Gentle Heron from Virtual Ability gave a talk on the importance of accessibility in Second Life. Many of the residents and visitors have one form of disability or another. In fact, all of us are merely Temporarily Able Bodied (TABs) as we are likely to develop disabilities as we grow older: sometime a short-term disability, perhaps a broken leg, and sometimes longer-term disabilities such as loss of vision or hear impairment. Therefore, universal design principles are important to bear in mind when building in Second Life. For example, always give names and desicriptions to objects. This means that visually impaired people, who rely on these descriptions being spoken by the special software they use to navigate the virtual world, will know what you have created.
Gentle left a box of information at the Student Training area with plenty of useful references and links so if you missed the class you can go back and click the box anytime this week.
We will have another chance to hear from Gentle when we visit Virtual Ability Island next Monday so if you have any questions they can be addressed at that class.
Virtual Environments: Is one life enough? 