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Caption: Presenter Rhea Guntalalib sits in a chair while holding a smartphone.

Register for "How I Use My Phone with a Screen Reader" Webinar

This webinar will cover how a person who is blind does the following:

• Unlock the phone

• Navigate the home screen

• Read, write, and send emails

• Make a call

• Send a text message

• Use the Safari web browser

All Equal Entry webinars are pre-approved for IAAP Continuing Accessibility Education Credits.

Presenter: Rhea Guntalalib   - Equal Entry

A totally blind IT Specialist with expertise in Digital Accessibility and Inclusion, Rhea is a content writer, educator, and public speaker. She is also actively participating as a speaker at different events. She conducts ICT-related talks, particularly on the topic of digital accessibility and Inclusive Design. She became a speaker at events like The Philippine Youth Congress for Information Technology (Y4IT), International Usability Congress (Ux Ph), and facilitated a Web Accessibility workshop for the Japan Braille Library in Malaysia.

Date: 60-minute presentation-Tuesday, December 8 at 7 pm Eastern / 4 pm Pacific.

Even if you can't attend, sign up to receive the recording.

Registration:

By registering, you submit your information to the webinar organizer, who will use it to communicate with you regarding this event and their other services.

Register today.

Caption: Headshot of Accessibility Activist Meryl Evans with the quote, "The No. 1 rule to great captions is readability. If you can't read the captions, none of the other rules matter."

Our October Accessibility Activist was Meryl Evans, Digital Marketing pro, author and expert on captioning. Born hearing-free, Meryl has observed the many shortcomings of poor captioning while herself curating a trove of best practices and technological advances. Read more about Meryl's unique perspective and her 10 Rules of Great Captions in our Q&A

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Caption: Roland Dubois and Thomas Logan look at the camera with puzzled expressions as they ponder WebXR.

Roland Dubois and Equal Entry CEO Thomas Logan recently started weekly meetings where they are working collaboratively to investigate and advance the state of accessibility in Web XR experiences.

The question they seek to answer: How many of the well-established and heavily used accessibility features on web-browsers can be translated into the immersive web ecosystem?

They have begun their project focusing on Roland's aframe-gui  component, a graphical user interface (GUI) component library for A-Frame. They applied the Accessible Rich Internet Application API to his GUI component library with the goal of exploring how current assistive technologies respond and perform on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. They will start a dialogue with the primary manufacturers (Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple) to understand what can be done to ensure better access to XR for people with disabilities. Learn more about their process and follow their journey towards understanding in the blog post Does WAI-ARIA even work with WebXR?

Caption: Screenshot of Gmail Basic HTML interface with email pulled up that only contains a hyperlink as the first piece of content in the body of the message.

In this day and age when technology is at its peak, communication and information dissemination are vital in our highly digital world. One of the strongest and most effective platforms we have for communication is electronic mail. But what happens when such an important and powerful tool for communication turns out to be inaccessible? Equal Entry Contributor Rhea Guntalilab breaks it down in the blog post How Gmail Falls Just Short of Being Accessible.

Caption: Composite split image of the A11yNYC logo and Meetup Presenter Marcy Sutton

On October 6, 2020, Accessibility New York City hosted a meetup entitled "5 Things I Learned from the Accessibility Community." Presenter Marcy Sutton, freelance web developer, accessibility specialist and founding member of the Accessibility Seattle Foundation, offered her unique perspective and professional experience surrounding the realities of working in the field of inclusive design. She shared 5 key lessons learned over a diverse career in accessibility and digital inclusion. Slides from this presentation can be found here .

Here are some of our highlights from the presentation:

• Disability and accessibility communities are not always the same 

• Laws and guidelines 

• Working in Accessibility or the Mainstream 

• Testing often for user impact 

• Accessible doesn't mean boring

Upcoming Online Events and Meetups

Accessibility VR

• December 10, 2020: Why 97.81% of the World Hasn''t Tried VR Yet

Website: www.equalentry.com

Visit us:  Blog | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube

Caption: Presenter Meryl Evans smiles while standing beside a vintage artistic map of Fort Worth, Texas.

