Disability Dialogue with Bill

Audio Description: Assists the Visually Impaired to Visualize Information, Increasing Safety and Convenience

Have you ever attempted to watch a movie/video on a screen that was so small you could not see it and in addition to that the audio track did not provide enough description which prevented the ability to follow the plot?  Have you attended a play, movie or other event in which your seats had an obstacle impeding your view which prohibited seeing the action performed which left you wondering what happened when only action was occurring and there was no verbal dialog? Have you ever attended a webinar where the video portion had technical difficulties and you could only listen to the audio and missed the essential non- verbal content preventing you from completely understanding the concept? Ever listened to a video on your mobile device and due to safety reasons could not look at the screen and therefor missed understanding the complete concept because not everything was described sufficiently? 

If you experienced any of the above accessibility obstacles how do you think this would make you feel? Would you feel excluded and truly left in the dark? This is how some blind or visually impaired people feel if they cannot fully participate in such activities.

Fortunately with today’s technology the blind, visually impaired and others without disabilities who may have the temporary obstacles described at the start of this blog post can participate and understand the content if the developer/producer/publisher incorporates Audio Description.

What is Audio Description?

Audio Description is an additional audio track that describes and gives context for essential visual information. Audio Description makes videos, multimedia, plays and museum exhibitions, as well as a large variety of other events and activities more accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. It also helps others who are not disabled but may have temporary obstacles by capturing essential visual information into audible descriptions that are played during natural pauses in the primary audio track.

A few of several examples of where Audio Description can be added are shown below to assist the targeted audience understand the media being presented are:

• A scene in a movie, video or play where there is only action and no verbal dialog describing the action when the action is critical to understanding the movie or video - Describe the action

• An amusement park ride where the visual experience is critical to fully participate in the ride experience - Describe the visual setting

• When the speaker’s facial expressions, body language, clothing and colors add context to the meaning of what is being presented - Describe the facial expressions, body language, clothing and colors

• If the environment adds additional information to aide in setting the mood for the audience - Describe the environment  

• A webinar where the instructor is taking an action which they do not describe what is crucial to understand the concept - Describe the action

• If presenting a training video of a software application and reaction within the application caused by a mouse click or keystroke is critical in performing the task being verbally described - Describe the reaction

• When multiple people are talking and the audience can benefit from associating the voice of the person speaking with what they are talking about - Sparingly introduce the speakers

• A conference call where anyone in the call is sharing information and they do not describe that which is crucial to understand the concept - Describe the information being shared

My last four bullet points are good candidates to leverage the Low Tech solution borrowed from WebAIM: Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions.

Producing audio descriptions can be expensive and time-consuming. When producing a video for the web, the need for audio descriptions can often be avoided. If the video were displaying a list of five important items, the narrator might say, "As you can see, there are five important points." In this case, audio descriptions would be necessary to provide the visual content to those with visual disabilities who cannot 'see' what the important points are. However, if the narrator says, "There are five important points. They are..." and then reads or describes each of the points, then the visual content is being conveyed through audio and there is no additional need for audio descriptions.

To learn more about the value and begin to learn how to incorporate audio description into your products to increase audience satisfaction read...
"Creating Opportunities with Accessibility: Movie Theaters”
and ...
“Audio Description for Media and Live Performance Chicago Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design Meetup”.

Has anyone experienced Audio Description and can provide comments to help others learn? If you have never heard of Audio Description did you learn anything from this blog post? Can you think of other activities that can utilize Audio Description to increase accessibility and therefore inclusion? Does anyone have suggestions to leverage Audio Description for people without visual disabilities to help justify it being incorporated into products for universal design? Does anyone have any other comments on the subject of audio description?

I look forward to hearing your valuable thoughts and comments.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author,

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton

Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

 

Are Social and Ethical Problems Important to You

Do you ever wonder if the current way some governmental institutions, political parties and corporations conduct themselves in society is socially responsible or as ethical as they could be? Maybe these governmental institutions, political parties and corporations are trying in some instances to be socially responsible, but need help leveraging their resources in a way to produce positive results?

Do all corporations develop technology that benefits humanity and allows everyone to participate fully and equally so they are able to contribute to help solve our world’s critical problems; like I describe in Collective Intelligence: Include The Disabled for Success?

Do governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals collaborate together to effectively serve all the people, or just a targeted few?

