How to Prevent a Crazy Blind Man from Making Weird Requests

It happened at around 4:00 am in a hotel in the city of Kuching. All was quiet when the phone at the front desk rang suddenly. The lady at the front desk picked up the phone and received a call from one of the people staying in the hotel.

The person on the other end of the line apparently made a request. And upon hearing the request, the lady had a bewildered look on her face.

What in the World Happened?

Information for All: the First Web Accessibility Seminar at the University of Santo Tomas

TomasinoWeb, an online-based student publication and a premier university organization, in partnership with the Advantage Management Group, held today the first-ever web accessibility seminar at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.

Aptly entitled “Information for All”, the event aimed to explain the importance of web accessibility and the guidelines in making online content accessible. More than a hundred participants attended the seminar. The participants consisted of UST students taking up web development and IT-related subjects and a number of their professors. I had the honor of being invited as the speaker in the event.

Raising the White Cane toward a More Accessible Internet

Today, a historic forum on web accessibility was held by several agencies of the Philippine government. This event was held at the training room of the Occupational Safety and Health Center in Quezon City. The Web Accessibility Forum was held as part of the celebration of this year’s White Cane Safety Week—the white cane being a worldwide symbol used by persons who are blind to signify their disability.

The event was an inter-agency gathering of leaders and representatives who were truly interested and willing to provide accessible information to persons who are blind and people with disabilities in general. The participating agencies included the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, the House of Representatives, and the Philippine National Police. Non-government organizations such as Resources for the Blind Incorporated participated in the forum. The representatives of the government agencies consisted of web masters and web administrators. I was very fortunate to be invited as one of the resource persons during the forum.

An Epiphany of the Beauty of Information Through Text

I’ve been transcribing audio recordings for ten years now. When I was in college, I used to accept project-based transcription work from government and non-government organizations. I recall how I’d get my beer money from those transcription projects. Yes, those were the days!

Even now that I’m working as an accessibility consultant and an international speaker on accessibility, I still take transcription projects from time to time. I really like the fact that I get to learn new information and transcribe that information for other people as well.

And thinking about transcription, I had this little epiphany about the rarely discovered beauty of this type of service.

28 Things I’ve Learned from Life

Today I celebrate my 28th year in this strangely beautiful world of ours. And while doing so, I wanna share some of the lessons and ideas I’ve learned from living everyday.

Since I can say that the things I’ve realized and learned from life really cannot be contained in one single post, I have decided to share with you those that are most important to me. Some of these things I learned on my own while some of them I learned from observing other people.

Here we go…

Helping an International Organization Make Its Online Documents More Accessible

We had an excellent meeting about accessibility this morning. I was invited by the dynamic people at ATRIEV Computer School for the Blind to meet with the program officers of Liliane Foundation to help them evaluate the accessibility of Liliane’s online documents.

The Liliane Foundation is an international organization that aims to give access to medical and social rehabilitation to children and youngsters with disabilities in developing countries. Since 2007, the Liliane Foundation has been providing ATRIEV with support in terms of tuition fees and assistive devices for a number of the school’s deserving students.

How We Can Improve the Accessibility of the Department of Science and Technology Website

When I was a kid, I used to watch this TV program called Sineskwela. It was a show focused on explaining the basic concepts of science to young viewers. I must admit I had a hell of a time watching that show. In between each segment of Sineskwela were ads that aim to raise the young viewers’ interest in science and technology.

I remember those ads were produced by our country’s Department of Science and Technology (DOST). Looking back, it was good to have seen how DOST makes an effort to promote science and technology to the future leaders of the Philippines.

Growing up, I learned much more about the department’s responsibilities and activities. And as such, I found it necessary to look at the accessibility of one of DOST’s main tools for promoting science and technology and advocating its vision—its official website.

Let us take a look at the accessibility of the website of the Philippines’ Department of Science and Technology, www.dost.gov.ph.

Accessible Metal: How a Metal Website Supports an Accessibility Standard

Apart from being an advocate of accessibility, I’m also a long-time metal enthusiast. Although I listen to all types of metal, the ones I truly enjoy are doom, gothic, and death metal.

With this in mind, it’s really no surprise that I spend a good amount of time scouring the Net for metal websites. And oh, what joy was it for me when I saw a metal website which, in addition to being an excellent resource, demonstrates a good level of accessibility.

Before telling you about the site, I’d like to explain how the site supports one of the principles of web accessibility.

To the Recipient of the Disabled-Friendly Website Award

“It’s not only user friendly; it’s certified accessible.”

This is a statement included in an announcement by the National Computer Center about the Philippine Community eCenter )PhilCeCNet) website, a recipient of the Disabled-Friendly Website Award in 2009.

According to the announcement, the Disabled-Friendly Website Award is given in recognition to websites that are “disabled-friendly” – sites that are accessible to all, including users with physical disabilities. This award is given by the Philippine Web Accessibility Group (P-WAG) in partnership with the National Council on Disability Affairs.

Upon reading the (relatively old) announcement, I became very interested to look at the PhilCeCNet website (http://www.philcecnet.ph/).

What did I see?

How Accessible is the Website of the Philippines’ Department of Education?

In my mischievous youth, I saw the Department of Education, or Dep Ed, as the almighty provider of the glorious announcement of the suspension of classes during stormy days–nothing more, nothing less. Growing up, I saw the true significance of the role that Dep Ed plays and the importance of the information it aims to provide.

Dep Ed’s website, in particular, aims to provide that information to anyone who is interested. But how accessible is Dep Ed’s online information anyway? Let us take a closer look at the accessibility of the website of one of the Philippine government’s most important departments.

Below is an accessibility review of the website of the Department of Education of the Philippines (www.deped.gov.ph). The Department of Education is responsible for regulating and managing the Philippine system of basic education. The DepEd website contains information such as the agency’s profile, advisories, memoranda and notices, and news.