bad advice from a university

[jadelennox]

How to select adaptive technology as GIFTS for people.

Explain how the gift can help them pursue their leisure interests. "Help them recognize that they have a need for this technology," York said. [...] "They need to accept their limitations."

I am utterly appalled. Buying somebody adaptive tech as a gift is a nice idea, but it has to be part of a collaborative process. You can't surprise somebody with adaptive technology. You can work with the recipient to find out something they've been wanting, or you could show them some interesting adaptive technology and explain why you think they might like it.

Even at the lowest tier this is true. I have two bottle openers for screw caps: the one somebody bought me as the gift and the one that works with my hands. One of the things this article suggests is buying people "large-print playing cards, playing card holders, talking dice and/or dice with large labels." Which is a great idea! Except there are number of playing card holders on the market and several of them I know I can't use.

In other words, I reiterate, you cannot surprise people with gifts of adaptive technology. Ask us. Work with us.

Conference transit information fail

[codeman38]

Note to people who run conferences in general, and especially those which are directly related to disability: If people e-mail you asking for directions on how to get there via bus, and the conference center's site doesn't say anything in that regard? Don't just make stuff up. Please bother to actually do some research.

Yeah, I may be from another part of Georgia, sure, but even I know from past experience (when I was able to get a ride, that is) that MARTA buses absolutely do not go as far east as the Gwinnett Civic Center, despite what I was told by a conference organizer.


Of course, this would've been a lot easier to figure out the correct answer to if Gwinnett Transit's web site weren't a big heaping bag of accessibility fail. All the info is strictly in PDFs with no accessibility tagging whatsoever, and the system map distinguishes routes only by color... using only the colors that are most likely to be indistinguishable to a colorblind person (blue-purple, red-green-orange). And even the correct route map (#10, for the curious) doesn't clearly indicate whether the route actually goes to the civic center or just goes past it-- the center's shown on the map, but a good distance from the actual route, and it's not listed under "Points of Interest" at all.

In fact, the only way I found out that route 10 was the correct route was a random PDF I stumbled across, while searching information on transit routes to the Gwinnett Center, of a program for a completely unrelated conference!


Edit: And no, the Gwinnett Center's site says literally nothing about public transportation on its directions page. The only thing I could find was on the site for exhibitors--which just redirects people to the Gwinnett Transit site that I've discussed above.