I think some corporations, governments, and individuals do collaborate effectively together to benefit humanity when they make it a priority and put the appropriate amount of resources into their goals. Just one example is Habitat Jam; in which I had the privilege to talk virtually to many people from all over the world. I was able to help make a positive contribution in the lives I was grateful to touch. Along with the many others who participated we truly made a positive difference.

There are many groups of people and numerous opportunities to collaborate together to truly make a difference. Just a short list of examples are below.

List of 8 items
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Reduce child mortality
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Achieve universal primary education
•Promote usability and accessibility in technology design so everyone has access; including the disabled and elderly.
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Develop a global partnership for development.

I hope that as our world’s population grows, becomes elderly, disabled, goes through turbulent times, endures natural and man made disasters and faces other complicated challenges and hardships we can leverage technological innovations and social responsibilities to help combat and defeat our most critical social and environmental issues we will face.

Just think if we funneled the many billions of US dollars, or equivalent we spend on wars and killing each other towards projects and programs focused on the critical social and environmental issues I listed above. What a world we could create together!

Some of this work will be truly hard and difficult. The work will require the world’s governmental institutions, political parties, corporations and organizations to allocate adequate funding and resources to make positive progress in these critical issues we all face. I relate the difficulties of some of our challenges to something like my experience below.

I almost died multiple times when I got critically sick instantly one day after work, coded multiple times, went into a coma for 3 months, stayed in hospital for 7 months, went completely blind and endured other very undesirable and uncomfortable circumstances. I lost the ability to walk for one year because of that medical emergency. I fell to the ground in pain many times as I tore my clothes and bloodied parts of my body while I learned to walk again with my full leg braces, walker, Canadian crutches and now with 2 white canes. After leaving the hospital I retrained myself very quickly on many new skills I needed to be a successful blind person; with help from many others. I was able to successfully retain a job because of my efforts and desires. I was driven to succeed and failure was not an option.

Some of our challenges that we face as a society are far less traumatic than I endured. Some will be even more difficult and challenging. All involved such as governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals working together to solve our most complex and pressing social and environmental problems will require the passion and dedication I had during my recovery. It will require leaders who are willing and prepared to walk alone and take well thought out and calculated risks.

One small example of the complexities, barriers and obstacles we will need to fully understand and overcome in a much larger scale can be described below.

In some global corporations teams work globally together across many different business units, time zones, different cultures, working styles, contrasting and conflicting personalities, different rewards and recognition systems, and different policies and procedures. It is essential to overcome some of the same challenges this working group has in a much larger scale to successfully leverage the knowledge of the world’s population to solve our most critical and complex problems. We need to take the lessons learned from working in such a global team and the skills mastered and expand the knowledge and mannerisms of working together successfully in global teams across many governmental institutions, political parties and corporations.

Two local Universities where I leverage knowledge where you can learn more about social Innovation are Santa Clara University - Center for Science, Technology & Society and
Center for Social Innovation (CSI): Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Let’s all work together and start positive change where ever we can! You can start in your community, your work place, educational institute or any organization you may be affiliated with. Do not be afraid to take that first step and walk alone if you need to. When you succeed others will follow your leadership. Who will step up and be our next world leader to help us? Maybe it could be you?

Just remember when I took my first steps after I was able to get out of my wheel chair. I fell many times before I could stand and walk again in my darkness. I hope you are not afraid to stand and walk in darkness and possibly fail along the path to successfully help us find new technology and other social remedies to solve our most critical problems we are faced with today.

Do you have any reference materials that will help us accomplish our lofty goals of solving some of the problems I described above? Any ideas or suggestions to enable groups of people across many governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals to work together effectively? Do you have ideas of how to create and to allocate the funding needed to accomplish such goals? Do you have any suggestions and solutions to allow everyone to contribute equally and not have external barriers put on them by inaccessible technology? Any success stories you want to share?

We all look forward to hearing from you to help make this world better for everyone!

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Balancing Your Team for Innovation

Hello everyone,

I hope you have enjoyed and found useful the following two articles/ messages:
1. Collective Intelligence: Include The Disabled for Success

2. Meet the Professionals - Shawn Henry- Web accessibility

We have been talking about the importance to include everyone without external limitations for positive results. Talked about the value of collective intelligence and swarm behavior. I think the following article from eSight Careers Network
will add to our discussion of this very important topic.

