Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Trending today in the Ouch! office (as it were):

• Disability hate crime doc, Why Do You Hate Me, was last night's Panorama. Watch it on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iPlayer.

• Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One's Inside Out East Midlands, where Ray Gosling contemplates mortality and speaks about assisting his lover to die. You can't fail to miss this on the news.

• New language: All the cool kids are shortening the word 'accessibility' to a11y online - where 11 is the number of letters cut out. Tag computer access tweets with .

• Tonight at 9.30 PM, Radio 4's Taking A Stand discusses the stigma attached to having bipolar disorder. Available afterwards to listen to here.

Here are a couple of blogs which landed in our inbox recently and we thought worthy of mentioning.

. Late 20-something female blogger who can't see so well and can't hear so well ... if you're leaping up and down and shouting "Oooh that could be Usher Syndrome" then you're right on this occasion. That's what she's got and it's what she's seemingly attempting to demystify with her personable 'chick blogging'. the latest post is about how she accidentally gave her lover a nosebleed in bed. And yes, there's a disability angle here else I wouldn't mention it now, would I. It's a very new blog so bookmark it to see if she's got more up her sleeve.

Another recently created blog: You can probably guess at the subject matter of . Mid 30s 'tetraplegic motherhood' laid bare by the anonymous mum of baby Amelie in Manchester. Independence, bathing, personal assistants and an engaging wit from the blogger who lists her interests as: "Getting a full night's sleep and retrieving any leftover remnants of former self."

Do tell us if you read any disability related blogs that are worthy of a mention.

Firecracker Films are currently looking for blind and visually impaired people in the UK to get involved in a documentary they are making for the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ about young people entering adulthood.
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They are searching for people who are 15 to 25 years old, highly independent and outgoing, with an active social life. You should be keen to challenge stereotypes and they will want to know whetehr you are in a relationship, looking for love, or just about to start dating.

If this sounds of interest to you or you know someone who might like to find out more contact Paula at

Gosh. An awful lot of suggestions came through to us about what to call the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's new accessibility tool that I blogged about last week. We had dozens of responses on the Ouch! blog, via and elsewhere.

So. Where have we got with this? I attended a meeting yesterday lunchtime and we had a list of suggestions plus your answers on this blog were being displayed live on a laptop screen. Thank you for helping inform the meeting, a great deal of the discussion was led by your messages to us.

Considerations, considerations: As someone cleverly pointed out here, it's not all about 'seeing' or display options because the new tool will also address some other kinds of accessibility issues for people who can't see a screen, for instance. And then branding and marketability were considered. And we mustn't forget that a link to these accessibility options will appear on every single Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ page so it has to be a bit Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ-ish. But also it will benefit more people if we get a good catchy name that people are interested in using, rather than wanting to avoid.

I should perhaps say a bit more about that: The usability and accessibility team here know that an awful lot of disabled peple don't like 'special' disability/accessibility words because they feel it ghettoizes them. Research has shown this. We all know and recognise this in many people. So how do we attract everyone who could benefit in this diverse community? I think it's perhaps worth noting that there are disabled people and solid stakeholders and people with a great deal of experience of accessibility in this group and lots of deep deep thought has gone into the product and its naming. Though Trevor was a remarkably popular choice for a short while back there ... thanks Chris Page for that suggestion.

The product - formerly known as the Accessibility Tool Kit - needs to break through the disability barrier (I just made that term up, I hope it works) to help as many people as we can to help themselves to a better web; it's so important and at the heart of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ and government campaigning presently.

So. C'mon. What will the name be?

Unfortunately, there was no firm decision at the end of the meeting yesterday lunchtime but I can tell you that when we left the room we did have a Top 3. The number one choice had a great deal of support ... though I think it's fair to say that there was an underlying feeling that this choice may not make it through the next part of the thought and marketing process. But who knows.

I can't reveal a lot more about it at this point and, actually, I've probably come to the end of my brief journey alongside the project as a name is close to being chosen. So great that Ouch! users could be involved. I'm sure there will be more discussion about it on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ blogs soon and doubtless you'll hear from the usability and accessibility team themselves at some stage. we'll link to any discussion about it, and tweet it too. And perhaps ultimately you can help spread the word about the new tool when it goes live. I think we all have the same goal.

