Yahoo! Live empowers deaf users to chat online (Yahoo! Developer Network Blog)

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YDN YDN Blog Yahoo! Live empowers deaf users to chat online

Yahoo! Developer Network Blog

May 2, 2008

Yahoo! Live empowers deaf users to chat online

Sometimes you stumble across use cases of your products that you just did not expect. During my talk at the Accessibility 2.0 conference last week I pointed out that technology that seemingly is a stumbling block for accessibility can actually be a benefit for disabled users.

The example was the ease of being able to annotate and caption photos in Flickr enticing a lot more users to enter sensible captions and text which in return makes it easier to find the photos and describe them to non-sighted users.

Now we found out via Amy Cohen Efron's blog "Deaf World as Eye see it" that deaf users have discovered Yahoo Live as an opportunity to chat online.

deaf users chatting using sign language on Yahoo Live

This is wonderful news, and proof that products that are on the bleeding edge and use technologies with a reputation for inaccessibility can actually benefit users overcome boundaries and make them communicate using "web 2.0" products despite their disability.

It is also a great example that accessibility is about all kind of disabilities, and that technology can be the solution rather than a hindrance.