Helping Yahoos imagine disability

Posted July 15th, 2009 at 10:27 am by Victor Tsaran, Yahoo! Accessibility Program

 6 Comments / Filed in: Working at Yahoo!

There are 60 million people with disabilities in the U.S. There are more than 10 times that number around the globe. Yahoo!’s Accessibility team wants to make sure that every one of these individuals is able to use Yahoo! as their web site of choice. That will only be possible, of course, if every corner of our network is fully accessible.

While we still have work to do toward that end, we did reach a significant milestone last month when Yahoo! India launched an Accessibility Lab in Bangalore. It is modeled after our Sunnyvale lab, which has demonstrated a variety of assistive technologies to hundreds of Yahoos since it launched in 2008.

Our Accessibility Labs are important tools for engineers who can’t imagine life with a disability. The reality is that not everyone can use a mouse, type on a keyboard, or see the computer screen. We simulate that experience so our developers can learn how to think about users with disabilities during their product development process. We have screen readers to help them understand the experience of a blind user, single switches and onscreen keyboards for physically disabled users, communication devices for kids with speech impairments, etc. More and more Yahoo! products are being designed and developed in our Bangalore office, so it became clear that we needed to enhance our ability to train engineers and designers there.

Here’s a slideshow of photos from our grand opening event in India:

Also, a a global company, we are keenly aware that commercial screen readers are generally out of reach for most blind people living in developing countries. So we’ve sponsored the non-profit NV Access Foundation, which is working on a free, open-source screen reader. Our support will help them improve web features for NVDA for Windows, making it easier for visually-impaired users around the world to browse the Web – especially when they encounter Web 2.0 technologies. And by making NVDA’s screen reader a better product, we’re also helping all the web developers who use it as their testing tool.

Everybody wins.

Victor Tsaran
Sr. Accessibility Program Manager

Tagged: accessibility, Yahoo! For Good

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6 Comments Add your own

Bob Birk (chicago) | July 16th, 2009 at 8:13 am

Yahoo is the best! As the parent of a special needs child, I’m most grateful for organizations like Yahoo that see the vision in reaching out to everyone in this world.

The special needs community is very appreciative and loyal to enlightened organizations like Yahoo that have the resources to invest in making this a better planet for everyone.

Victor Tsaran said it best in his closing: Everybody wins.

deepak | July 17th, 2009 at 1:32 am

Hi Victor,

I am a voluntary teacher in Visual Rehabilitation Centre, which is set up by Shroff’s Eye Hospital in partnership with Adobe. This VRC is located in New Delhi and has helped hundreds of students in capacity and career building. Could I also get a chance to visit Yahoo India Accessibility Lab? It will help me understand newer technologies, which can help us make more lives better,faster!

Regards,
Deepak

Victor Tsaran | July 20th, 2009 at 11:30 am

@Bob: Thanks for your wonderful comment and for following this blog.
@Deepak: thanks for the comment. I’ll get in touch with you offline.”.

Elli | July 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm

That sounds amazing. I’m just curious: How many people with disabilities are working in your lab in Bangalore?

Nicki Dugan | July 24th, 2009 at 12:56 pm

@Elli – I’m afraid we don’t break that out. But hundreds of Yahoo! engineers have passed through our two labs since they opened to get skooled on accessibility.

Monica Wharton | September 2nd, 2009 at 9:22 am

I am thrilled to see Yahoo being in the forefront of providing accessible information online to the world. Please help change the way individuals with disabilities are referred to as people first.. person with visual impairment, boy with autism, adult that is hearing impaired.
As a mother of son with Aspergers Syndrome, advocate, and host of radio show, I am trying to help educate the public about how people with disabilities are referred to and written about as well.
Kudos to all you do providing accessible content!

Also, I have exciting news to share! I was selected as a finalist in Subway’s “Refresh Your Life” contest. My dream is to go on the road in RV to give people with disabilities a voice to be heard. People can watch my interview online http://www.fittoboom.msnbc.msn.com (look on bottom right corner of page, then click on “Meet the Finalists” and look for MONICA- Tarpon Springs. Thanks!