Second Life - what are your thoughts?

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By henny

I've been hanging out in the virtual world Second Life a lot recently wrapping my head around all the amazing things you can do there. Something that's really struck me however is how this could be a real opportunity for people who are restricted in some way in their day to day lives. Working as a Web Accessibility Consultant this is hardly surprising but what really got me excited was thinking of the opportunities that it could give a friend of mine, Sam, who was paralysed in a car accident a couple of years ago. Imagine if he could hang out in Second Life, meet people, go to concerts, take courses, fly, earn his own money, even play football with his Dad. To do all this though Second Life needs to be accessible which, from what I have seen so far, it isn't fully so I am currently researching how Second Life fairs in terms of accessibility from the perspective of all users including people with mobility, visual, hearing and cognitive impairments.

To do this though I need your help. Rather than just put on my auditors hat I'd like to also hear what your experiences are with Second Life including the good as well as the bad, what you find troublesome, what features you like most and if you use an access technology or change your browser settings. If you'd like to share you thoughts then leave a comment here or send an email to accesssecondlife@gmail.com.



Comments (7)

Tag: Articles

Posted at: 25/07/2007 7:57 PM by Verity Cork

Comments

Networking tool?

Alan Mills said on 2007-07-26 13:27:49

Sort of related but has anyone come across a Facebook type networking tool for people with Learning Disabilities to stay in touch with each other. Secure, very visual, that sort of thing?

Posted at: 14/4/2010 3:01 PM by Verity Cork

Chatterblogs

Phil Teare said on 2007-07-26 15:26:45

Hi Alan

While www.Chatterblogs.net may or may not quite suit your needs, we would may be able to build something that would be more tailored to what you want....

Feel free to email me. phil dot a dot teare at googlemail dot com

Cheers

Posted at: 14/4/2010 3:03 PM by Verity Cork

Review of Second Life by Florida Blind Services

Jamie Smith said on 2007-08-02 02:29:51

Folks from Florida Blind Services looked at the site Second life:

In a nutshell, Second Life locks out persons who are blind.

2 users, JAWS, high level of knowledge, unable to get in the door
1 user, low vision technology provided by operating system, unable to
get in the door

This system is not meeting even minimum standards.

The task was simple please login in to Second Life, so we can take a
look at the community.

For speech users there are no navigation tools at all. (no list menus,
no header levels) Moreover, the links, and graphics - when labeled -
are problematic. There was the typical "click here" and "read more",
but there were also links that had no meaning whatsoever. Graphics
often that were labeled said stuff like "spacer gif" or had no meaning
whatsoever. But these two highly technical speech users were not going
to let this stop them. There were four links that said something to the
effect "join secondlife for free". The links did not all go to the join
page. One user got stuck on a page. (target blank used to open windows
some of the time, some of the time it wasn't.) Basically, one very
high end speech user was not able to get to join. - gave up at this
point. Second, user was provided sighted assistance to get to the
correct login page. The form itself had no "label for" or text for
speech to read most of the time. The user, being a highly motivated and
high end speech users got in and out of edit mode. The drop down list
(reads as combo box) only allowed user to select a "fictions last name".
After playing for a while user figured out that the name was not
supposed to be "real". When the person selected a fact last name, the
combination of the fictitious last name and the real name was already
taken. A window opened up, focus went to that window. The user had not
realized a new window opened. User required sighted assistance to
explain what happened and to select a name not taken and to continue
login in processes. The person moved forward slowly, until, low and
behold there was a graphic with code on it used for verification. There
was a nice "Click Here" if you can't read the graphic link. When you
clicked here, a new graphic displayed.

None of our staff were able to get in the door.

