PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ISLAND - Is Second Life really accessible to those with disabilities? A recent conference sponsored by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) and the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication explored that question.

Judy Brewer (Charioteer Voom in SL) is the director of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Bruce Bailey (Phivo8 Writer in SL) is an Accessibility IT Specialist on the United States Access Board. Two virtual ambassadors, Quixote Mills and Diplomat5 Burton, served as moderators for the event. Thirty guests listened and participated in the Q&A.

It was clear that much rehearsal had gone into making the conference itself accessible to those with hearing disabilities. Presenters used an audio stream, but content was to be textually captioned so that all could participate. Regretfully, the captioning segment of the program did not work although all parties tried diligently to get it to function as it had in rehearsal.

Brewer led off the discussion with an interesting personal note. “When I first came into Second Life, I found I had acquired some abilities. I could walk (I can’t walk in real life); I could fly; I could even teleport. I felt more comfortable seated and so got a Segway [scooter] to move around in-world.”

“I wanted to talk today about the cross-disability accessibility needs,” Brewer said. “There are different functional issues someone might have who has a disability. If a person has a visual disability, they need an alternative to the visual environment on Second Life. Maybe a space could be magnified to make it easier to see. A speech reader could speak the text typed into the chat. If the individual is deaf or hard of hearing, some alternative to audio must be offered. This could be an audio to textual chat addition to the software. Users with physical or dexterity issues can have the option to use multiple keystrokes to move around the screen as an option to using a mouse. For those with cognitive or neurological issues, the learn-ability of the environment must be considered. Flashing graphics should be avoided as it may trigger seizures in some.”

Accessibility software does already exist but much of it is not currently available in SL. “Content in SL is created by the community. There need to be easy and reliable ways to be able to add text descriptions to all content created in SL. We need better operability with assisted technology that is handled on the level of the core software and in the servers. This could include in-world technology. Keyboards could be accessibility driven. One can attach different devices to the keyboard port and that can