Second Life Accessibility

Wilde Cunningham is an avatar controlled by a group of nine adults with cerebral palsy (and their nurse) at the day-care programme they attend in Massachusetts. The group members are aged 30 to 70 and comprise four men and five women. Most of them are wheelchair users and rely on their carers for almost all aspects of their daily lives. Yet in Second Life they have built their own houses, have pets, gardens, even a baseball field. They also have many close friends and a large social network. “Second Life gives me the chance to be the person I feel I was born to be,” says John S, 32, one of the group. “Being in Second Life is how I imagine an innocent man who had been locked up wrongly feels when he is finally set free. In Second Life I get to call the shots.”

Read more at http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article1557980.ece

A good video about Wilde Cunnigham is available at http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3547970n&channel

I would be interested in trying my hand at providing real-time captioning of voice chat for a conference with folks that are deaf. I am not sure about the best way to do this, perhaps IMing to a group at the same time the conference is going on. I don’t think it will work to use the text chat if others are also using it.

The advantage to this is that the voice chat will be recorded in transcript at the end of the conference, same as the text chat.

If you would allow me to experiment with this at your next event, please let me know.

MovableLife allows Second Life users to log in to Second Life using only a web browser. MovableLife allows chat, IM, search, teleport, manage friends, groups, and much more, providing a Second Life experience without all the 3D graphics.

Movable Life article

Another advantage to using a regular browser, is that it can be used by iphones and other devices, and also the bandwidth is reduced for use on older computers with modems.

SLeek Download

SLeek is an open source low tech client to use SL without all the fancy graphics. It would be useful for individuals with visual impairments, but consider also its use for students in low tech environments, for instance at home on an old computer with a modem.

Second Life can be ADA compliant, and it is important to train faculty to consider accessibility if they choose to use SL. In any online conference applications, voice chat is not instantly converted to text for persons with a hearing impairment. However, it is possible to have a real-time caption transcriptionist capture voice chat by using a chat messenger alongside the application used by a class.

Concerning the visual and 3-D environment of Second Life, you may be interested in what it can do:

• Provides mobility for residents that have MS, Cerebral Palsy, or other similar impairments (in fact there are nightclubs and other events specifically for the mobility challenged population). Many avatars created by users with mobility impairments use wheelchairs in SL.
• Text chat is not easily read by a screen reader. A screen readable text-only version of Second Life exists for residents without sight. Chat and voice logs can also be recorded for anyone that has a technical or cognitive impairment, or for later study.
• The SL interface and text size is customizable and makes use of alt-keys.
• Through an avatar, residents with real life (RL) physical deformities or obvious disabilities can become able-bodied.
• Autistic students practice social skills on Brigadoon Island.
• Disability awareness simulations can be structured using avatar wheelchairs, or by changing chat and voice options. Several scripts exist to provide avatar simulations for epilepsy, tourettes, and mental impairments. (Diversity experiments are also easy with the ability to change body type and race.)

Accessibility can be achieved in most applications with work from the facilitator hosting the event.

• Just as in real life, videos within SL must be captioned or a transcript provided.
• A real time streaming event, for instance a conference, would require real time captioning of voice chat for individuals that are hard of hearing or deaf. Another option would be interpreting. It would be difficult to follow voice captions or interpretation along with the text chat. Many individuals have a problem following two methods of communication simultaneously, not just those with a hearing impairment.
• Visual description should be available for any environment, as an explanation for odd sounds or text/voice chat references. For instance, it might be important to know that a class is taking place in a haunted graveyard, a forest, or nightclub.