Finally, Pogue Speaks to US

David Pogue over at the NY Times has addressed our main issue in his blog: Gadgets With the Blind in Mind - Pogue’s Posts. A look through the comments so far (over fifty as of now) shows quite a range of responses from ignorant trolls to many insightful contributions. It is worth reading the comments (if you can drain the red from you eyes from the reaction to the troll comments).

Pogue’s Posts - As We Get Older, Type Gets Smaller - Technology - New York Times Blog

Pogue's post this past week, As We Get Older, Type Gets Smaller, addresses a major issue that I think about too much. I reset the screen resolution, override default fonts and sometimes use Zoomtext.

On the Side: Inaccessible accessibility

A couple of months ago, the Times' David Pogue wrote an article, Spending Time to Save Time, about why we do not take enough advantage of available computer technology that could make our lives easier, more productive or both. The lessons Pogue discusses apply directly to adoption of any level of 'assistive technology' whether it is a fancy screen reader or a simple Internet Explorer trick to make the text larger. I have spent countless hours finding these little ways to make using my computer easier and it has been an investment too high for most people. I would like to extend Mr. Pogue's call on software makers to make accessibility feature more accessible.

Accessibility Switch

The technology guy for the NY Times posted some thought about an issue that had not crossed my mind, "But What About the Color Blind?". I think that browsers should come with some default accessibility option. I do not mean the complicated range of options available now, but a simple on/off switch. This switch would automatically reformat all websites in some easy to read, high contrast and nice looking style, something that uniformly addresses the widest range of accessibility issues. For more advanced users, they could leave all the tweaks available now. For those who prefer simplicity, this accessibility switch could make a huge difference in the quality of internet life. Such a feature on publicly available machines, at kiosks or in computer labs for example, would allow anyone to make the web accessible with the touch of a single button. I suspect that the technology exists already. There is something called a style sheet that controls the look and feel of a web site. All it would take is a web designer could develop a style sheet with the characteristics listed above and the browser designers incorporated a single button that strained all web content through that style sheet.