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Showing posts from June, 2013

Celebrating Failures

Being a passionate design thinker I am a big believer in failing fast and failing often . I have taken this one step further; I celebrate one failure every week. Here's why: You get more comfortable looking for failures, analyzing them, and learn from it I have sat through numerous post-mortem workshops and concluded that the root causes of failures are usually the same: abstract concepts such as lack of communication, unrealistic scope, insufficient training, and so on. If that’s true, why do we repeat the same mistakes, causing failure to remain a common situation? Primarily because many people find it hard to imagine and react to abstractions, but can relate much better when these concepts are contextualized into their own situation. Post-mortem of a project would tell you what you already suspected; it's hindsight and it's a little too late. I have always advocated a "pre-mortem workshop" to prepare for a failure in the beginning. Visualize all the things that

Google's Advance Voice Search Comes to Chrome

Recently Google added advanced voice search to the Chrome browser . Google's advance voice search feature was previously only available for Android and iOS , but is now available on Mac and Windows . The feature is similar to Apple's Siri ,but works on your computer as well as mobile devices. To access the feature, navigate to Google using the Chrome browser and press the microphone icon to the right of the search bar. Then you can search by voice and Google will speak back select results. I have found the voice recognition to be very fast and accurate. One of the most notable features for struggling spellers is that you can ask how to spell a word and then Google will speak back the correct spelling. Google will also provide spoken responses for many other queries as well. Watch the above video to learn more.

iOS 7 Accessibility Overview: What We Know Now

This year iOS accessibility did not get the prime-time attention that it did during last year's WWDC Keynote, but iOS 7 still includes many new accessibility features. When iOS 7 launches in the fall, users of all abilities will find beneficial features. iOS 7 is still in beta so Apple can always add or remove features before the final release to the public. Through the Apple Keynote and other sources a number of accessibility features have been detailed. These new features will improve on current accessibility features such as VoiceOver , Guided Access , Speech Selection , Assistive Touch , and Zoom . This post will be updated as new information becomes available on iOS 7 accessibility. Click read more to learn about iOS 7 accessibility. Customize Captioning iOS 7 will also allow users customization the font and size of subtitles. Currently the subtitles are small and can be hard to read particularly on the iPhone and iPod touch. In iOS 7 the font, size, and color of subti

Hacking Into The Indian Education System Reveals Score Tampering

Debarghya Das has a fascinating story on how he managed to bypass a silly web security layer to get access to the results of 150,000 ISCE (10th grade) and 65,000 ISC (12th grade) students in India. While lack of security and total ignorance to safeguard sensitive information is an interesting topic what is more fascinating about this episode is the analysis of the results that unearthed score tampering. The school boards changed the scores of the students to give them "grace" points to bump them up to the passing level. The boards also seem to have tampered some other scores but the motive for that tampering remains unclear (at least to me). I would encourage you to read the entire analysis and the comments , but a tl;dr version is: 32, 33 and 34 were visibly absent. This chain of 3 consecutive numbers is the longest chain of absent numbers. Coincidentally, 35 happens to be the pass mark. Here's a complete list of unattained marks - 36, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53,

Reminder: Apple to Preview "The Future of iOS and OS X" Tomorrow

Apple's World Wide Developer Conference ( WWDC ) starts Monday June 10th. At the event Apple will detail "the future of iOS and OS X." Apple is a leader in integrated accessibility with their VoiceOver screen reader and numerous other accessibility features such as Guided Access , Speak Selection , Zoom , and Assistive Touch . That being said Apple still needs to improve their accessibility features to remain a leader. New accessibility features have routinely been added to new versions of iOS. Last year, Apple added Guided Access along with other accessibility improvements. A new version of iOS is exciting not only because of the cool mainstream features but the lesser known, but no less important accessibility features that make the devices usable for so many. Make sure to visit The Assistive Technology Blog after the Keynote for all the iOS 7 and OS X accessibility news. In the meantime check out my iOS 7 Wish List video below.