Balancing Your Team for Innovation by Jim Hasse.

Just a few highlights from article
Technology has broken down the walls between jobs in companies and between businesses on a global scale. Survivors in today's competitive business climate have learned how to harness teamwork among people to produce products and services at a better, faster and cheaper clip than their competitors.
Fostering diversity and valuing differences have become so crucial to innovation, the engine of economic growth in the U.S. and many parts of the world.

What has changed is that teams and diversity on those teams have come into their own. Yet, diversity initiatives are still among the first "frills" to get cut as a variable cost in corporate budgets during economic downturns because they're considered not critical.

The C.A.R.E. Profile approach introduced me to the concept that successful team members do the right thing at the right time -- not the same thing at the same time. While team members work together toward a common goal, individuals still must play their individual parts in the process.

Fahden and Namakkal's instrument identifies an individual's most natural team role so he can work from his strengths. Here's how Innovate with C.A.R.E. Profile describes those strengths:

As an employer, recognizing the value of this "hand-off" process and the diversity it requires at the team level will help you avoid getting stuck with too many team members playing the same role at the same time. It means valuing differences -- instead of the sameness -- in people and how they help your team approach a problem and find a solution for it.

That means diversity in thought processes is a key to innovation. Since innovation is crucial to being competitive in today's marketplace, it makes ethnicity, gender, sexual preference -- and physical ability -- not relevant.

Read the complete article, Balancing Your Team for Innovation to learn more at below URL.
http://www.esight.org/view.cfm?x=472

Do you see any limitations which prevents diversity in thought processes? Has anyone seen any obstacles which prevents balancing your teams for innovation? Do you have any success stories you want to share about how you best harnessed teamwork by reducing external limitations, like inaccessible tools to help you produce products and services at a better, faster and cheaper clip than you’re competitors? How are you fostering diversity and valuing differences?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Collective Intelligence: Include The Disabled for Success

Hello everyone,

Want to be more productive at solving complex problems in groups? Work better in teams? Utilize all of your resources at their fullest potential, no matter how different some individuals might be perceived to be? Maybe you should study the way some ants bury their dead, ways fireflies in some parts of the world light up in synchronization, or the way field honey bees fly from flower to flower, collecting pollen and sweet juices, or nectar to produce honey. Read on; I am serious!

Have you ever been in a meeting and hardly anyone talked? Maybe the few outgoing people were the only ones voicing their opinions. As you might be sitting back in the meeting and listening and thinking to yourself, my thought is not valuable because it is quite different than all the other ideas that are being brought up; so I do not speak up in fear of being different.

I’ll bet you do not know how much your different point of view helps to make the outcome better for all! Without your different perspective the complete group may fail because you followed the opinions of only a few in the group; right or wrong.

If you have a disability or other unique viewpoints on the topic in discussion, or project, or program you are working on, it makes your input even more crucial to produce the very best output possible. I might even argue that if you are disabled, or have other challenges your thoughts are more important, since others do not have your unique viewpoint to offer such help or guidance.

This is true with software or hardware development as well. You would not want to develop inferior software or hardware products that are not accessible or usable by all people. In this highly competitive global market it is best to not limit your customer base to only a portion of the world’s population allowing your competitors to gain an advantage in which you may never have the opportunity to catch up. Include people with disabilities, we are brimming with innovative ideas!

With so much room for improvements in the current approach to working together, some groups and organizations have started to look at nature for resolutions and new ideas. Nature has done well when many members interact with each other with no one person directing, like the ants, fireflies and bees I mentioned

Do you wonder how such positive collaboration can happen?

Have you ever heard of swarm, or collective intelligence?

Swarm, or collective intelligence in one definition; is interacting as one large, self-organized group of computers or groups of people with all individuals fully participating, without infrastructure limitations. This is an emergent behavior, where complex group actions arise from simple local rules.

From Stephen Strogatz: Who Cares About Fireflies? We see fantastic examples of synchrony in the natural world all around us. To give an example, there were persistent reports when the first Western travelers went to South East Asia, back to the time of Sir Francis Drake in the 1500s, of spectacular scenes along riverbanks, where thousands upon thousands of fireflies in the trees would all light up and go off simultaneously. These kinds of reports kept coming back to the West, and were published in scientific journals, and people who hadn't seen it couldn't believe it. Scientists said that this is a case of human misperception, that we're seeing patterns that don't exist, or that it's an optical illusion. How could the fireflies, which are not very intelligent creatures, manage to coordinate their flashings in such a spectacular and vast way?

