Accessibility Issues in the Digital Humanities - 18 views

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  #1 Christina Stokes on 03 Apr 14

   

  I really enjoyed Matt's presentation this week and it got me thinking about different types of accessibility issues in the digital humanities. In George Williams's article for this week "Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities" he discusses universal design as a framework for digital humanists to design tools that are accessible for a wider audience regardless of physical capabilities or intelligence. In his examples of Universal Design tools he mentions content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Drupal, Media Wiki etc. One of the issues of accessibility of these tools that he does not mention was discussed in the week where we looked at Google Earth. Jason Farman used the term digital empire to discuss how applications such as Google Earth are only accessible to certain users depending on their access to free internet access and their computer capabilities. Is it a shortcoming of Williams's article that he does not mention accessibility to internet or technology as a main issue in DH? A part of this argument was inspired through my own work of trying to use ImagePlot. Although my laptop is relatively new it did not have enough RAM to do a majority of the visualizations I would like with my data set. Has anyone else experienced this problem when trying new digital tools and do you agree that this issue deserves consideration?

   

  <div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">I really enjoyed Matt's presentation this week and it got me thinking about different types of accessibility issues in the digital humanities. In George Williams's article for this week "Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities" he discusses universal design as a framework for digital humanists to design tools that are accessible for a wider audience regardless of physical capabilities or intelligence. In his examples of Universal Design tools he mentions content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Drupal, Media Wiki etc. One of the issues of accessibility of these tools that he does not mention was discussed in the week where we looked at Google Earth. Jason Farman used the term digital empire to discuss how applications such as Google Earth are only accessible to certain users depending on their access to free internet access and their computer capabilities. Is it a shortcoming of Williams's article that he does not mention accessibility to internet or technology as a main issue in DH? A part of this argument was inspired through my own work of trying to use ImagePlot. Although my laptop is relatively new it did not have enough RAM to do a majority of the visualizations I would like with my data set. Has anyone else experienced this problem when trying new digital tools and do you agree that this issue deserves consideration?</div>

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  #2 Ridha Ben Rejeb on 04 Apr 14

   

  I had few challenges with some new digital tools, some of them were no longer under active development (Protovis) , and others were not necessarily user friendly. I often had to register to be able to use some tools and I must admit that if I did not have a list of user names and passwords handy for some tools , I would not be able to use them. Some of the tools were supported by specific browsers and programs limiting the privilege of access to specific clientele as if these tools were promoting certain browsers or program versions on the expense of others. However, the tool developers still insist that their tools are free and accessible.
  Accessibility to technology is in its infancy stage. The way out is that digital tool developers should congregate in an international digital accessibility summit similar in nature to Carleton Accessibility Summit http://www.carleton.ca/accessibilitysummit/ . The outcomes should emphasize certain guidelines to optimize public accessibility to digital tools for the sake of inclusiveness and collaboration.

   

  <div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">I had few challenges with some new digital tools, some of them were no longer under active development (Protovis) , and others were not necessarily user friendly. I often had to register to be able to use some tools and I must admit that if I did not have a list of user names and passwords handy for some tools , I would not be able to use them. Some of the tools were supported by specific browsers and programs limiting the privilege of access to specific clientele as if these tools were promoting certain browsers or program versions on the expense of others. However, the tool developers still insist that their tools are free and accessible. <br /> Accessibility to technology is in its infancy stage. The way out is that digital tool developers should congregate in an international digital accessibility summit similar in nature to Carleton Accessibility Summit <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.carleton.ca/accessibilitysummit/" target="_blank">http://www.carleton.ca/accessibilitysummit/</a> . The outcomes should emphasize certain guidelines to optimize public accessibility to digital tools for the sake of inclusiveness and collaboration.</div>

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  #3 Matt Bastin-Millar on 04 Apr 14

   

  Christina & Ridha - thanks for the comments. Christina, I'm inclined to agree that the lack of discussion re. internet access is a shortcoming to this entire conversation. There's arguably a global north/global south disparity regarding things like access to the internet - so any conversation about 'universal accessibility' regarding DH tools, at least the conversations we've been privy to, seem to by default exclude a considerable portion of the world's population. Perhaps this is demonstrative of socioeconomic/class issues being ignored/not considered in a broad conversation about DH. I'm really glad you brought this up - even a 'universally' accessible tool like Twitter is, in fact, contingent on things like permitted access (Turkey) or access to a device & the technical savvy to navigate the interface. I personally have had challenges using the tools we've learned about this term - early on, while working on one of the smaller projects, I encountered tools that were no longer maintained, as Ridha has noted; further to that, in working towards a final project, I've encountered tools that require a request for permissions to utilize the beta version, and so on - which led me to seek out other tools rather than submit this request.
  Thanks so much for bringing this up.

   

  <div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Christina & Ridha - thanks for the comments. Christina, I'm inclined to agree that the lack of discussion re. internet access is a shortcoming to this entire conversation. There's arguably a global north/global south disparity regarding things like access to the internet - so any conversation about 'universal accessibility' regarding DH tools, at least the conversations we've been privy to, seem to by default exclude a considerable portion of the world's population. Perhaps this is demonstrative of socioeconomic/class issues being ignored/not considered in a broad conversation about DH. I'm really glad you brought this up - even a 'universally' accessible tool like Twitter is, in fact, contingent on things like permitted access (Turkey) or access to a device & the technical savvy to navigate the interface. I personally have had challenges using the tools we've learned about this term - early on, while working on one of the smaller projects, I encountered tools that were no longer maintained, as Ridha has noted; further to that, in working towards a final project, I've encountered tools that require a request for permissions to utilize the beta version, and so on - which led me to seek out other tools rather than submit this request. <br /> Thanks so much for bringing this up.</div>

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