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

Tony Hirst has just blogged about the Office for Disability Issues new accessible media player AKA the "Most Accessible Media Player on the Web". Both he and Will Woods have alluded to work that The Open University is undertaking. I thought I'd fill in the gaps.

The OU is at the start of a 6 month development to create a multimedia player that (we hope):

1. Will be an "attractive" player that the average designer/ blogger would be happy to use on their site.
2. Can be used in a variety of contexts - our Moodle-based virtual learning environment, OpenLearn, OU-Drupal sites, blogs, Cloudworks...
3. Will deliver content mostly from the OU podcast site in the contexts mentioned above.
4. Will be accessible to users with disabilities - both in terms of control, and display of alternatives like transcripts and captions.
5. Usable on a variety of devices, including mobiles and tablets.
6. Will be delivered in a maintainable way.

The first ever online conference about the Moodle open source, e-learning software is taking place in February.

And I'm happy to be presenting Enabling accessible multimedia for Moodle.

Location

An IET technology coffee morning talk by Wendy Porch and me, on the MALT Wiki project.

ABSTRACT: The generally low incidence of captioning for the deaf and audio description for those with sight impairments on the web is in stark contrast to the progress made in basic web accessibility. The captioning function offered by YouTube is a step in the right direction, though there are clear problems. Audio description is in a worse state.

Wendy Porch and I presented an evaluation version of the new MALT Wiki player at Techshare, in September. Since then I've been busy with other projects, but I've now had time to produce a mockup demonstrating personalization options and how I hope to get people to contribute. This is based on my own thoughts and some interesting points raised by people including Jonathan Hassell during our presentation.

The screenshot below shows the player with a panel below starting "About Learn about Moodle". The player works, while the meta-data and personalization panel is mostly just a mockup. This panel would be hidden initially, with a "show/hide" button. And the thinking is that the panel would always be available, including when a video is embedded in a third-party site like a blog, a virtual learning environment or video sites like YouTube.

MALT Wiki player, with mockup meta-data and personalization panel

Location

The Royal National Institute of Blind People's annual web and technology accessibility conference and exhibition is coming up next month. This conference embraces everyone and all topics, not just those with visual impairments.