Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
Pokémon Might Become the New Smart City Urban Accessibility Master Not just a child’s game anymore. For the estimated 53 million U.S. adults living with disabilities, moving around and within a city may feel like an obstacle course. Hilly terrain and elevated pathways can prove daunting for people with disabilities (PWDs). There’s also the problem of cracked sidewalks and poorly designed…
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For many people, the work day doesn’t begin without addressing a serious challenge: commuting. This can mean highways stacked with traffic, or crowded trains and buses. For people who are blind, everything is more complicated. They must rely on a ride from someone else, or if traveling by rail, someone to lead them to and from the train. Soon, this…
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As government spending on the internet of things is expected to reach $12 billion in 2020, creating smart infrastructure is a topic of concern for officials at all levels of government. At Bloomberg Government’s “Women in Smart Cities Forum,” sponsored by Verizon on June 15, 2018, women working at the city, state and federal levels of government shared their strategies…
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Today marks the seventh Global Accessibility Awareness Day, a celebration of inclusion and digital access for people with disabilities. Microsoft took the opportunity to unveil the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a gaming controller designed to accommodate a range of special needs, and Apple announced that its Everyone Can Code curricula for the Swift programming language will come to schools with vision- and hearing-impaired students.…
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being built into our digital world. And there are great opportunities to maximise AI to make the digital world more accessible for people with disabilities. Here, AbilityNet’s senior accessibility and usability consultant Joe Chidzik explores some of the possibilities and some of the ways AI is already changing things for disabled people. 1. AI could…
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The winner of this year’s HealthHack Smart Cities Challenge is aiming to make Edmonton more accessible to those who use wheelchairs. Professor at the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta, Martin Ferguson-Pell, and his team have developed Click N’ Push – an app that shows just how difficult it can be to get around the city in a…
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Cities are home to more than half of the world’s population, and they are expected to add another” “2.5 billion new residents by 2050. They face increasing environmental pressures and infrastructure needs—and growing demands from residents to deliver a better quality of life and to do so at a sustainable cost. Smart technologies can help cities meet these challenges, and…
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The number of smart speakers bought in 2018 alone has doubled in the last four months with the likes of Alexa and Google Home answering queries in the home. Meanwhile driverless cars are being developed by the likes of Amazon and Tesla to deliver packages cutting human interaction. The idea sparked debate at The Drum’s Smart Cities Off Stone briefing…
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The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to have an unprecedented impact on our daily lives. In particular, “smart environments” will change how we interact with our surrounding and with each other, including at home, in public spaces, and at the work place. This provides an opportunity to ensure equal access for people with disabilities. For example, operating doors, windows,…
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Abstract The present work discusses the possibilities offered by the evolution of Information and Communication Technologies with the aim of designing a system to dynamically obtain knowledge of accessibility issues in urban environments. This system is facilitated by technology to analyse the urban user experience and movement accessibility, which enabling accurate identification of urban barriers and monitoring its effectiveness over…
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At a recent user experience-focused meetup group in PhillyCHI’s “Designing for Accessibility” Mikey Ilagan, an accessibility specialist at Think Company and Comcast. led a panel to discuss why accessible design matters. The panel shared insights and key factors for why accessible design matters. Checkout the full article below from Generocity to discover four key takeaways to to help you become an accessible design advocate…
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My background is in web design and development. These days, I’m an Accessibility Specialist advocating on behalf of the user. I use assistive technology to audit, review, and examine software the way a person with a disability might use it. I then work with product teams to identify and resolve these issues. And I’ve noticed a recurring theme. Issues identified…
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Whether it’s a temporary Christmas market or planning everyday routes, accessibility around the UK has steadily gained awareness over the years. Today it is a key concern for many people, from the government and local councils to public transport providers. Unfortunately, while the introduction of new laws and legislation such as The Equality Act 2010 has helped to drive action…
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.entry-header .post-thumbnail Website accessibility is important. Website accessibility is something that receives significant attention in the legal space. But digital accessibility is not just about websites, and the law is taking notice. This post highlights cases about kiosk accessibility. I use the term “kiosk” broadly to include tablets and any piece of technology offering services, products, and information. Who will…
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Smart City: People-Centered Urban Planning Concept When we talk about people-centric urban planning, we are referring to a process that puts people, or end-recipients, at the center of the process. People-Centered urban planning develops prototypes and solutions by performing embedded qualitative and quantitative research on those same people and end-recipients. Smart City Practice When we adapt this model to Smart…
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Creating a truly disabled-accessible city Accessibility should be and is slowly becoming a concern all over the world, but cities have often been behind the times. Despite the idea of smart cities rising in popularity and many urban areas embracing technology to improve everything from user experience to safety, accessibility hasn’t had the same attention as these ‘glamorous’ innovations. Today,…
Read More“A city isn’t smart because it uses technology. A city is smart because it uses accessible technology to build an inclusive culture ensuring no one is left behind.” Darren Bates This post focuses on the “secret sauce” that turns the idea of a smart city into reality. Question: What’s the secret sauce? Answer: People, the people who live in the…
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These days, our cities are smarter than ever — still works in progress. With estimates suggesting that 15% of the world’s population live with disabilities (upwards of one billion people), redesigning our urban environments to be as welcoming as possible has never been more important. That’s why I’m celebrating the innovations that are making Smart Cities more inclusive and accessible. From clever…
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Accessibility in the News—12/01/17. Does the Americans with Disabilities Act, enacted before the word “internet” became part of our daily vocabulary, require businesses to make their websites accessible? This year’s federal decisions say it does. This week covers a great deal in how that requirement is affecting various industries. The debate continues on whether or not “ADA compliance” is a…
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The answer seems to be a hopeful yes. At least 100 buildings each in 50 cities will be made accessible in a couple of years. These are part of the much hyped, technology intensive and ambitious ‘Smart Cities’ in the country. The Government had decided to turn 100 cities Smart.
The Government has selected these 50 cities under the Accessible India Campaign. Accordingly, the focus will be on auditing and ensuring access to atleast 25-50 of the most important government buildings in these cities fully accessible to these people by the end of 2017. By end of 2018, the target is to cover 50 per cent of all government building of the national capital region and all state capitals within reach….
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