Peter Abrahams on IT-Director.com

Bloor Opinion in Sweden

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:00:00 +0100

Following an interview by Carl Ostrom Peter has been quoted in an article about Accessibility. A translation of the interview follows. He tries to push Apple forward. [Read More...]

Bloor Research joins national campaign to help disabled people get online

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:00:00 +0100

Bloor Research is proud to announce it has become a partner of a major new national campaign to raise awareness about the barriers faced by people with disabilities in accessing the internet and... [Read More...]

Transport for London Accessible Apps Competition

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0100

Transport for London is partnering with OneVoice to promote a competition to improve the variety of accessible apps providing real time travel information in London. Competitions are an excellent way... [Read More...]

Eye Tracking on smart phones and tablets

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0100

Based in Israel, uMoove has been working on a technology for smartphones and tablets to track eye and head movements using a device's front-facing camera. It will shortly make the SDK available to... [Read More...]

Technology4Good Awards 2013 Nominations now open

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0100

The Technology4Good Awards celebrate the hard work of people of all ages who use the power of computers and the internet to make the world a better place. They were created by AbilityNet, working... [Read More...]

New iMac for 2012 - accessibility features

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0100

So what is so great or new about the 2012 iMac? Well the first thing I noticed is the thinness of the sides; the edge is just 5mm which means it is thinner than the iPhone. This makes it very... [Read More...]

Mind the Gap report available

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:00:00 +0100

In September 2012 AbilityNet commissioned Kevin Carey, a leading contributor to thinking about digital accessibility, to produce a policy paper to review citizen/consumer access to digital... [Read More...]

Training for Web Accessibility

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:00:00 +0100

As my readers will know, I believe passionately that access to information, products and services, available via the Internet, is essential to everyone who wants/needs to be a fully functioning... [Read More...]

Accessibility of iPhone 5 with iOS 6

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:00:00 +0100

With iPhone 5 and iOS 6 Apple has delivered hundreds of new or improved features, some of them are designed to provide improved accessibility whilst others have an impact on accessibility. I am... [Read More...]

What did the Paralympics teach us?

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Now the Olympics and the Paralympics are over what have we learnt that is relevant to ICT accessibility? The paralympics proved to anyone who doubted it that although the elite paralympic athletes... [Read More...]

Universally Accessible PDF standard, PDF/UA, is now available

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 06:00:00 +0100

ISO 14289-1:2012 (PDF/UA) was published on 7 August. Over the years I have written about the accessibility of PDF files, or the lack of it. My analysis included a Market Update on 'Accessible... [Read More...]

Mountain Lion New Accessibility Features

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 06:00:00 +0100

Mountain Lion is the latest version of OS X, the operating system for Apple Mac, and was delivered on 25 July 2012. The list of new features includes the following minor accessibility... [Read More...]

Subtitles should be promoted to all users

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 06:00:00 +0100

ICT Assistive technology is a term used to describe a technology developed to help people with a disability access ICT. The problem with assistive technologies is that they are often expensive to... [Read More...]

Think user not creator should be an adage of the digital age

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:00:00 +0100

Too many creators of content only worry about how fast they can create the content rather than worrying about how easy the user will find it to absorb the content. I came to this conclusion after... [Read More...]

Android: Ice Cream Sandwich Accessibliity

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Last Novemeber I wrote a blog about the inaccessibility of mobile apps. In it I used Apple iOS as an example of a accessible platform and then bemoaned the fact that many apps running under iOS were... [Read More...]

The accessibility bugs project - good start, more to do

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0100

A group of a11y (the accessible way to write accessibility) specialist have decided to try and get the browser manufacturers to fix browser inconsistencies that impact on a11y. There are a variety of... [Read More...]

Inaccessibility of mobile apps and ebooks

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0100

I recently wrote an article about the new iPhone 4S accessibility. Having continued to use it I am still impressed by its accessibility features. However - how often is there a however! - the... [Read More...]

Animated gifs are a turn off

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0100

Amongst the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) is guideline 2.3 that says 'Do not design content in a way that is known to cause seizures'. This relates to fast flashing images that... [Read More...]

iPhone 4S Accessibility

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0100

The iPhone 4 and iOS 4 combined to create a highly accessible smart phone. iPhone 4S and iOS 5 have added new features that improve the accessibility and ease of use for people with disabilities. The... [Read More...]

Faster keyboard entry Open Adaptxt

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:00:00 +0100

The human race is spending more and more time inputting information into electronic devices of all types. So it is important that we find easier, faster and more accurate ways of transferring the... [Read More...]

Thunder in the Libraries

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 06:00:00 +0100

Why would a blind person go into a library? Maybe to borrow a book in Braille, or more likely to borrow a talking book, CD or DVD. In Lambeth the new answer is to learn to use a computer. Computers... [Read More...]

Lion Mail enhances usability

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 06:00:00 +0100

I wrote an article about new accessibility features in Apple OSX 10.7, Lion, just before it was available, I have been running Lion on both my iMac and Mac Book Air and all my comments hold. The new... [Read More...]

OneVoice announced a major web accessibility initiative at e-access 11

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 06:00:00 +0100

The OneVoice for Accessible ICT Coalition announced a new web accessibility initiative at the recent e-access 11 conference. Too many websites are not accessible and one of the reasons for this is... [Read More...]

Mac accessibility improved in Lion, the latest OS X

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0100

Apple has announced the next version of OS X, the operating system for Macs, called Lion. It has 250+ new features, including 11 specific accessibility features and several more that could have... [Read More...]

OneVoice Initiative to be Announced at e-access 11

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0100

There are a very large number of websites, both in the public and private sector, that are not fully accessible. The reasons for this sad state of affairs include: Ignorance: the web site owners are... [Read More...]

250 Good News Stories at T4G Award Ceremony

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0100

The first Technology4Good Awards attracted 250 nominations; each one a good news story showing how technology, altruism, hard work and skill combined to make life better for people who are digitally... [Read More...]

e-Access 11, 28 June, is only a month away

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 24 May 2011 06:00:00 +0100

e-Access is only a month away and will be the best e-Access conference to date.The committee arranging it have brought together a stellar group of speakers. In one day you will hear from: Ed Vaizey,... [Read More...]

National Digital 11 conference - digital by default, accessible by default

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 17 May 2011 07:00:00 +0100

The UK National Digital conference ND11 took place last week on 11–12 May 2011. It was run by RaceOnline and it concentrated on how to get the 9 million people in the UK, who are still not... [Read More...]

The FT Bowen Craggs Web Effectiveness Index includes accessibility checks

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:00:00 +0100

The 5th annual Financial Times Bowen Craggs Index was published 20 April 2011 ( http://www.bowencraggs.com/ftindex/). It is an in-depth analysis of the web effectiveness of 75 of the world's top... [Read More...]

15 minute website accessibility test

rss@it-analysis.com (Peter Abrahams, Bloor Research) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:00:00 +0100

There are many occasions when I want to be able to do a quick evaluation of a web site or a group of sites. To enable me to do this quickly and consistently I have developed a set of tests that... [Read More...]