Here is one for "Web presence designers" - Designing for the colour-blind can be troublesome for designers who aren’t actually colour-blind. How do we take into account accessibility when we do not suffer from the condition in hand?Luckily, there’s a handful of accessibility “simulators” available on the web where a web page is rendered in a certain way. The Colour-blind Web Page Filter takes your website and filters it as if you were colour-blind.The tool is still in development and can take some time for a render to become available for viewing. However, the range of colour filters available is fairly extensive, covering all major types of colour-blindness.Visit http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ to access the Web Page Filters.

Vischeck colour blindness simulator...Vischeck is a way of showing you what things look like to someone who is colour blind. You can try Vischeck online- either run Vischeck on your own image files or run Vischeck on a web page. You can also download programs to let you run it on your own computer.Daltonize corrects images for colour-blind viewers.Visit http://www.vischeck.com/ to raise your awareness.

Alistair McNaught's blog entry explains it all; Ofqual has launched an open consultation on language accessibility in... national curriculum assessment tests; and general and vocational qualifications. Your views are sought on two topics through a questionnaire: Deadline 15th September 2011. Find out more from Alistair's Blog at http://blog.jisctechdis.ac.uk/?p=608, and follow the links to make your contribution.

Providing a transcript – a textual version of a video and/or audio – increases accessibility of the content. Practitioners and/or learners who are deaf-blind can access the content by using a refreshable (dynamic) Braille display, which converts text into Braille. Providing transcripts also has other benefits: The text is then searchable by search engines. People can double-check a point without listening to the audio/video again. Some people prefer reading rather than watching a video; others prefer both. Content is still available when the video is not; for example, currently Flash video can not be viewed on a iPad. How do you acquire a transcript? the easy one is the original script, used in the video/audio production; the transcripts for most of my blogcasts, vidcasts and radio shows are in my blog as posts. the time consuming one is transcribing each word yourself; use Dragon Naturally Speaking (quite expensive software), or similar software, to create transcripts; additional software may be needed to get the audio from video clips (Oxelon for example) and to convert the audio into appropriate format;(Audacity for example) e.g. Dragon Naturally Speaking works better with mono .wav files. Note: this method tends to work better when only one person is talking. Use fast, affordable, transcription services; two examples are... Visit http://castingwords.com/ to find out more; Visit http://speakertext.com/ to find out more. Note: there are other similar Transcription tools. Do you use any other tools or methods for creating transcripts? If so do let me know at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Photosynth is a great, free application that makes it easy to create interactive and immersive panoramic images. There are 2 versions of photosynth that I have been looking at recently which do slightly different things; Photosynth for iPhone. Once you have installed this free app, you can use it to take a 360 degree panoramic [...]

The very popular digital media discussion service VoiceThread has launched a new accessibility option called VoiceThread Universal. VoiceThread Universal... is designed for those who use screen-readers to access online media. removes extraneous visual and text elements; concentrates on providing clear and concise information; makes it possible for more learners and more practitioners to participate in online conversations about media. Note: VoiceThread is popular with educators because it allows learners to have conversations about media and it allows practitioners to deliver virtual instruction. Visit VoiceThread Universal at http://voicethread.com/universal/ where, if you have an account, you can sign in to VoiceThreads (and/or sign up for an account). To get started: Select Go to My Threads; choose a category to bring up a list of VoiceThreads, or choose "In my Groups" or "In my Organizations" to bring up shared VoiceThreads. Note: You can always go back to the previous page at the bottom of the screen. Once a list is selected, choose a VoiceThread to participate in. From the Thread overview... start playing the VoiceThread from the beginning, or select a page of the VoiceThread to jump to. When you’ve finished listening to comments, users can... select the "Add a new text comment", go to the Next slide, or return to the Thread overview. VoiceThread Universal allows users to start or stop any comment or video by... using their keyboard (when assisted access is enabled) or clicking a mouse anywhere when the listed item space. You can also rewind or fast forward comment by pressing anywhere within the media. VoiceThread Universal provides a navigation system to return to the previous page or go back to the home page at the bottom of every page. When you are viewing a thread you can choose to go to the previous page, next page, or to the thread overview at the top of each page.