The answer on how this can happen is swarm, or collective intelligence.

In the May 1, 2001, Harvard Business Review, Swarm Intelligence: A Whole New Way to Think about Business by Eric Bonabeau and Christopher Meyer talks about the following.

What do ants and bees have to do with business? A great deal, it turns out. Individually, social insects are only minimally intelligent, and their work together is largely self-organized and unsupervised. Yet collectively they're capable of finding highly efficient solutions to difficult problems and can adapt automatically to changing environments. Over the past 20 years, the authors and other researchers have developed rigorous mathematical models to describe this phenomenon, which has been dubbed "swarm intelligence," and they are now applying them to business. Their research has already helped several companies develop more efficient ways to schedule factory equipment, divide tasks among workers, organize people, and even plot strategy. Emulating the way ants find the shortest path to a new food supply, for example, has led researchers at Hewlett-Packard to develop software programs that can find the most efficient way to route phone traffic over a telecommunications network. Southwest Airlines has used a similar model to efficiently route cargo. To allocate labor, honeybees appear to follow one simple but powerful rule--they seem to specialize in a particular activity unless they perceive an important need to perform another function. Using that model, researchers at Northwestern University have devised a system for painting trucks that can automatically adapt to changing conditions. In the future, the authors speculate, a company might structure its entire business using the principles of swarm intelligence. The result, they believe, would be the ultimate self-organizing enterprise--one that could adapt quickly and instinctively to fast-changing markets.

Listen to NPR: How Ants Bury Their Dead by John Nielsen - All Things Considered, December 9, 2006, the weekly Science Out of the Box segment considers the well-ordered world of ants. Their knack for carefully stacking their dead has sent researchers scurrying to see if humans can learn lessons in efficiency from them.

Ants work together in large groups performing very complicated task with no one leader. They fight battles find food and stack their dead in intricate precise patterns; and re-stack them sorting them as they do so. This research is helping to build robots that have intelligence like ants, among many other very exciting projects.

At the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence they are bringing together faculty from across MIT to conduct research on how new communications technologies are changing the way people work together. They are collaborating with other educational institutions, organizations and individuals to better understand and find new ways to leverage collective intelligence.

Just a few of the factors that facilitate collective intelligence from MIT’s Handbook of Collective Intelligence.

•  Diversity
•  Shared vocabulary and other infrastructure
•  Awareness

Some of the factors that inhibit collective intelligence from MIT’s handbook.

•  Biases
•  Implementation issues

As you have read or listened, swarm or collective intelligence can be interactions between computer to computer, computer to people or people to people just to name a few of the possible interactions. I would like to focus our discussion on improving collective intelligence between people to people and people to computer.

Collective intelligence can facilitate increased productivity in community, global (multiple organizations and individuals) and corporate project, or program teams. Can aid if you do work in Diversity, looking to leverage all employees uniqueness’s effectively or work in Human Resources and you desire your highly skilled and valued workforce to be agile to allow your employees to use their talents when and where best needed at any particular moment. Explaining why it is essential to develop, maintain and procure accessible and usable applications with universal design following such standards as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and leveraging resources like the ones at Trace Research and Development Center and Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) special Interest Group on Accessible Computing to facilitate and allow all people to contribute equally and effectively. Such standards can leverage IT investments, save time, money and reduce duplication of efforts. It is best to leverage what nature has already perfected. People are just starting to understand and utilize techniques to improve outdated processes. Focus your efforts on actions that will facilitate collective intelligence and resolve any barriers which will inhibit your positive results!

If all people cannot equally participate fully with accessible and usable tools you are inhibiting collective intelligence. You need to create ways to facilitate collective intelligence so you can more easily find highly efficient solutions to your most difficult problems. Then you can adapt automatically to changing markets and environments with agility and grace. Make sure the disabled, or others with challenges can fully participate like all others efficiently. These individuals are your most valued path to your success in fully utilizing the benefits of collective intelligence.

Is anyone seeing results with swarm, or collective intelligence? Are you having implementation issues? What parts of your personal or professional life is this helping with? Do you see how it can help the disabled or others with special needs in their personal or professional life?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bill.tipton.39

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton