Free Online Book on Accessibility & Design | Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

Welcome to Just Ask, a different kind of accessibility book

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
helps designers, developers, and managers
create websites, software, hardware, and consumer products that

  • are accessible to people with disabilities and older users,
  • provide a better user experience for all users, and
  • help organizations maximize the benefits of accessibility.

Please read the Introduction, which sets the stage for the book and gives examples of why it's so important to make your products accessible.

Brilliant Post from Rob Walker: Santorum's Tragic Sweater Vest: Design Observer

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Excerpt from a great post by Rob Walker:

"...What are the semiotics of this particular garment? Demetri Martin once joked that life vests protect you from drowning, bulletproof vests protect you from gunfire — and sweater vests protect you from pretty girls. The popular reading of Santorum’s vest, however, seems to be that it makes him identifiable: a regular guy, down to earth, approachable, a man of the people. The candidate himself offers a talismanic explanation for the style, noting that it was while wearing a sweater vest at an Iowa campaign event that he felt his electoral fortunes beginning to change.

Possibly all of that can be rolled into a reading of the sweater vest as signalling geeky charm, dulling Santorum’s extremely hard-edged rhetoric. As anyone who’s been watching the debates knows, he deploys sharp elbows to underscore his uncompromising views on a variety of social and political issues. And if he was known for much to the general public prior to this election, it was mostly for inflaming ideological opponents. To be blunt, he largely comes across as angry, and sort of a jerk. Given that his more liberal enemies paint him as narrow-minded hate monger, maybe a sweater vest de-fangs that image a bit, at least visually. How threatening, after all, can a man in a sweater vest really be?..."

read the full post here:

http://observersroom.designobserver.com/robwalker/post/santorums-tragic-sweat...

Great Resource from The Arrglington Jump - A Year in Showcases (Part 3)

The Los Angeles Ghost Patrol is a paranormal investigation team focused on Southern California hauntings. The project came into our radar thanks to project producer Susan Bell, who has come up with a great Prezi presentation to describe exactly the Transmedia stratergy for LAGP. Among the platforms developed for the project include the web, film, TV and an ARG.

The Rising is an organization made up of both ordinary people & genetically unique warriors known as Seers. The Rising is dedicated to the preservation and advancement of human society, and the destruction of the Wraiths. The Rising came into our radar by creators Philip Gable and Lauren Scime from Witchfactory Productions. The driving platform for the projects is the book, which is currently available for purchase here.

GATES is a young man living a wretched existence in an isolated colony of humans. Deep within the caverns of an industrial mountain complex, his society is ruled by a totalitarian government called the ConGenement–who controls all facets of life. Gates came into our radar by creator Hal Hefner. The driving platform for the project is the web comic, which as of recently just wrapped up the first year of publication. The comic is being presented by Heavy Metal Magazine.

See April's full list here (& Part 1 & 2):

http://thearrglingtonjump.com/blog/2012/01/26/a-year-in-showcases-part-3#

5 low-profile startups that could change the face of big data — Cloud Computing News

5 low-profile startups that could change the face of big data

Excerpt from gigaom.com. Full post here:

http://gigaom.com/cloud/5-low-profile-startups-that-could-change-the-face-of-...

Apple Buy Hollywood? That’s A Terrible Idea. Connect with Audiences? Do That. | TechCrunch

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Excerpt from the full TechCrunch group:

"Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and YouTube need to develop marketing chops, and ways to communicate with audiences on a deep visceral level. They all have a huge and powerful opportunity to move audiences — an intimate, activated, one-to-one relationship with a person sitting just an arms length away from their computer screen; or on their couch with a brand-new jury rigged gadget, invested, motivated and ready to get their socks knocked-off. Instead, users are greeted with a miasma of cover art, lists of titles in all shapes and sizes and a search box — no communication, no connection.

How can digital entertainment services connect with audiences? Three easy steps, and a bonus feature:

1. People. Tech companies need to hire people to shine a light on the best stuff, and craft the stories that sell it to audiences (at least for now, until computers catch-up and develop wit, emotion, creativity the ability to write with heart). Some people call this curation. Others packaging and promotion.

2. Design. They need to create interfaces to capture audiences and connect to users.
Living, breathing beautiful displays that make you watch, and want to click.

3. Tools. Tech companies should leverage what their platforms do best — target, track and account — to deliver those stories to interested audiences en masse...."

The Definitely Not Hacked By Stephen Colbert Super PAC (taken verbatim from the Colbert Super Pac email)

Colbert Super PAC

Dear Long Lost Super PAC Members, 

Shh...act normal, and read this quietly. It's me, Stephen Colbert. I have hacked into the Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC email mainframe by guessing Jon's password. It was "silverhairedandsexy7." So obvious. 

As you know, Jon Stewart has been holding this Super PAC hostage. I shudder to think how he's spending all of my beloved money. I bet he made the classic rookie mistake and went for the individually-wrapped caviar. 

Luckily, I have a plan to get my Super PAC back – and this one is bound to work better than my previous plan: leaving out a pile of Acme Jon Seed in the road and trying to drop an anvil on him. 

You see, I know something Jon doesn't. The Super PAC is too powerful for him. Like a wild stallion, it cannot be tamed. It wants to run free across the american electoral system. Jon Stewart will never break it – it will only break him. 

So please, donate a little more the the Super PAC. Give it power. It will flex its money-haunches, burst free from its paddock, and gallop back home to me. Then I will braid its mane and tell it my dreams. Metaphorically, of course. 

Yours truly, 

Stephen Colbert
President-In-Exile
The Super PAC Previously Known As The Colbert Super PAC 

 

World’s first transmedia sculpture walk makes its home in UC Davis | Davis Enterprise

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Our Sunday best: World’s first transmedia sculpture walk makes its home in Davis

Finley Fryer’s “Stan, the Submerging Man ” will be a “portal to another world” during the first-ever transmedia sculpture walk on Friday, Feb. 17. Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photo
Finley Fryer’s “Stan, the Submerging Man ” will be a “portal to another world” during the first-ever transmedia sculpture walk on Friday, Feb. 17. Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photo

Sorry, Mayor Bloomberg, but New York City won’t be the first city in the world to feature a transmedia walking tour through its busy streets. In a few short weeks, that honor will belong to Davis.

On Friday, Feb. 17, John Natsoulas, in collaboration with Monto H. Kumagai, a software developer, and Finley Fryer, a UC Davis graduate and local artist, will unveil the beginnings of a transmedia sculpture walk highlighting various pieces of artwork in key locations throughout downtown Davis.

The inaugural walk will take place at 4:30 p.m. that day, beginning at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First St.

Natsoulas said that besides “Stan, the Submerging Man,” which already is in place in front of the gallery, artwork is scheduled to be installed next week in front of the Davis Commons shopping center at First and E streets; at Dowling Properties at Third and D streets; at Davis Ace Housewares at Third and G streets; and in front of Ace Hardware in the 300 block of G Street.

“These are the first five that will be placed. We will place five more in the month of March,” Natsoulas said. “Our goal is to have at least 15 to 20 new sculptures up by the end of the year.”

read the full article here!:

http://www.davisenterprise.com/features/sunday-best/our-sunday-best-worlds-fi...

'Camera Solo': Singer Patti Smith's photographs on display - Interview on BBC News

'Camera Solo': Singer Patti Smith's photographs on display

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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Patti Smith, who became a significant influence on the punk rock scene with the release of her debut album Horses in 1975, is far more than a singer-songwriter.

She is also a poet, an artist, a mother and an author. Her recent memoir "Just Kids" won the National Book Award.