Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day

RantWoman is festively observing #GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay.

 

RantWoman sometimes has odd ideas of celebrations.

 

First a giant shoutout to all the companies, organizations, hardworking individuals trying to do things right, to design for #inclusion on many dimensions, to build accessibility in throughout  development cycles. And, if like RantWoman you rely on such efforts or for any other reason grow exasperated by many things one can grow exasperated about, RantWoman also wishes you safe humor-filled space in which to vent, brainstorm, distract yourselves with the meme of the day…And if you doubt the value of thinking about #accessibility, please be gracious when put in the presence of opportunities to learn. Enough said or does RantWoman need to go full RantWoman?

 

Second: the Merch: a number of items that are critical to what RantWoman means by accessibility in her daily life:

 

Pens. RantWoman can only read things written in regular pen with great difficulty. RantWoman also prefers to sign documents in pen she can read easily. Right now RantWoman is relying mainly on a brand called Bravo even though the line is a little narrower than RantWoman would prefer. RantWoman VERY much appreciates being able to order these through ordinary office supply channels AS WELL AS vendors specifically oriented toward people who are blind and have other disabilities.

 

Headphones, WITHOUT foam. RantWoman spends a lot of time getting both #a11y and info about #accessibility through headphones. RantWoman is amused by the number of #GAAD posts that demonstrate for the uninitiated screamingly fast screen reading as part of accessibility. Yep, welcome to Planet RantWoman too. Please understand, the headphones are to spare everyone else the experience and RantWoman actually prefers NO headphones whenever possible.

RantWoman really prefers bare plastic and a USB jack. Apparently such are not to be had at least not among the major electronic resources RantWoman has consulted. RantWoman would not mind a lead on good earbuds that do not conk out as soon as one gets them out of a store, but RantWoman thinks getting the right things over her ears is more important.

 

Bags: RantWoman awhile ago was reading a tweet stream about gear favored by cycling urbanists and one item was “Schlep bags.” RantWoman can relate. Right now RantWoman favors for general use bags with a zipper across the top and long enough handles to carry over RantWoman’s shoulder. Water resistance is critical in Seattle as is big enough to hold needed devices such as Chromie the Chromebook or an iPad. RantWoman currently cycles among three such bags. One mainly holds other shopping bags and is reserved for grocery shopping trips. The other two hold devices and paper and chargers and variably hand magnifiers. They also hold various nylon bag-in-a-pouch items that open to bags of various sizes that RantWoman uses for some purchases or for carrying her coat or jacket when she has guessed wrong about the weather or knows she will be travelling home at a time when the jacket will be needed.

 

Gear for visibility. RantWoman is still allergic to getting run over, especially when RantWoman cannot count on seeing the things that might run her over. RantWoman has fallen in love with dog walker lights and now has installed small ones attached to the laces of more than one pair of shoes. RantWoman also proudly sports a garish orange Dress Like a Traffic Cone hiviz nylon fleece hoodie. RantWoman is never afraid to make a bold fashion statement.

 

Red and White travel canes. RantWoman currently has 5, of 4 different length weight combinations. One of them lives most of the time in one of RantWoman’s schlep bags because sometimes it really is nice to get around indoors with something lighter and drier than what one bangs around the street with.

 

The RIGHT mail order shopping options:

RantWoman hesitates to mention how much she appreciates the simplicity of the compression sock ordering process at Vim&Vigr   RantWoman hesitates to mention this for fear some giant multinational will try to assimilate them and then overwhelm RantWoman trying to interest RantWoman in other merch. Boo! Hiss. RantWoman DOES though wish that Vim&Vigr would give RantWoman of specifying a size before being shown sale items. RantWoman does not like to waste time looking at sock variants that are not available in her size. RantWoman can handle the possibility that nothing will show up in a search. RantWoman will appreciate the time saved on a fruitless quest.

 

RantWoman also has the same show me only the size I am interested in beef with several mail order clothing websites. Possibly RantWoman should be glad that impatience about this topic sometimes keeps her from trying to order, to spend money she does not have and gets her out into the rest of the worlds accessibility challenges!