Month: March 2006

This panel examined submitted URLs. The panelists were Giorgio Brajnik, Liz Danzico, Steve Guengerich, Bob Regan and Glenda Sims. They will dissect sites based on standards, accessibility and usability.

Bob defined accessibility as 1)conforming to standards, 2) interoperability with assistive technology, ways to resize the text, ways to support audio content, and 3) does it work for all types of disabilities? Giorgio said a web site is accessible if it allows the same success for people with disabilities as for people without disabilities. He distinguished between accessibility and usability.

The first site they tested was sxsw.com, a site we all know well. They used the LIFT online machine, which give you a great deal of information: they tested SXSW with a 508 standard and an automatic test and found that forms are in good shape, image maps are in good shape, a few image problems exist, but generally things are good. This tool tests a whole site, not just a page. Another tool is Web XM that can test for specific things.

They gave a mostly good report to the Texas Rollergirls. They looked at SuperViva where purpose is clear, but the text is too small. Some parts of the design were a little confusing.

Glenda told about the redesign of the UT website. The statistics for bandwidth from the tables layout to the CSS layout were reduced by over 500%. Bob described a Macromedia redesign that allowed immediate feedback from people having accessibility problems with the site.

Giorgio displayed the Target site as it looks to a text reader (completely unusable). Glenda put a practical testing plan on her blog at glendathegood.com.sxsw

This panel features Silona Bonewald, David Isenberg from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Donna Kidwell, Mark Strama from the Texas House of Representatives and Christie Goodman a Texas statehouse legislative staffer. I’m interested in the topic, but I came because my old Her Domain pals from Austin, Silona and Donna, are on the panel.

I’m not going to say much about this one, because I couldn’t quite figure out what it is they were trying to do.

P.S. I’m adding this link days after the orginal post. The site is League of Technical Voters. If you check the comments for this post, you’ll see my suggestion that they need a different tagline. Here’s one idea for a tagline: To Inform and Influence Public Policy.

sxsw

So far today I’ve gotten to meet and hug Dori Smith and Stephanie Sullivan. I also sat next to Jan Kabili and Eric Meyer during a booksigning session at the SXSW bookstore.

The panel I was on “Whose Butt Should We Be Kicking” went well and we’ve had lots of nice feedback. Maybe my nervous system will settle down enough so that I can get some sleep tonight now that it’s over.

One of the things I had prepared that we didn’t get time to discuss was a list of books that I had researched. One point I wanted to make is that there are many more male authors writing, but the number of books by women is at about a 60% to 40% ratio male to female. This puts women in a pretty visible position in the tech book field. This survey is not accurate, and could be poked full of holes, but its a rough look at who is visible as an authority in the web design field. Here’s a link to the notes for the SXSW panel with the book list. You can see a photo of some of these folks at Flickr.

Technorati Tags: blogher, sxsw

This panel features Ronni Bennett and Lori Bitter. I’m not going to be able to stay for the entire hour, but I can’t stand to miss hearing at least some of it.

Lori is with an ad agency that targets users over 40. Ronni is “the premier elderblogger” in the country. They want to talk about why the mature market space is good business, why it’s good for elders, and what needs to change about products and services for the market to be better served.

Lori show some demographics about the baby boom and how the age wave has moved through the decades. By 2020 the number of elders will increase by 74%, and 20% of the population will be elders. There’s nothing in place to cope with this at the current time. The rise of the 50+ woman is a phenomenon and economic force. Because people live longer, families will include more generations, with most of the family members being in the elder category and not enough younger generations to care for the elders.

Ronni’s blog is timegoesby: what’s it’s really like to get older. Her research on aging showed that things declined, so she decided to do her own research. She thinks blogging will redefine what out ideas of aging are. “At 60 if you are unsung, sing, if you are unflung, fling.” That’s what blogging’s about.

Her blogroll is entirely people over 50. A new one is just turning 84. When people retire they lose their social network. The world gets smaller and smaller but blogging and other internet activities helps reduce this. Blogs promote critical and anyalytical thinking and for increasing exposure to information. They provide social interaction.

Elder bloggers often cite the friendships they form from the activity. Keeping their minds engaged makes them healthier and sharper, in spite of their health problems. She wants to get a computer into elder’s home to monitor health she thinks it would save office visits and money. Computers need to be easier to use for elders.

I had to miss the last half of their session.

Technorati Tags: blogher

The first panel I was in time to attend in full today was this one. It featured Tiffany B. Brown, Melinda Casino, Barb Dybwad, and Lisa Stone.

Many of the originial comments from the panelists got lost in the shuffle of the SXSW wireless not working and my computer hanging because it did the “sit and spin” thing when the SXSW wireless connection failed. So I’m sorry that I cannot reproduce the initial comments of the panelists.

There were lots of conversations from the audience. There was discussion of private groups focused on a certain area. If people are interested in that focus are invited to come and participate. It’s self selecting.

Most said they are in organizations where they are interested in speaking to the mainstream. Lisa asked, “Why, when, and how do we open up to the mainstream and how do you make people feel welcome to participate.” There were several comments on this. Barb said when a group has a set of goals that they want to accomplish is a good time to open it up to the larger community.

A converstation about anger began. In public blogging Tiffany said she tries to avoid anger and maintain a level of civil discourse. Anger represents a loss of credibility to her.

Melinda defended anger saying it’s led to more action in the feminist movement than any other emotion. She mentioned the feminist rage page whose motto is equality never looked so pissed. Supportive communities lead to activist communities.

One audience member said that angry disagreement might be the only way to break a frame built on politeness and civility. Context matters in how people behave in online communities where people come together around one issue, but that those same people in a discussion in another context might not agree at all.

Lisa’s last question is about turning the tables so that they were asked to pick a person in the mainstream that they would like to get to know. Melinda said she didn’t like the question because it smacked of kissing up. Barb was willing to name skobel. Tiffany named dave winer and a black consersavative woman’s blog, the name of which I missed.

If I have this much trouble tomorrow with the SXSW wireless connection in that room (the same room my panel is in) I may give up on trying to blog during the event.

Photos on Flickr. My shot of Lisa is out of focus, so I’ll try again tomorrow to get a photo of her.

Technorati Tags: blogher, sxsw

I’ll be off to SXSW soon. I’ll be blogging about what I see and do here, and posting photos at Flickr.