I actually watched the users attempt the log in process. I ended up
logging in to see what the community was about. I am very shocked that
any government entity would even consider being part of this community.
The clear 508 violations, the disenfranchising of persons who are can't
afford broadband or latest technology, are just the tip of the ice berg.
THIS IS AN ADULT COMMUNITY. 18 and over only. I know on our site we
have students that often use it, and I know a few of the government
entities that are listed as using it and often used by teachers for
research. So will government entities now have one site for adults and
one site for "teens"? Do government sites what to share communities
that are very close to being pornographic (avatars for one of the
woman's pages - note I thought the world was going to be for women...
Maya, )?

Posted at: 14/4/2010 3:06 PM by Verity Cork

Email for Second Life research

Henny said on 2007-08-02 08:00:33

Thanks so much for sharing that Jamie. I'll have a proper read through and add it to my research. I've also set up an email address for people to write into with their experiences when accessing Second Life called accesssecondlife@gmail.com

Posted at: 14/4/2010 3:07 PM by Verity Cork

3D virtual worlds

Nik Radford said on 2008-01-31 10:24:16

I know this is going to sound awful. But if someone can't see the 3D virtual world, what's the point? They have to be able to navigate the world. It isn't a website, the actual website is just where you create your account, you can't access any of the communities without getting a client and the Linden Labs client is a 3d graphics application. Your only sense available for navigating the world is sight or sound, since touch, smell and taste have yet to be implemented electronically.

If SL was simply a chat room, I'd understand that things need to be sorted. But unfortunatly, due to the nature of the beast, it can't be made accessible. Just a query, what do blind or very visionally impaired people do when faced with games like FEAR, WoW and the like? Where the interaction is mainly in a visual 3D world?

As to the less important point of requiring broadband connections. Thats simple, SL transfers HUGE amounts of data at any one time, the 3D world is "streamed" from the internet to your computer (unlike world of warcraft, where the world exists on your hard drive and only user positions and such are sent).

Posted at: 14/4/2010 3:12 PM by Verity Cork

Reading security codes aloud

ShanDae Bachem said on 2008-02-01 01:14:09

In regards to the issue with starting an account (and that security code)...
It's been a bit since I started my account. Isn't there an option to have the code read aloud? This is commonly done on other sites. It would be interesting to learn how someone else who is visually impaired would navigate 'inworld'.

Posted at: 14/4/2010 3:13 PM by Verity Cork

Accessible games and security codes

Henny said on 2008-02-29 18:13:56

Nik: Thank you for your comments, you raise some issues that I'm sure others have thought and not felt they can post here. There are many people with visual impairments as well as a huge amount of other people with disabilities that affect their mobility, speech or hearing who love to be in virtual worlds and play games online. I don't believe the fact that you don't have one sense and the application in question, such as the SL grid, is excessively difficult to make accessible is reason enough to exclude folk. I know many people in SL who are effectively stuck at home unable to go out who find that SL is literally a lease of life.

For info there are plenty of online games that are accessible (http://www.accessiblewebgames.com/) and there is much research and development going into making SL accessible too. IBM have a project looking into using sound for navigation (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6993739.stm) and there are also projects looking at brain computer interfaces (http://www.pinktentacle.com/2007/10/brain-computer-interface-for-second-life/). I agree it is a hard task but let's not let that be a reason not to try.

While not a legal person I would also say that there are quite possibly legal implications of locking people out. Many established international and small businesses use SL as a means of recruitment, employment and research. This could leave them in a vulnerable position if some of these services were available only in SL. And again, I would argue that people with disabilities, blind or otherwise, can find themselves isolated and marginalised so having easy access to a world of education and employment from the comfort of their own home is a huge thing.

ShanDae Bachem: You're correct. CAPTCHA's do have an alterative which is being read out loud. I blogged about CAPTCHA elsewhere in this blog and ran through the issues there. Using sound in-world is something IBM are looking at (see above). We already have a little bit of that in that the sound of the sea gets louder as you approach and conversations louder. Building on this and making it more accessible is certainly something that is being looked into and I imagine will be progressed.

Thanks for your comments, keep 'em coming!

Posted at: 14/4/2010 3:21 PM by Verity Cork

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