[Music]
Dan: Hi I’m Dan Comden.
I’m manager of the Access Technology Center.
And in this space in the basement of Mary Gates Hall,
we provide consulting services for accessible design
of web pages and online applications.
We also do accommodations for students, faculty and staff
who have disabilities who need some help using computing technology.
One of the biggest parts of our job right now is
working with developers of webpages and online applications
to make sure that those offerings are as accessible as possible.
Hadi: My name is Hadi Rangin
and I'm a member of IT Accessibility Team at the University of Washington.
My primary responsibility is to work with on-campus developers
as well as vendors making sure that their products are more accessible and usable
to everyone including those with disabilities.
Gaby: My name is Gaby de Jongh and I'm an IT accessibility specialist for ATC
and my primary responsibility is to ensure the accessibility
of all electronic documents at all the three campuses,
so UW Seattle, UW Tacoma, and UW Bothell.
Doug: My name is Doug Hayman.
I work at the University of Washington in the Accessible Technology Services group
and my function here in this group is working around captioning efforts,
getting groups on campus to be thoughtful about that sort of access mode
and how they can make their videos more accessible.
[Music]
Dan: Here in the Access Technology Center we’ve got a wide array
of alternate keyboards and mice.
We have accessible furniture so that faculty and staff
who want to try different seating arrangements can test drive chairs.
For folks who have repetitive stress issues we have a wide variety of different
mouse alternates and keyboard alternates.
Here we’ve got a trackball.
Here we’ve got something called a roller mouse.
This is a mouse alternate attached to this Mac right here.
We’ve got adjustable height tables.
[Sound of desk going up]
Dan: So speech input is really useful for people who have a difficult time
using their hands, either due to a spinal cord injury,
maybe due to a temporary disability like a broken hand or a broken arm.
It can really make a difference in being able
to stay productive and create text and documents.
Dan dictating: This is a demonstration of speech input. Period.
As you can see, comma, I must speak all punctuation.
Dash.
It takes a little getting used to. Period.
Any questions? Question mark.
Select all.
Read that.
<v Computer reads it back: This is a demonstration of speech input.
As you can see, I must speak all punctuation –
it takes a little getting used to.
Any questions?
Dan: We have a flatbed scanner that has a nice high edge
that lets you scan bound material and then convert it into
the electronic format of their choice
[scanner starts]
so we can make accessible Word files or accessible PDF files,
whatever the student prefers.
They can then take that file, put it on a thumb drive,
or save it to the cloud and have access to it wherever they need it.
And in our Center here we provide all the Braille services for campus.
That includes academic materials for students as well as any other requested materials
for the public that are visiting for events or faculty or staff.
The process is relatively simple.
We start with an accessible Microsoft Word file.
Now, this Word file may have been created through our scanning process
or it may be content that was developed by faculty.
So we start with this file and
this is what it looks like in Microsoft Word
and we open it in our Braille translation software.
So it looks like standard text.
This software will convert to Braille format with just one keystroke.
So we see the simulated Braille on screen
that we can then send to our embosser over here in the corner.
[Loud clicking of Braille embosser]
Gaby: Next time you're at Mary Gates Hall
we would love it if you would come visit us
at the Access Technology Center.