When a Button Is All That Connects You to the World

[Brad]

Here is a first... the author states that his code is ugly!

However, it is so admirable that the author put so much thought and time and energy into this ultimate, one button only, accessibility challenge... and then gave the code to the community. So many computer users gain by the great strides in accessibility technology and implementation in recent years, and the focus in this area has had positive repercussions in other areas of programming. For example, on some platforms, adding accessibility support provides interfaces that can also support test automation.

I wonder if touch-based systems like the iPad are more or less accessible than traditional laptops/desktops?

[Erik]

This chapter took me back to 1997 when I played with the voice creation software on my mac. I think it was called AppleTalk. It was built in to a game called Warcraft 2 that I played with friends over a 2400bps modem. You could type to them and AppleTalk would say the words to them in a synthetic voice. Mispelled words and non-words always made me wonder how the software worked to synthsize the sounds. This was a "fun" chapter for me.

Again, based on the chapter's title, I had no idea what I was about to read. (Not a good or bad thing.)