WIP #1: Where do I even begin?
Reminding myself that all roads lead to Rome, even if you're not particularly sure where Rome is
The topic of the first newsletter so far is eluding me, unless I do a rundown of everything I’ve learnt and am hoping to learn to learn so far. That, however, feels like a cop out.
The change in topic from just web development to all accessibility technology was inspired by a website I found that some Stanford students in 2005 did as a homework piece, called Accessible Technology in the 21st Century. The ‘First Wave’ timeline alone, with the claim that the first typewriter was invented to help Pellegrino Turri’s blind friend to write legibly1, shows how crucial disabled experience has been to the development of technology.
I’m very drawn to going to the very beginning of everything, and trying to build up a chronological account in that manner, but given the paucity of information about the aforementioned typewriter invention, and the difficult to impossible nature of choosing a “beginning” of accessible technology, I think I’ll just have to pick a place and begin.
Lots of interesting names have come up on the web accessibility side of things, through social media and through my Wikipedia trawling, so I’ll be sending out a bunch of emails soon, and replying to the introductions people have kindly made for me already.
I read a really great Tumblr post on braille use and education. It made me think it would be good to dive more into the interface between braille and the internet, and of course the cost/availability of these technologies for disabled people. I was pleased Wikipedia included cost and lack of availability of the internet under web accessibility, as it’s a big reason a lot of people can’t use the internet worldwide.
I’ve read a bit about the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) and W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and so far concluded there are too many acronyms! Also that there’s quite a lot about the what and how and not much about the why. I can believe that it was a priority for some non-disabled people early on to set up a more accessible internet, but what inspired them to? One of the few why’s I’ve seen so far is that Mike Paciello gave a presentation that Tim Berners-Lee saw, and subsequently mentioned web accessibility in a keynote speech.
I’ve also been really interested in reading about the dissent to WCAG 2.0! I still have a lot to read on that. I have always wondered how a document meant to help people decipher the rules and techniques to make something accessible has ended up so wordy and hard to follow. Hopefully I’ll find out!
These are my main discoveries so far and thank you so much for reading and subscribing; if you have any tips, thoughts or leads please send me an email or a DM!
The sources used by Wikipedia are pretty flimsy. There are alternative accounts, including one that says it was someone else’s blind sister that it was invented for and Turri simply improved the machine, but my point stands.
Thanks for beginning! I'm so excited to follow your newsletter.