Summary: By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs Using iTunes? T.V. Raman is a Research Scientist at Google who knows a thing or two about accessibility. We took the opportunity to interview him, and Hubbell, his seeing-eye dog (who was nice and quiet). We started out by asking the honest question that developers ask about accessibility: "What is in it for me?". T.V. discusses the practical issues, and what you should be doing with respect to accessibility, and how it is one piece of the usability picture. We then delve into the problems of developing accessible websites, and solutions to some of the problems. If you listen to the interview you will learn: How not to develop in a user-agent specific mannerFun issues with screen readersHow audio CAPTCHA brings equality to the pain of CAPTCHA, and how people who can see use the audio onesHow painful is the Web to view for a blind personUsing the Google Web Transcoder (the other GWT!) to clean up pagesHow CSS hasn't been as leveraged as much as we would likeHow the increase in mobile and widget platforms has a side effect of accessible viewsHow RIA applications deal with accessibilityHow T.V. has written custom clients for Google APIsWhat standards groups are doing in the accessibility spaceDealing with Python, a language that cares about whitespace, as a blind man. You can download the episode directly, or subscribe to the show (click here for iTunes one-click subscribe). Also, check out an accessible web search for the visually impaired.
