Interview with Eliot Spindel

WG: Eliot, you have been doing the web management for Wordgathering for the five years of its publication and have worked with Inglis House on its website for longer than that. How did you first get involved in your work with computers?

ES: One correction on your question. I've been working on the Drink-Aide website which is owned by the Inglis Foundation since 2000, and I worked on the Inglis Foundation website helping with its original redesign a few years ago, but it has only been within the last year that I have been asked to do all the updates on Inglis.org.

Before my injury (a fall) in 1985, I worked for Eastern Airlines Incorporated and used their mainframe computers. After going through rehabilitation, I decided I wanted to return to work. At the time, PCs were starting to become more common. After moving to Inglis House, I enrolled in a computer school called AbiliTech in Philadelphia. At AbiliTech I learned to use PCs and some programming languages. The web really was not developed yet so I learned web programming on my own. Because of my quadriplegic paralysis, working on computers is a good match, since it does not require a lot of mobility.

WG: What are some of the accommodations, tools and programs that you use in your work to offset the physical limitations of the quadriplegic paralysis? Is there a particular kind of physical set up that you need to work?

ES: Because of my quadriplegic paralysis and severe arthritis, I cannot move anything but my eyes and lips. Despite those limitations, my voice is good, so I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 with a headset on a regular Dell Computer to input into a computer. I can pretty much do by voice anything that someone can do with their hands. To compensate for my lack of head mobility, I need to have the computer monitor at an elevated level. My computer and monitor are on a rolling stand so they can be brought over towards my bed, allowing me the flexibility of using the computer in bed.

I do not use any special software to compensate for my limitations other than the Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I do programming in Dreamweaver and Notepad.

WG: As a person who manages websites for entities such as Wordgathering and Inglis House, what considerations do you keep in mind to be sure that the websites you work on are as accessible as possible to people with various disabilities? Asked in another way, what problems do you see with many websites that make them difficult to use?

ES:Web designers need to create websites that take into account the disability category types and make their sites as fully accessible as possible. Guidelines are determined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Section 508 of The Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The major categories of disability types are: hearing (deafness), motor (paralysis, motor control), cognitive (learning disabilities, memory, concentration), visual (blindness, colorblindness, vision).

There are certain web coding and design techniques that designers can use to make their websites accessible. Often times the adaptations that web designers create are necessary for a certain disability category type, but also helpful to everybody, just like electronic doors to buildings can be helpful to everyone. For example, captioned videos are helpful to everyone not necessarily those with deafness. Simple, organized site navigation and structure text are helpful to everyone.

Unfortunately, most websites on the Internet are barely accessible if at all. Some common examples of a lack of accessibility on websites today are: you rarely see captioned videos, audio with transcripts, excessive uses of flash and other scripting, poor font size and color contrast, and complicated site navigation.

WG: It sounds as though, there are a great many things to consider with respect trying to design an accessible website. I'd like to take a very basic example. Suppose someone designing a website wants to take into account people with very limited or no vision who are using screen readers. What are some of the simple coding changes a web designer might make for basic text to be sure that the person using the screen reader will not have a problem reading it?

ES: A screen reader is software that reads the text on the screen to the user.

A user controls the screen reader using the keyboard. Coding must not interfere with the keyboard and not use code that is mouse dependent.

For images, photos, and graphics a designer needs to use the "alt" or "long description" tags to provide a description.

The designer should not rely on colors to convey meaning. In other words, the designer should not use text that reads "the green section shows profit".

Allow users to skip over long lists or repetitive links. A person using a screen reader can tab through the links, or if coded properly, skip over them.

Since the user can tab to a specific link, links should make sense when out of context, For example, the use of "click here" is not descriptive enough as it does not tell the user where the link is taking them.

Provide an alternative text for complex tables and graphs.

Use semantic headers as a screen reader can jump to the next header.

WG: Have you seen any new software programs or adaptive equipment lately that you find exciting in terms of being able make computers more accessible to people with disabilities?

ES: I have not seen anything really new except upgrades to current hardware and software assistive technology. Voice input, especially by Nuance's Dragon Naturally Speaking 11.5 has a lot more features and is more accurate than previous versions. Nuance also has added support for the Mac as well as smart phones.

Most of the technology of the various switches, keyboards and mice go back decades but are constantly upgraded to match the various upgrades of software programs and operating systems. This is also the case for tracking of the eyes technology as well as screen readers. More and more smart phones I have added some speech input and text to speech features.

WG: You're generally the person behind the scenes in Wordgathering and the Inglis House website, so I wanted to shift gears here and just ask something non-computer related that might let readers know a bit more about you as a person. When you used to make postings on Facebook, there were often pictures and information about the Allman Brothers Band and the Derek Trucks Band. Are these bands whose members you know personally or is it just a musical interest? What appeals to you about their music?

ES: In 1970 when I was unpacking my belongings in the dormitory at Georgia Tech, I heard some music coming from down the hallway. I went to the person's room playing the music and asked him who the artist was on the record. It was the first Allman Brothers Band album. I became a fan at that time and saw them numerous times over the years.

When I first got on the Internet around 1994/95 I joined an Allman Brothers Band listserv. Over the years I would contribute newspaper articles to the listserv about the band that I saw on the Internet. Evidently someone that knew the band manager forwarded the articles to him. He reached out to me having seen my e-mail address. The band invited me to some shows when they played the local area around New Jersey and Pennsylvania. At that time met the band members. I talk to them whenever I am at a show.

Derek Trucks who is the nephew of one of the founding members, drummer Butch Trucks, is a guitar prodigy who has been touring since age 12. YouTube has some videos of him playing at that early age. In 2000 Derek joined the Allman Brothers Band as one of the guitarists. Meanwhile, he has had his own band called the Derek Trucks Band. Since then he joined forces with his wife Susan Tedeschi (Grammy nominated vocalist and guitar player) and her band. This past year they were touring as the Tedeschi-Trucks Band and last week won a Grammy award for best blues album.

WG: Other than music, what are your interests?

ES: I like reading nonfiction through audio books or through the Kindle software on my computer. I also listen to free podcast courses on iTunes U. I also like watching movies. I enjoy pro football and politics, and I tutor in the computer lab.

WG: Thanks for taking the time for the interview, Eliot. Wordgathering and all its readers certainly owe you a debt for your work here.