List of Assistive Technology User Surveys


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How do you pronounce the web?

Thank you to Irfan Ali and Janina Sajka for starting the Spoken Pronunciation Task Force in the W3C Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group. As an accessibility professional, amateur linguist, and person with a cognitive disability , I'm offering this blog post as a perspective and a starting point for discussion. What would happen if we use lexical markup in HTML for improving pronunciation in text to speech (TTS)? Lexical markup specifies the lexeme of a word or phrase, not its phonemes. Lexical markup can help language learners as a basis for more efficient translation. Lexical markup can help end users with cognitive disabilities through more accurate presentation of lexical synonyms (PDF) or conversion to simplified language . Existing W3C standards already offer lexical markup as a basis for pronunciation. In the Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS) and Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) , the role attribute and token element provide this capa...
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Cancelling my Planet Fitness membership was easy

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Sunday 5/18/2014: I went into my Planet Fitness in Richmond, California, and said I'd like to cancel my membership. The staff person said I could cancel there in person, but not at that moment, because it was 15 minutes before closing on a Sunday. (This location closes at 7:00 PM on a Sunday.) I asked him whether actually I need to send a certified letter, which I had heard was necessary. The staff person said yes that works too, but the easier way is to put it into the computer right there in the franchise. He said I'm already being billed for May; if I cancel by June 10 them I avoid the June 19 bill. Next day, Monday 5/19/2014: I successfully cancelled, 9:45 p.m. They have a standard process with a paper form which they then entered into the computer. It was so fast, I asked the guy if we were all done. He turned his computer screen around and showed me the word "Cancelled" on my record. I wouldn't expect every cancellation experience to go just as smoothly ...
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Reflections during Lent

When I was a kid, we sometimes went to the Unitarian church in Yakima. I don't remember it very much, but there was a church hall, and a sermon, and songs I think. It felt good to go and listen. I laugh now when I hear Garrison Keillor's caricature of Unitarians as vague and noncommittal. He's absolutely right, but I would say it another way. The Unitarians I know are highly committed: they are committed to questioning everything, committed to seeking. So that's me in a nutshell - one part of me. I attended York School , a private Episcopal high school in Monterey. I needed and appreciated the rich connectedness at York: connections between people, the tapestries of ideas. At the time if you asked me whether I believed in God, I would say that I always get a glimpse of God through music. This is where I became a singer. We held occasional services in the chapel, but there were no efforts to convert the diverse student body to any religion. Now when I look back, I realiz...
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