From Emergency 2.0 Wiki

Revision as of 01:18, 9 December 2012

Main Page | Accessibility Toolkit

The Accessibility Reference Group will be managing the development of content for this section and will be a point of contact for questions or help.

This page is under construction

Disability Symbol. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons [1]

Introduction

The Emergency 2.0 Wiki Accessibility Toolkit was developed to empower the disabled community to use social media for disaster preparedness, response and recovery. This toolkit was developed in response to the fact that not all people with a disability are able to access life saving messages delivered through social media due to the accessibility challenges that the tools currently pose.

The online toolkit provides tips, resources and apps to assist people with a disability to overcome accessibility challenges of social media.

The kit also includes guidelines for emergency agencies and government.

Tips and Guides for people with a disability on how to access social media

Twitter

Tips to help overcome Twitter's accessibility issues:

• Easy Chirp: an alternative Twitter portal which enables tweets to be read with assistive technologies such as a screen reader. * Twitter Help Center: a good resource for using Twitter.
• Mobile apps: there are a wealth of accessible Twitter-related mobile apps on iOS-based devices such as the iPhone and the iPad. Apps include the main Twitter app, Twitterrific, Twittelator for iPad, Tweetosaurus, Tweetero and TweetList Pro.
• Mobile Twitter website: another alternative portal is the mobile site m.twitter.com.
• Twitter apps: Accessible Twitter apps for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad include include the main Twitter app itself, Twitterrific, Twittelator for iPad, Tweetosaurus, Tweetero and TweetList Pro (links via Applvis website).

Additional resources:

• Twitter Help Center
• Sociability: tips for Twitter (PDF 164 KB)
• Sociability: tips for Twitter (Word 70 KB)

Facebook

Tips to help overcome Facebook's accessibility issues:

• Mobile Facebook website: if the main Facebook website proves too difficult to use try the mobile site m.facebook.com.
• Facely HD app: if you use an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, this app provides Facebook access that works with the Voiceover screen reader.
• Keyboard shortcuts: the Facebook website has some additional keyboard shortcuts available.
• Finding friends: one potential barrier for blind or vision impaired users is finding friends without being able to see their photo. it’s helpful to know that the first search results will be people who live closest to you or have friends in common with you and are more likely to be the correct person.
• Captions for photos: photo descriptions are helpful for screen reader users and can be added by using the ‘add a caption’ option beneath an image.

Additional resources:

• Facebook Accessibility help
• Sociability: tips for Facebook (PDF 137 KB)
• Sociability: tips for Facebook (Word 68 KB)

YouTube

Tips to help overcome YouTube's accessibility issues:

• Accessible YouTube players: websites such as Accessible YouTube, Easy YouTube and Accessible Interface to YouTubeprovide screen reader-friendly websites for playing back YouTube videos.
• YouTube app: the YouTube app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad works with the VoiceOver screen reader.
• Captions: if a YouTube video is captioned, a ‘CC’ button will be available in the bottom right-hand corner of the video. Select this and captions should appear.
• Requesting auto-captions for your video: YouTube has the ability to automatically caption videos. after uploading your video, go to the captions and Subtitles pane and select the 'Request Processing' button. The captions are generally completed within 24 hours.
• Editing captions: The auto-captions service, while helpful, is not always accurate. Free online applications such as overstream and captiontube provide a way to create and edit captions.

Additional resources:

• Contact YouTube
• Sociability: tips for YouTube (PDF 164 KB)
• Sociability: tips for YouTube (Word 72 KB)

Emergency smartphone apps for people with a disability

Engage App for iPhone, Android and Blackberry for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Emergency smartphone apps for people with a disability
These apps are provided to help people with a disability to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies.

Emergency preparedness You Tube videos (captioned,using sign language or voice over)

Emergency Kit Preparedness Video by DEAF Inc (USA)

Videos for people with a disability
These videos links are provided to help people with a disability to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies including:
- Natural disasters and severe weather events such as flood, storm surge, cyclone, hurricane, tornado, bushfire, earthquake and blizzard
- Manmade emergencies such as a train/bus/plane crash, gas leak/chemical spill//nuclear event and terrorism
- Health emergencies such as pandemics

Practical guidelines for emergency sector, government, community and business to make social media messages more accessible

Social Media Accessibility Guidelines
These accessibility guidelines are provided to assist the emergency sector, government, community, media and business to make social media messages more accessible. Topics include:
- Creating tips and resources for people with disabilities
- Twitter
- Facebook
- YouTube
- Blogging tools

Country specific accessibility resources

United States

• Disability.gov - The federal government website for comprehensive information on disability programs and services in communities nationwide.

• Accessible Emergency Information - Videos under 18 Emergency Preparedness Topics and formatted to be friendly to deaf, blind, and vision impaired users.

New Zealand

• Ministry of Health Disability organisations and websites - Useful links relating to disability services in New Zealand.

• Office for Disability Issues - NZ focal point within government on disability issues.

• Office for Disability Issues - Emergency preparedness and responsiveness - Preparing and responding to emergencies need to be inclusive of everyone, including recognising disabled people.

Australia

• Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Inidigenous Affairs - Disability and Carers - Australian Government programs and services for people with a disability.

• Australian Government Web Guide - Accessibility - Accessibility guidelines for Australian Government agencies.

General web accessibility resources

• California Government list of web accessibility resources

References and Links

• Sociability: Social Media for people with a disability by Media Access Australia [2]