Disability Linkspam: UK PhD Accessibility etc

[davidgillon]

Professor Farah Mendelsohn (the author) mentioned this paper in the Fans for Accessible Conventions FB group (she's a well known UK fan as well as being a disabled academic) and it should potentially interest a few people: UK PhD Accessibility, A Pilot Study I don't think there are any astounding revelations, but it does collect a bunch of stats in one place and confirm there are issues.

I've been shooting off my mouth to journalists again, and seem to be responsible for the title of :

Drop in Access to Work numbers shows DWP ‘is strangling the scheme’

TLDR: Disability employment figures supposedly rising, yet the number of disabled people accessing government support to work is actually down slightly - either employers are cherrypicking people with minor disabilities, or the scheme is increasingly difficult to access. (What makes this all utterly ridiculous, government was making £1.40 in tax revenue for every pound spent on AtW, so the Tories cut the scheme).

I won't link to anything as it's more a cumulative effect thing, but there seem to be quite a few people raising questions about how accessible Pokemon Go is. I'm not really a mobile game person, but I'm not remotely attracted by a game that requires you to walk around.

Comments

[the_rck]

I suspect that Pokemon Go and Ingress are pretty impossible for people with any sort of mobility issues, and I would be surprised if Niantic has thought about, say, voice access as opposed to button pressing.

Both games are useful, though, for some people of my acquaintance (including me) with disabling agoraphobia or other types of anxiety. I had to take an Ativan in order to go out the door for an appointment today, but I've been taking ten minute walks every day, mostly unaccompanied, just down to the bottom of the hill where there's an Ingress portal and back up. That's really huge for me. My preference is to stay inside with the curtains drawn as much as I can get away with. I don't feel safe that way, but doing that lets me pretend that the things I'm afraid of aren't still out there.

[davidgillon]

Yeah, it clearly has pluses as well as minuses, and which is which depends on your specific disability.