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kestrellContinuing yesterday's topic on improving assistive technology, here's a link toa presentation by Dreamwidth user alexwlchan posted a presentation titled
The Curb Cut Effect
https://alexwlchan.net/2019/01/monki-gras-the-curb-cut-effect/
It explains how inclusive design is good design for everyone, and how technologies designed for people with disabilities become technologies used by everyone.
Those who read my posts for any amount of time know I love talking about how PWD are early adopters and adapters of technology, and how many PWD have actually invented a lot of the technology that gets used everyday by non-disabled people (touchscreen, anyone?), so I particularly enjoyed the article
Fueling the Creation of New Electronic Curb Cuts by Steve Jacobs
http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/technology/eleccurbcut.htm
The book recommended in this post, MisMatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes, is available from MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/mismatch
and is also available from Bookshare.org. A brief excerpt from the description sums it up:
"Holmes tells stories of pioneers of inclusive design, many of whom were drawn to work on inclusion because of their own experiences of exclusion."
The Curb Cut Effect
https://alexwlchan.net/2019/01/monki-gras-the-curb-cut-effect/
It explains how inclusive design is good design for everyone, and how technologies designed for people with disabilities become technologies used by everyone.
Those who read my posts for any amount of time know I love talking about how PWD are early adopters and adapters of technology, and how many PWD have actually invented a lot of the technology that gets used everyday by non-disabled people (touchscreen, anyone?), so I particularly enjoyed the article
Fueling the Creation of New Electronic Curb Cuts by Steve Jacobs
http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/technology/eleccurbcut.htm
The book recommended in this post, MisMatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes, is available from MIT Press
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/mismatch
and is also available from Bookshare.org. A brief excerpt from the description sums it up:
"Holmes tells stories of pioneers of inclusive design, many of whom were drawn to work on inclusion because of their own experiences of exclusion."
no subject
Date: 2020-07-28 02:37 pm (UTC)I really loved Mismatch as an entry-point book for managers -- it provides just enough history as well as an economic case for inclusive design. This can also be seen as a shortcoming -- actual disabled people aren't front & center - - and I think our perspective is available from other sources.
Holmes defines "inclusive" as more than "universal." Where "universal" is one size fits all, "inclusive" is many flex points so there's functionally many sizes to fit all.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-28 03:29 pm (UTC)This is driving me crazy though: this book reminded me of one I read last year, and I think ou read it also, but I can't remember the title. It traced the development of assistive tech from WW2 era veterans wanting cars they could use, then got into the history of the development of ramps on campuses and in cities, esp. Berkley, and went on from there. I really enjoyed this book, but I can't remember the title.
Any thoughts?
no subject
Date: 2020-07-28 05:36 pm (UTC)There are actually two, Kes. One is Accessible America by Bess Williamson; the other is Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability, by Aimi Hamrai
It's intriguing to read them together. Williamson explores the foundations of disability policies which supported accessible designs. Hamrai points out how black people were systematically excluding from benefit by these programs.
Jesse Kaysen jesse_the_k@pobox.com
no subject
Date: 2020-07-28 06:09 pm (UTC)*Confetti rains down*
THANK YOU!
That was driving me *crazy*.
Accessible America was the one I read, but I will try to read the second one you mention.
I'm glad recent articles and public discussions of technology and access are getting into how entire groups of people, such as blacks, Latinos, and queer people, get excluded because they don't fit the picture image of a disabled white child or veteran.
I'm also glad that it seems that, sometimes, we seem to share a brain *lol*.
Btw, when Alexx woke up, he popped the USB cable that I swear didn't fit my new Book Port right in.
Now I'm off to decide what should be the first thing to put on my new Book Port Plus...
no subject
Date: 2020-08-02 08:43 pm (UTC)....follow up -- Aimi Hamrai has a website and a podcast and colleagues and discussion
https://www.mapping-access.com/blog-1/2020/3/10/accessible-teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19
no subject
Date: 2020-07-28 07:15 pm (UTC)Hooray! For the definite consummation of cable & Bookport!
no subject
Date: 2020-07-28 07:54 pm (UTC)Then I went to update the firmware, only the link the manual took me to said this was version x, so no firmware updates.
Further poking around found a more recent online manual, so now I have the old manual open in Chrome because it is in HTML and the new manual opened in CHrome because it is online, and there is no version number listed in the title, so I keep getting confused.
Then I need to update the PC software.
Then I need to update the firmware, which I can only update after updating the PC software because the update firmware option isn't even showing up in the old software version.
After updating the firmware, which takes about ten minutes, I go to read the first book that comes up, and it's the manual, but the old version.
It's only by hitting the help key that I find the new manual.
Now it's dinnertime.
This has been my day.
Btw, last night I found out that there is a Discord channel dedicated solely to Hermione/Snape fan fic. I now have a solid reason to learn more about Discord.
Because I haven't read enough "help" docs yet.
Enjoy your dinner!
Date: 2020-07-28 08:09 pm (UTC)Ahhhhhhhh!
Technology is wonderful except when it's horrible.
As I was wandering the web looking for a review of Aimi Hamrai's book, I stumbled on two things of possible interest to you.
A reviewer on a different book excoriated the terrible access design of both print and ebooks, with this helpful footnote:
Another book, Fables and Futures: Biotechnology, Disability, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves gets a glowing review from Ashley Shew here:
https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/7442/5527
https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/4173/Fables-and-FuturesBiotechnology-Disability-and-the
(also all the Bell Labs links from a recent post are 404ing because AT&T can't be bother to set up redirects.)
Re: Enjoy your dinner!
Date: 2020-07-29 10:21 am (UTC)When I was working on my thesis at MIT, all the journal articles in PDF had been scanned at such a low resolution, that they couldn't be OCRed, not even when the head of the adaptive tech lab tried to make sense of them.
Which is why so few journals cited in my thesis, but I did have about fifty or so books, so no one complained. One of the people on my thesis committee, who is incredibly well-read himself, actually asked the question bibliophiles complain about when people see their book collections: *asked in a tone of awe* "You read all these books?" I considered that a compliment right there.