Tag: ADA

Appearances may be deceiving OR how something might appear accessible but in reality…

Here’s a quick story of what was to be a short walk with my mom, on a lovely sunny day,  to the new accessible little park down by the lake. And when I say accessible, I mean NOT really at all accessible for me or probably any other wheelchair user. In fact, they probably could have left the curb cut out because people are only going to get more stuck the further they go.

Part 1 – “Lovely day for a walk to the lake”

Says my mom, all the time! It’s a holiday in the U.S. so I went along. I drove my chair while my mom tried to keep up. I wasn’t even on the fastest speed.

Part 2 – Look the newly redone little park even has a nice curb cut

Says my mom. One car and bike go past and the next car stops to let us cross the street to the park. Mom takes a couple pictures because really, it’s nice that our township redid this park and tried to make it more accessible. Right? We should post and tweet about that, it’s a good thing.

Justin in wheelchair on curb cut with path to lake ahead

Part 3 – ZZZ WRONG!

We start our way down the black, rocky path which is wide enough for a wheelchair. So, that’s good. My wheels begin to sink as we near the bench. We maybe should have stopped here. But, thought it would be easier to turn around if we went down to the turns or to the bottom of the path. Again, WRONG! We got to the lower turn on the path, and my drivewheel was spinning deeper and deeper. I was spectacularly stuck.

Justin in wheelchair with wheel sinking into rocky path

Part 4 – Dad to the rescue

Mom can’t get me unstuck. Mom calls dad. Dad drives the several blocks to the park. Dad also thinks maybe we can get turned around on the larger rocks at the bottom of the path. Both mom and dad are able to help drive and push me to the bottom. I didn’t go into the lake. I swore. Dad swore. Mom maintained her calm, positive outlook on the situation. Dad gets me out of my chair and carries me back up the path where my mom holds me on the bench. Reminder for all, I use a wheelchair, because I am not able to sit independently, let alone walk. My dad wrestles, pushes, drives, swears his way up the path with my chair until he passes us on the bench and gets it back to the solid curb cut. Mom and dad carry me from the bench back to my chair. (Sorry, no pictures of dad pushing chair since mom was holding me on the bench and dad was pissed – imagine the pictures we could have taken!)

deep tire tracks in rocky path

Part 5 – MOM, YOU’RE INCORRIGIBLE and when designing for accessibility, perhaps someone should do some user testing to see that it’s actually accessible

Nothing more to say about adventures with mom part. Really, I do love my adventures with my mom. Even though we seem to get stuck at times…

Whoever designed this park and whoever from our township thought they were making a park that was wheelchair accessible were wrong. I doubt that anyone tested this out with an actual human being who actually uses a wheelchair. I use a power chair and the path failed horribly. I don’t even know how someone who is using a push chair would make it on this path. It’s not packed down solid enough.

The flowers are lovely… I just don’t get to see them up close, anymore.Justin smiling with park and lake behind

NEXT ACCESSIBILITY CHECK: Maggie Rogers concert at the Armory in Minneapolis later this month.

Pride, Prejudice & Accessibility

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that this blog must be in want of a classic accessibility check and a Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett.

Jane Austen’s books are great, but Pride and Prejudice is one of the perfect examples of what is it that constitutes 19th century love. Take Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. They don’t even like each other and it takes several months and an insulting first proposal before they know enough about each other to overcome the pride of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s prejudices. I loved this book!

I also love Bookshare and wouldn’t be the reader I am without it, but the web reader’s pronunciations of abbreviations can be irritating. For example, instead of saying Mister Darcy, the web reader says M –  R and pauses like at the end of a sentence then says Darcy. There are 61 chapters in Pride and Prejudice and each has at least 10-30 Mr.’s and Mrs.’s in them. The mispronunciation of abbreviations kind of ruins the flow of the story. This doesn’t happen in every book I read, so I don’t know why sometimes it reads properly and other times the web reader doesn’t.

I sent a note to Bookshare asking if there was a way to have the web reader for Bookshare pronounce abbreviations like Mr. and Mrs. as Mister or Missus. But, there isn’t. So, if you’re looking for a good accessibility project, figure out how web readers can better read abbreviations. It’s 2019, time to figure this out. By the way, I read my draft of this post using Read Aloud in Microsoft Word before copying it to WordPress. Read Aloud reads the abbreviations correctly. Bookshare doesn’t work in Microsoft Edge although it’s supposed to be coming soon. Maybe that will work better?

Hang on a second, weren’t you at an outdoor concert?

Yes at Surly Festival Field. Accessibility was great and I thought that the music was ok. More of my parents’ nostalgia bands than the types of music I like best.

Accessibility report for Surly – get there early to get accessible parking. We got there by 5:30 and gates opened at 5:00 and did get a parking spot. We had to walk about a block and a half from ADA parking to where they were taking tickets. Not sure if they would have let us in at the exit gate which was closer to where we parked. We did exit from there and that was convenient. They had a ramp to a raised platform by the sound booth so were able to see over the crowd of people and didn’t have to drive on uneven ground. Pretty good seats although the platform also filled up pretty quickly with several of us using wheelchairs, a couple knee scooters and others who needed accessible seating. I would definitely go to concerts there again.

Busy week coming up

Can’t wait to see John and Hank Green on Sunday! Anyone who reads my blog knows just how big of a fan I am! I have tickets in the 7th row at the Pantages Theatre. I’m excited that they have wheelchair seating so close. Usually in theaters like this, I end up paying the same as everyone else but the only choice is to sit in the back row. That’s annoying! Especially, if you also have hearing loss like I do!

We’re also going to try to go see Elizabeth Warren at Macalester on Monday. I want to hear from as many presidential candidates as possible to see who I like best.

My brother leaves for college on Thursday… more on this later.

For my web accessibility friends out there, I was trying to find if using the WordPress Tiled Mosaic is accessible. I used the Tiled Mosaic for the grouped images like I have for the concert pictures and pictures above from John and Hank Green events. I just can’t tell if people using screen readers can hear the alt text for the individual images or if I should just add them as individual images. Let me know what you think works best. Thanks!