Category: “assistive technology”

Assistive Technology Surveys

Post author By Dennis
Post date November 22, 2016
2 Comments on Assistive Technology Surveys

Digital accessibility experts are often asked about the usage of screen readers and assistive technologies. For example, one will often ask “What’s the most popular screen reader?” This is difficult (if not impossible) to determine technically, but also has privacy implications and other problems.

The following two surveys provide great data and are provided by very reputable organizations. Keep in mind though that the respondents were not controlled and the sample sizes are relatively low.

Screen Reader User Survey #6 Results by WebAIM (2015)
Screen Reader User Survey #7 Results by WebAIM (2017)
GOV.UK assistive technology survey (2016)

Are you aware of any other recent surveys?

Survey of Web Accessibility Practitioners #2 by WebAIM (2018)
Accessibility analysis of the top 1,000,000 home pages by WebAIM (2019)

A person using assistive technology.

"assistive technology" jobs

Accessibility Jobs, March 2016

Post author By Dennis
Post date March 9, 2016
No Comments on Accessibility Jobs, March 2016

Wow, plenty of great open positions!

VP of Accessibility & Disability Strategy at University of Phoenix in Phoenix, AZ.
Sr. Product Manager – Accessibility at eBay in San Jose, CA (preferably).
Web Accessibility Specialist at WebAIM in Logan, UT.
Web Accessibility Program Manager at Microsoft in Redmond, WA.
Front End Engineer, Accessibility at Adobe in Seattle or SF.
Assistive Technology Coordinator (Specialist – ATC Production Lab) at Utah Valley University in Orem UT.
Accessible Technology Specialist at Miami (of Ohio) University in Oxford, OH.
Assistive Technology Coordinator at The University of Massachusetts Amherst in Amherst, MA.
Accessibility Project Coordinator at Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Tallahassee, FL.
Lead Accessibility Consultant at RNIB, location is flexible but requires travel to head office in London, England.

For updates, follow me (@WebAxe) and @a11yJobs on Twitter!

"assistive technology" video youtube

Accessibility Videos

Here’s a great list of videos and YouTube channels about web accessibility, assistive technology, and more. And from some excellent sources!

We Are Nomensa YouTube Channel
Yahoo Accessibility YouTube Channel
AbilityNet YouTube Channel
AccessOntario’s YouTube Channel
MIT Assistive Technology: Universal Access
User Accessibility Testing YouTube playlist by Joseph Karr O’Connor
Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) [Great example of audio description]
How Assistive Technology Works: Video Demonstrations (University of Dundee, Scotland)
For videos about accessibility from this year’s Google I/O, visit the Web Axe blog Accessibility at Google IO 2011.
Older, but still fun! WCAG 2.0 Theme Song
University of Washington DO-IT video collection

"assistive technology" articles

Types of Assistive Technology

Post author By Dennis
Post date February 17, 2010
No Comments on Types of Assistive Technology

Here is an excellent resource from Usability First on types of disabilities and corresponding assistive technologies:

Accessibility: Types of Accessibility Aids

Many devices are described, organized by the following types of disabilities:

Visual impairments
Hearing loss and impairments
Speech impairments
Motor impairments
Cognitive impairments
Repetitive stress
Color blindness

"assistive technology" apple book

iPad Is Assisitive Technology But No Killer

Post author By Dennis
Post date February 2, 2010
1 Comment on iPad Is Assisitive Technology But No Killer

One may plainly say that Apple’s new iPad is an assistive technology device. Like the iPhone, it includes many accessibility features such as:

VoiceOver
screen zoom
white-on-black display
mono audio
closed-captioned content

But as pointed out in the article Accessibility and the iPad: First Impressions, it additionally has the following helpful features:

Large size (for visually impairments)
External Keyboard (for mobile impairments)
Speakers (for visually impairments)
Simple Interface (for cognitive impairments)

Although I feel that the iPad is certainly better than Amazons’ Kindle, I believe that the iPad will not “kill” the Kindle, mostly because of the price difference. The iPad is much more expensive ranging from $499 to $699 while the Kindle is $259. For more on this, check out Apple Tablet Could Be A Kindle Killer.

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