Nick FreearAccessibility, internationalization, web dev, Moodle and other stuff

Recently I attended the Accessibility London Mini-Conference.

It was an interesting day, with a new group of passionate people, a new venue for me. Some thoughts that I took away from it:

• The Game Accessibility Guidelines ("A straightforward reference for inclusive game design") presented by Ian Hamilton (linkedin) are an obvious read for anyone who develops games, whether for consoles, mobiles, on the Web and so on,
• Alison Smith from Pesky People (great name!) provided some valuable insights in her keynote, The Future is Deaf,
• In the closing session someone (I think one of the organizers) stated that they were disappointed by some of the language used by presenters - which seemed to show a lack of awareness of the "_social model of disability_". This led me to re-read some resources online, and reminded me that we developers can sometimes fall into the trap where accessible solutions are clever and satisfying -- for those with impairments they are a necessity -- never forget the individuals,
• My talk on the OU Media Player (slideshare) was well received. There were some useful questions on screen reader reading of captions, and WAI-ARIA live regions.

Thank you to Makayla Lewis and the team for putting on a great show.