英國 Yahoo! 行的意外收穫

這一趟英國行的目的是 YDN（Yahoo! 開發者社群），由於去的角色以 Marketer / Architechter / Manager 居多，
導致幾乎沒有任何直接與技術相關的議題，有的話也比較偏重於 Overview。
對於技術導向的我來說是比較辛苦些的。

交到的好朋友

其實這次去的主要目的，與其說是教育訓練，不如說是把人脈打好，以後好辦事。
YDN 的人都很棒，但特別覺得以下的這些人很聊得來

• Franciso：加拿大 Architechter，居然很熟悉火狐的 Extension 該怎麼寫，替我上了一課、打下基礎，收穫很大。
• Stanley：香港的工程師，對於技術也很有熱情，跟我分享了不少東西。
• Jinho：韓國的 PHP 之父，是那邊的桃李滿天下的 Trainer，不停地在上課與寫書，是我仿效的對象。

Accessibility

另我自己都覺得意外、此行最多的收穫居然是在 Accessibility 上：

Script Enabled

Christian Heilmann 聊到他九月會辦一個 Accessibility 的 Hackday，叫做 Script Enabled。主旨如下：

Scripting Enabled is a conference and hack day in London, England in September 2008. The aim of the conference is to break down the barriers between disabled users and the social web as much as giving ethical hackers real world issues to solve. We talked about improving the accessibility of the web for a long time - let's not wait, let's make it happen.

希望將殘障人士與社交網站的障礙給確實打破掉！不是用嘴巴空講、而是真實地去發生、改變！

Again with the AJAX accessbility

Christian Heilmann 在會議中還有出去講一場 Accessibility 的課程，投影片如下：

Matt : Adobe 的 Accessibility

再來就是碰到了 Tom 的朋友 Matt，他是 Adobe 的 Accessibility 工程師
我也很驚訝其實 Flash 在很久之前就注重 Accessibility 了
在 Flash 中需要安裝 Accessibility 的套件、在 FLEX 是本來就有了
明年也會在日本有相關的 Presentation

Artur Ortega : 盲人軟體工程師

最後就是認識了 Artur Ortega，他是英國的軟體工程師
第一次看到他時很驚訝：「這個人桌上怎麼沒有螢幕？」，才知道原來他是個盲人

他很熱情地跟我介紹了他是如何操作電腦的，原來他大多時間是透過 Screen Reader
先了解整份文件的結構、有那些大標題（所以 h1 ~ h6 這樣的 Semantic Markup 對他是很重要的）
接著再瞭解列表中有幾個項目，最後才會開始閱讀。

我覺得能夠認識 Artur 真的很棒，因為過去 F2E 說要做有良心的 Accessibility
但是實際上我們並不知道這樣做能對那些使用者真的能帶來助益
使用者的需求是改進的最好動力啊
也希望 F2E 能夠一直朝這樣的目標前進。

Artur 傳給我的相關資源

真是不好意思，我剛剛要回信才發現 Artur 列出了一大堆資源給我，我再補在這邊囉：

• My hack for Yahoo! search（編者註：HTML 中的 lang 屬性對 Screen Reader 是很重要的，在 Y! 搜尋結果頁以加上去。）
• W3C - Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• The Four Principles of Accessibility
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) Overview
• Section 508
• Legal example: Court rules against Target on website accessibility lawsuit
• Examples how javascript can improve accessibility Chrisitian Heilmann's Sample
• Accessible Web 2.0 Applications with WAI-ARIA
• Flash & making Video Accessible
• QA - Accessibility evaluation framework
• Exampple of the (singing) speech synthesizer "Alex" of the new Mac OsX
• Speech synthesizer:
  1. Nuance - RealSpeak - Supported Languages
  2. AT&T Labs Text-to-Speech: Demo
• Who are our users? Some examples:
  1. Yahoo's LIVE Deaf Chat Room! for our deaf users
  2. flickr - Blind Photographers Blind Photographers is a group for blind and otherwise visually-impaired photographers. How does having a different visual experience affect our photography?
  3. flickr - Visually-impaired photographers UK : As the title states, this group is for British photographers who are vision impaired.
  4. Flickr for blind people using the new touchcolor system is a "group for color blind photographers to post their work and for anyone to join in on discussion of their work".
  5. flickr - Color-Blind Photographers : This is a group for color blind photographers to post their work and for anyone to join in on discussion of their work. Any photography is welcome, but obviously those in which color does (or would) play an important role will be the most engaging. (Please limit your posts to three per day.) Also, since color blindness comes in various intensities and varieties, it may be useful to post some information on what interests you about the photograph. Hopefully this group can serve as a destination for color-visioned and non-color-visioned alike to get new perspectives on their work!
  6. flickr - Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge : This photo challenge was inspired by a new book called, Seeing Beyond Sight: Photographs by Blind Teenagers (Chronicle Books 2007). San Francisco Photo Challenge (with progressively challenging photo assignments) on May 5, 2007. DETAILS to come. New York Photo Challenge (with progressively challenging photo assignments) on Sat. March 17, 2007 (2-5pm) in Brooklyn, New York. Share your images and stories at a gallery afterwords and exhibit at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco.
• Here are the basics of doing The Challenge... Challenge yourself to see the world differently - with more than your eyes. SIX SIMPLE STEPS:
  1. Blindfold yourself (or tape your eyes shut and wear shades)
  2. Go out in public and make your way in the world (go 1 block, 1 hour or 1 roll of film; go with a friend or alone)
  3. Photograph things you notice. And, just notice. (What do you notice differently about objects, people, actions, interactions?)
  4. Embrace the whole experience as much as the picture taking. (Engage. Have a conversation witih people you encounter. Take it all in.)
  5. Share your story (For each photograph write a caption about your experience - a few lines or several paragraphs if you want).
  6. Challenge some friends to do it (send them the link: www.flickr.com/groups/seeingbeyondsight/)

  Please don't post all the pictures from you shoot, but chose 1 to 3 that are the best images or are most telling of your experience. Caption the photos describing something about your experience - that is often as important as the image itself. You can also posts longer stories in the discussions and include images that aren't in the group pool.

  If you depend on your eyes to get around, then it is hard not to use them. Although you can tell us about how difficult it is to be blind, focus more on what you noticed about the world as you embarked on this journey. This experience isn't about blindness - it is about seeing, noticing and paying attention with more than your eyes.

  We avoided doing our own assignment - mustered a thousand excuses. Then, we did it, and it was as amazing as it was challenging.

  Take the plunge - we dare you.

  Jessica Longo & Tony Deifell

  "When you see, you'll find out." ~ Antonio, age 14, blind photographer in Seeing Beyond Sight