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Remembering Judy Heumann 1947-2023
The disability rights activist Judith (Judy) Heumann died in Washington, D.C. on the afternoon of March 4, 2023. She was a fearless advocate for inclusion of disabled people in society, and she was an effective organizer of nonviolent protests when officials were not listening. Her advocacy, in solidarity with many others, dramatically improved the quality […]
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2022 in review
In a December tradition, I write a post about the highlights of my work each year. This year I am focusing on multisensory exhibits that opened in 2022—because exhibit planning can take months or years, I note the project phases completed in 2021. In the spring of 2022, the Please Touch Tour at Macculloch Hall […]
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What’s That? Problems with Automated Image Detection
Technology companies such as Google and Microsoft have developed software algorithms that recognize images and automatically generate descriptions for them. Computer-generated descriptions are improving, but human-generated image descriptions are still the gold standard for creating accessible content. People know their own content, and they can determine the essential details about photographs that are needed when […]
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2022 Progress Report on Accessibility at the FDR Memorial
In 2021, I visited the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Memorial located on the National Mall in Washington D.C, and I documented accessibility concerns for people who are blind or have low vision. Recently, I produced a second report that describes new, accessible, exhibits that were installed by the National Park Service, NPS, the federal agency […]
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Accessibility in Astronomy
In 2019, I was introduced to a community of astronomers who are representing data with sound. This is called sonification. I wrote about a software program developed by the Space Science Telescope Institute that adds an audio component to visual graphs in this post titled Hearing the Light. In spring 2020 with shelter in place […]