible Web sites.
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From a thread discussing automatic accessibility checkers, I learnt about Cynthia Says, a tool developed by HiSoftware and the Internet Society Disability and Special Needs Chapter. The Cynthia Says report gives a table listing checkpoints (either the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) in the left hand column and then three columns indicating if you have passed (yes, no or other). It may have been more useful to separate automatic checks from those checkpoints that needed personal attention (or user checks, as Bobby calls them). While I didn't find this tool to be as useful as Bobby (possibly because I am more familiar with Bobby), I did discover that I've accidentally retained some deprecated HTML on my main RD and RP in Australia page. Once again I learn the value of using a variety of tools - or perhaps I should check all of my pages manually very soon.
The same thread lead me to finally check out the WAVE 3.0 Accessibility Tool from WebAIM. The WAVE report displays icons over a display of the tested Web page. The icons indicate accessibility problems as well as accessibility and structural/semantic features. At first I used the Opera browser to read the report and, because Opera doesn't show alternative text in tool tips, my first impression was that the report would be a hassle to work through. Fortunately, a legend is available on a separate page. Although the report display is surprisingly clean, despite the icons, looking at it with tunnel vision meant that I was scanning the report and hoping not to miss any icons.
I've blogged on about the accessibility tools before and was interested to read 'Notes on some tools for checking and improving Web page accessibility (Bobby and A-Prompt)' by Jukka "Yucca" Korpela. I'll hopefully seek out more useful comparisons and critiques of these types of tools in the future. The easier they are to use, the more likely people are to use them and to build accessible Web sites.
Friday, August 15, 2003
RP Social Pics 2003
Pics from the RP Social in Las Vegas are now available on line through the RP-Friends site. Anyone with membership of Yahoo! Groups can view the pics, even if you are not a member of the RP-Friends e-mail discussion list. Pics are also available in a SendPix Album, although unfortunately some people (including myself) are unable to access them. Glad to hear that most people really enjoyed the get together!
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Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Barking Mad?
The Royal Guide Dog Association of Tasmania appears to have a new Web address, shifting from www.rgdatas.org.au to www.guidedogstas.com.au. The site consists of a single page showing a picture of two gorgeous labradors and nothing else. No address, no phone number, no indication of when a more detailed site will become available. On the upside, the image does have alternative text, so that visitors using screen readers don't miss out.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Not Fading Away at the Exploratorium
Revisited Joel Deutsch's articles and conversations about RP at the San Francisco Exploratorium's exhibit Not Fade Away. Also discovered that my links to useful resources such as Robert's Home Page, which includes links on guide dogs, Usher Syndrome and cochlear implants, and Jon's Retinoschisis Links were well out of date. Glad to find the sites sitting comfortably at new addresses.
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Alternative Mouse Pointers for Windows
Recently a friend needed instructions on how to display a more visible mouse pointer. Updating my site today, I found an article about 154500 - Alternative Mouse Pointers for Windows 95/98/Me and Windows NT 4.0.
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Recent updates to my RP and RD in Australia site include a link to Natural Voice Reader, a text-to-speech program with both a professional and free version. Text to speech software does not read the whole screen but will read a document or e-mail, so can be handy for people with some sight but who tire while reading at length.
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Monday, August 11, 2003
Correction! Janet from the #ozrplist chat has informed me that she is hoping for a cure or treatment for Retinitis Pigmentosa within her generation - not the next generation! This generation, that generation... some generation but not degeneration.
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A Warm Welcome!
Welcome to RetGen, a weblog about my personal experiences of Retinitis Pigmentosa, an eye disease that causes gradual vision loss, and that will feature useful resources for people who have an interest in Retinitis Pigmentosa or other forms of retinal degeneration.
The weblog is named RetGen because most people affected by retinal degeneration are hoping to reverse the affects of the condition. Instead of retinal degeneration, we are hoping for a little retinal generation. Or stability. When most of us think of research into retinal degeneration, we know that the research will most likely be of no benefit to ourselves but will hopefully be of benefit to future generations. With this weblog, I want to generate ideas and a few ways of stepping forward for myself, my contributors and my readers.
Best wishes,
Dee
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The weblog is named RetGen because most people affected by retinal degeneration are hoping to reverse the affects of the condition. Instead of retinal degeneration, we are hoping for a little retinal generation. Or stability. When most of us think of research into retinal degeneration, we know that the research will most likely be of no benefit to ourselves but will hopefully be of benefit to future generations. With this weblog, I want to generate ideas and a few ways of stepping forward for myself, my contributors and my readers.
Best wishes,
Dee
