(no subject)

[killing_rose]

 So. School's back in session, and we're going green. This isn't a bad thing. 

What my aching fingers are really pissed off by is the fact that--as part of this effort to go green (which is to say, "Save money, but save face")--our dining services have implemented a program where you pick up a reusable to-go container if you're taking your food and running. I picked up mine today and grabbed salad.

As I went to close the latch, my fingers couldn't do it. They don't have the strength. I had to basically trap the damn thing with my body and slam it. As was, it bounced off of my fingers, made my finger joints ache trying to close it, and nearly went flying. 

Can we say ow? Okay, so it just got opened, it hadn't been bent before, it'll fix itself. I am an optimist. I also had a major brain failure (that would be the pain, thanks!) . Because it came with the latch already closed. It hadn't been hard to open, but trust me, as I finished my lunch a few minutes ago, it was still terribly hard to close.

I foresee this being a massive problem. 

And no, we're not allowed to use our own damned tupperware. A couple years ago when I was too sick to do much more than live off their soups, I used to have to petition--every time--to get them to let me bring my own bowl to take to go. 

Entrance Fail

[gblvr]

I recently stayed overnight at the Hampton Inn in Alexandria, VA, and I ran into a case of accessibility fail.

The automatic front doors of the hotel are at the top of a small flight of stairs; there is a narrow ramp that goes to the side door, but doesn't lead onto the 'porch' area in front of the automatic doors. In order to enter the vestibule, one needs to be able to open a door that swings out, or to have someone hold the door for them, which leads to other problems, as the ramp isn't quite wide enough to fit a person side-by-side with a wheelchair.

While we were waiting to check-in, I overheard an older gentleman who was pushing his wife's wheelchair commenting on the poor set-up of the doors; when attempting to use a luggage cart, I discovered first hand just how difficult the set up was.

I'm sure this meets the letter of the law, but it certainly doesn't fulfill the spirit.

No wonder advertisers fail so much at accessibility

[codeman38]

This is absolutely brilliant:

Digital Agencies of the Future

For those who can't see the images, it's a bunch of screenshots of advertising agency sites as viewed in Mobile Safari with no available Flash plugin. Almost all of them, with very few exceptions, say something to the effect of "You must have Flash to view this site." Some of them didn't even change the basic boilerplate text in their Flash detection script. And some of them don't even try to detect it, and just show one big missing plugin icon.

(And it's not just mobile browsers where this is an issue. Flash is only accessible on Windows, when it's even accessible in the first place-- there's no screen reader support built into the plugin on Mac or Linux. And the sites look just as barren on my spare PowerPC Linux box, as Adobe simply does not make a plugin for that processor/OS combination.)