Enabling Technology

ShaneNotes

Kirstin’s notes on Shane Ditmar’s talk.

“Where are the computer scientists? I think I want to be one.”

  • Shane’s Background:
    • 12 years old
    • 6th grader (though 7/8 math level)
    • Attends Governor Morehead School
    • Has loved computers since pre-school
    • From Raleigh, NC
    • Father, Kirk, accompanied him
    • Twin brother Darrick has same condition
    • Both are extremely gifted
  • Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis:
    • Retina damage from birth
    • Not contagious
    • Wasn’t obvious that Shane suffered from at first
    • Recessive genetic trait
    • Not sure where in family it came from
  • What Shane sees:
    • Lights
    • Computer Screen – basic locations
    • Some colors (partially colorblind)
    • High contrast / “vibrant colors”
  • Shane’s fun activities:
    • Playing outside (hitting others with bats ;) )
    • Computer games
    • Video games (X-box)
    • Talking
    • Eating
    • Treadmill
    • Stationary Bike
    • Trampoline with net surrounding it
  • Schoolbooks:
    • Takes an extremely long time to get Braille versions
    • Occupy large amounts of space
      • Social Studies book occupies two boxes
    • Daisy Digital Talking Textbooks
      • Making audio textbooks available
      • Human voice with emotion and feeling
      • Shane prefers
  • JAWS
    • Screen Reader
    • Developed by Freedom Scientific
      • Many blind programmers with this company
      • “Dog Fooding”
    • $800 / copy
    • Friends say it’s an “annoying” voice
    • Yields a higher pitch on a capital letter
    • For spellchecking, there is an auto-correction setup
  • Programming with JAWS
    • Variables with multiple cases can be confusing
      • read the same by JAWS
      • Shane uses capital at beginning only
      • IDE with variable confirmation would be nice
    • Shane finds pyShell agreeable
    • He mostly programs in Notepad and uses the command prompt to execute
      • JAWS won’t read the command prompt window
      • Shane copies errors into Word to make JAWS read them
  • Shane’s Programming Interests:
    • Not GUIs
      • Can’t use them
    • Games
      • Uses Drag-and-Drop Game Maker
    • IM client
    • Reading help files to learn all he can
  • Shane’s Technology:
    • Uses a laptop from the school
      • 5 years old, but looks like new
    • Runs Windows 2000
    • Uses JAWS 4.5
  • Some Web Accessibility:
    • Title tag is read by JAWS
    • Can navigate to form fields
    • Can skip navigation sections
    • Mozilla doesn’t work with JAWS 4.5
    • Text scrollable off screen isn’t read by screen reader
    • An ideal solution would be a separate visually impaired web, right?
      • Separate but EQUAL doesn’t work
    • Tables are extremely inaccessible
  • Why Make a Website Accessible:
    • Google searches will hit it
      • Google search engine is like a “blind person”
  • IM Clients:
    • GAIM is not accessible
    • AIM is somewhat accessible
      • Purposely change client with each new version
      • Not know which window contains new message
  • G-Mail
    • Auto-refresh puts JAWS back at top of page
    • Basic html format for accessibility with screen readers
    • No chat feature available
  • Shane’s Aspirations:
    • Computer Science/ Business double major
    • Wants to make it big in computer industry