FodnessMemo42

I will be doing a policy analysis on current policies at the federal and state level, and discourse about policies from activist groups and scholars in the field. I will be coming up with policy recommendations as well. The paper presenting these findings will be written for Steve Breyman's Policy Studies class in Spring 2009. The results will be incorporated into my proposal presentation.

I will be writing a paper for presentation at 4S about the conflicting roles of web developers as professionals and as employees of companies that are subservient to the needs of a customer. On the one hand, web developers would largely prefer to write standards compliant, accessible websites, but are often precluded from doing so by constraints on time and budget, or are outright prohibited from doing so by the customer.

I will do further research into what the needs are of disabled cyberspace users, how existing software is meeting those needs, and where it is coming up short. I will research sites like YouTube to determine their accessibility policies, and where the responsibility for accessibility lies. I will attempt to identify sites (such as YouTube) where accessibility can be automated (such as automatic subtitling based on voice recognition) but is not.

I will compile visuals which will demonstrate the difficulties that individuals with disabilities have while surfing the web to show the traditionally abled what the disabled face, and how it is not socially just.