Six months ago, the implementation of accessibility-friendly W3C standards, especially in relation to media players and screen readers, seemed pretty clear, with all web browsers having some level of implementation of HTML5 except for Internet Explorer 8. The HTML5 standard has since evolved rapidly, particularly in January and with updates in April.
The BBC Technology article on gaming for those who are colourblind talks about the difficulties people who are colourblind have when playing mainstream games. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is a prime example of colour being used solely to convey information. In multiplayer mode, teammates are identified by green tags above their heads while enemies have red tags, making it particularly difficult, if not impossible, for people who are colourblind to easily recognise friend from foe.
It’s an amazing thing to watch how new platforms and devices move from ‘niche developer tool’ to ‘fad’, then ‘trend’ and finally ‘commonplace’. In recent years devices such as netbooks and the iPad, along with platforms such as Google Android, have certainly followed this path. Android in particular seems to have gone from a hobby OS to a dominant mobile platform in about a year.
