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No Mouse, No Monitor
Unplug your mouse and hand it over. Do you know which hotkey turns your monitor screen off? Press it. Now I have a challenge for you: whatever you were going to accomplish online today, get started. No, you can’t have your mouse back, and your screen stays black.
Building empathy for people with vision impairment who must navigate the internet using a keyboard is the goal of this year’s winning project in the annual axe-hackathon sponsored by Deque Systems, a digital accessibility company. The winning team calls their project Inclusiville.
Team leader Suella Lee describes the project as “a simple game which is designed to develop empathy for the blind in its users and for them to take action afterward.”
In the game, an opaque overlay covers a website about a fictitious Inclusiville Arts Festival, and the player’s task is to use just the keyboard to answer a series of questions about the event. Where is the event going to be held? When is your favorite band scheduled to play? And can you register for the event online without encountering any accessibility difficulties?
In emphasizing empathy, Lee and her team may be on to something. Research indicates that empathy can be learned, and that empathic people are more likely to help others.
