Weekend Reading: Disability and Accessibility Edition

Here in the United States, another week of extremely cold weather has passed, but at least the days are getting longer, providing us with more sunshine. (Okay, I like to tell myself that this makes a difference...) Below I’ve provided you with five interesting reads for the weekend, all of them related to issues of disability and accessibility.

“The Privilege of Snow,” by Kara Ayers (@DrKaraAyers):

While anyone can appreciate the beauty of a fresh fallen blanket of snow, few people enjoy the danger and inconvenience associated with winter weather. For people with physical disabilities, however, it goes beyond a slower commute or the annoyance of scraping car windows. For many of us, there are few barriers as insurmountable as snow. I’ve had a few winters to reflect on the experience of dealing with snow and I’ve recognized some surprising divides in privilege related to snow.

“Beyond Puppies and Yoga,” by Melonie Fullick (@qui_oui):

University initiatives that gain the most positive media attention often conflate short-term, seasonal stress relating to events like exams, with long-term problems like clinical depression and anxiety disorders (as well as focusing on undergraduate students). Yet it’s the exam period “puppy rooms” that make the news, not the underlying issues that are so much harder to address and resolve, like wait times for “assessments” at university counselling clinics, the lack of privacy many students feel when they go there, the difficulty of having to describe one’s situation repeatedly in the process of trying to find help, and the exhaustion produced by having to negotiate (with) a bureaucracy while simultaneously dealing with the effects of one’s condition.

“Disability, Anonymity, and the Dark Side of the Internet,” by Jax Jacki Brown:

The Internet can be beneficial in the way it can ‘liberate’ us from our impairments and allow us to enter a virtual world where our disability is invisible and we are not subject to the social stigma of disability. From personal experience, however, I know that living this double life can be damaging. The Internet took me to a dark place, but it also helped me out of it. I luckily stumbled across the social model of disability online, and discovered that my body was not the problem. Rather, society needed to change and become more inclusive. This perspective changed my life. It provided me with a new, positive framework from which I could relate to my disability.

“What is Access?” by Eric Lanning (@EricLanning):

What would it mean to universally design debate? What would it mean to ask and answer this question together? I believe that ‘access’ is the process (not outcome) of answering that question over and over. It is the process of destabilizing our assumptions about what debaters ‘are’ and ‘do.’ What assumptions do we make about debaters’ inherent ‘abilities’ or natural ‘capabilities’ when we debate in particular ways and in particular spaces? What changes should we make to debate practice and culture? These are questions that I am asking and answering in every negative debate – but the ‘pre-requisite’ for me to asking and answering these questions in any debate was my own disability consciousness.

“A Video Game That You Can’t Even See,” by Laura Parker (@lauraannaparker):

Though disabled gamers may still be cut off from traditional gaming systems to some degree, a growing number of developers are using the built-in accessibility features of mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad—voiceover, assistive touch, and guided access—to create games for physically disabled and visually impaired players that don’t require the specialized hardware that living-room gaming consoles often do. BlindSide is one of those games. Yet a large part of BlindSide’s success seems tied to the fact that it doesn’t feel like a game that’s been designed for disabled players. A game with no visual stimulus can be just as engrossing for players who can see as for those who cannot, it seems.

This week’s video is of a 2013 talk from WordCamp Chicago entitled “Accessibility and WordPress: Developing for the Whole World,” by Joe Dolson (developer of the WordPress Accessibility plugin I covered earlier this week):

If the above embedded video won’t load on your device, try instead this direct link to Joe Dolson’s talk.

[CC-licensed Flickr photo by Yahoo! Accessibility of an Intellikeys keyboard featuring a variety of layouts for users with limited mobility.]