I particularly like the fact that there is a plan to share the technology in the future with other websites and platforms (mobile, set-top boxes, etc) ... so many people stand to benefit if the buzz is loud enough.

The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ are about to launch a whizzy new accessibility tool across the whole of its website. It'll make bbc.co.uk easier to read and navigate. You'll be able to 'have it your way' as a big burger chain used to say.

But the big question is ... what would you call it? The word 'accessibility' doesn't work well for everyone and it even puts some people off. We need something snappy and immediately understandable so that as many people as possible get it straight away. We also have to be careful not to use a name which might put people off ever using it.

We'd love to hear your ideas: us, email us or leave comments below. We'll be reading them all.

Let me tell you a bit more about the new accessibility tool ...

Much of the Ouch website already has a control panel at the top of the page that enables you to change colours and font size to make it as easy to read as possible. But this new control panel will be rolled out across the entire Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ website - from messageboards to news and iPlayer so you can personalise everything. The guys in the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Usability & Accessibility Team have been working hard on this for a while now, testing it vigorously with all 'flavours' of disabled people.

The Ouch! team had a quick demo of the prototype tool today and it looks great. It lets you set preferences for text size, spacing, font, foreground, background and link colours. It can convert multiple-column pages into one single column. And it uses preset themes to allow you to do personalisations like this with the minimum of mouse clicks.

Version one of the accessibility tool will be rolled out soon. It concentrates on the look and feel of the site. In the future they are hoping to extend it to speak Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ pages, give an optimised experience for those who don't use a mouse and it will allow you to take your preferences and use them on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ mobile site too.

It looks like its going to help a lot of users - especially those with Lo-vision, Asperger's, Dyslexia, ADHD, or those who find text hard to read - when it launches in the next few months.

So. What should we call it? Its current working title is Accessibility Toolkit or ATK for short ... and it's just too boring.

So spread the word and get back to us via Twitter, email, Facebook or which ever is most convenient. Remember, short and snappy - it'll appear at the top of every Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ web page in the future.

You'll be hearing much more about this in the weeks and months to come. Web access for everyone is something the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ and the UK government are striving towards and something I know a lot of you will want to support us with. Branding can be crucial to the popularity and take-up.

We'll blog about this again in the near future.

• We have a short URL for this blog entry to make it easier for you to share and tweet, it's:

Everyone's been talking about the Apple iPad, launched in California last week. And this gives us a great opportunity to talk about accessible computers and device interfaces generally.

Disabled people are beginning to expect accessibility out of the box and, indeed, laws are firming up these previously unheard of ideas.

In the US, for instance, a new , was introduced into Washington on the same day the iPad was launched. It requires that all consumer electronics, home appliances, kiosks, and electronic office technology, have accessible interfaces.

Existing law of the US workforce rehabilitation act requires that all federal government offices 'buy accessible'.

As the US is home of Silicon Valley and many rather important computer companies who'd rather like to have contracts with the government and to remain within the law - hello Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc - we should be expecting more products to be accessible on day one of launch. Surely?

So. Back to this iPad thing. disabled commentators were out there on their blogs and on Twitter over the last few days, discussing whether Apple's new device is accessible ... or accessible enough.

Blog entry: - a basic look at what a mass market touch screen tablet computer could bring in terms of accessibility to people with interesting dexterity issues, low or no vision and cognitive difficulties. Plus the listed accessibility features published so far.

Podcast: - a bunch of blind people talking together about what they know so far and what they'd want from the product.

Article: - Geoff Adams-Spink reviews the accessibility of the iPhone which is already out on the market, a known quantity and, looking like a small iPad, presumably behaves similarly. Only he wasn't too impressed with it.

The new iPad product will spawn a brand new service: an online book store: an iTunes for electronic books (iBooks). It remains to be seen how accessible these books will be to visually impaired people who have been crying out for mainstream access to reading material and education for hundreds of years. Surely they'll get it right this time? Or face wrath galore. I guess we'll find out when the product goes to market in March.

We're interested in your comments on accessibility of mainstream electronic products, computing and services. Tell us about your experiences and what you'd drool over in terms of an ultimate accessible gizmo in the comments below. Then we'll get it made for you (disclaimer: no we won't ... but I wish we could).