Register for "Through the Eyes of a Deaf Person" Webinar

Meryl's first encounter with captions came in 1983 when she received a closed-caption decoder. Because she depends on captions to follow the video, she has seen the best and worst of captions. Fast forward decades later, Meryl's digital marketing career has come in handy in educating people about captioning video calls , the benefits of captioning videos , and captioning videos well. 

This webinar will cover the following:

• A Brief Overview of Being Deaf

• Technology for the Deaf / HoH

• Happy and Crappy Captioning: The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Captioning Videos

In this webinar, Meryl will walk through a variety of examples and share stories. And she'll open the door for questions. Anything goes! 

Presenter: Meryl K. Evans 

Born hearing-free aka profoundly deaf, Meryl grew up in the hearing world. A digital marketer by trade, Meryl is also an author, writer, and speaker. She has spoken at Knowbility AccessU, WordPress Accessibility Day, WordCamp, and sxsw. 

Date: Thursday, October 29 at 2pm Eastern / 11am Pacific.

Registration: By registering, you submit your information to the webinar organizer, who will use it to communicate with you regarding this event and their other services.

Zoom Registration

Caption: Headshot of Accessibility Activist Sarah Pulis with the quote, "Being socially responsible is being part of the solution. It is being an accessibility ally and amplifying the voices of those who experience exclusion every day. It is an action."

Our September Accessibility Activist was Sarah Pulis, digital accessibility and inclusive design expert and co-founder of Intopia. With more than ten years of experience in accessibility, Sarah has harnessed her passion for accessible technology along with her commitment to social responsibility to co-found what is now the largest digital accessibility consultancy in Australia and New Zealand. Learn more about her amazing work in our Q&A.

Caption: Screenshot of Gmail Basic HTML interface with email pulled up that only contains a hyperlink as the first piece of content in the body of the message.

In this day and age when technology is at its peak, communication and information dissemination are vital in our highly digital world. One of the strongest and most effective platforms we have for communication is electronic mail. But what happens when such an important and powerful tool for communication turns out to be inaccessible? Equal Entry Contributor Rhea Guntalilab breaks it down in the blog post How Gmail Falls Just Short of Being Accessible.

• October 22, 2020: Designing Augmented Reality Systems to Empower People with Low Vision

Website: www.equalentry.com

Visit us:  Blog | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube

Caption: Image of Mariella Paulino with the quote, "I want to help every person with a hearing disability find, advocate, and create tools that allow for the full inclusion of people with hearing disabilities into our society."--Mariella Paulino, Accessibility Activist

Our June Accessibility Activist was Mariella Paulino, software developer, designer and Founder of Project Hearing. As a Deaf technologist, Mariella is committed to creating systems and tools that center on helping people interact better with the world around them. Learn more about her activism and professional projects in our Q&A.

Caption: Graphic with the Be My Eyes logo above the slogan "See the world together" next to a picture of a right hand holding a smartphone with a message on the screen that reads "Call first available volunteer."

"See the world together" is the tagline for the unique, philanthropic mobile application "Be My Eyes." As defined on their website, this is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers and company representatives for visual assistance via live video. In the blog post Seeing the World, Together with Be My Eyes, Equal Entry contributor Rhea Althea Guntalilib reviews the app and rates its accessibility features.

Caption: Screenshot showing three interaction styles of VR gaze, controller, and hand.

On May 21, 2020, Accessibility VR hosted a Meetup entitled VR Interactions - A Comparison Between Gaze, Controller and Hand. Presenter Sam Qorbani, a digital media designer experienced in UX research and design, described some of his research on various types of interactions to be used with Virtual/Augmented reality.

Here are some of our highlights from the presentation:

• Three Types of Interaction in Immersive VR 

• The Inspiration for the Research 

• Understanding Cyber Sickness in VR 

• Video Demonstration of Researching Interaction Styles 

• July 2, 2020: Improving Mobility by Assisting Cognition: A Case Study

• July 17, 2020: From Hack to Product Feature - How to Leverage R&D at Work Through Hackathons

• July 14, 2020: Using Task-Oriented Walk Throughs for Accessibility Reviews

Website: www.equalentry.com

Visit us:  Blog | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube