Making Communications a Reality for All

The FCC is dedicated to ensuring that all Americans – including Americans with disabilities – have full access to our nation’s communications revolution. The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act put into motion new requirements to ensure that everyone has access to communications and video programming, as well as the ability to send and receive emergency information and services.

Part of those requirements included the creation of a clearinghouse to be available on the FCC’s website, which officially launched on October 28, 2011. More recent updates include a “Responsive Design” feature – a technique that delivers quality experience to users no matter how large or small their display – a first for the FCC. The Accessibility Clearinghouse boasts over 2000 listings including mobile phones, mobile apps and assistive technologies, disability organization, service provider and equipment manufacturer contact information, fact sheets and more.

Computech helped the FCC build this Accessibility Clearinghouse by providing data analysis, information architecture, interaction design, custom web development and accessibility management services. A key part of this clearinghouse is making all the information useful, usable and accessible to people of all ages and abilities. To ensure the achievement of these objectives, Computech assisted FCC in gathering feedback from various disability organizations and other federal agencies. Additionally, Computech went above and beyond the Section 508 and WCAG standards to make the system compatible with various assistive technologies, including the aforementioned “Responsive Design” feature.

This clearinghouse is more than a website, and we hope that it will enable and foster better communication access throughout the accessibility community. All of the clearinghouse data is available through RESTful APIs with intention to share. The data can be consumed and repackaged in other forums, in order to grow and share access exponentially. We believe it will benefit everyone to make the information openly available so all parties can tailor the information to different platforms and to different audiences.

Computech also helped demonstrate the clearinghouse to the accessibility community on the day of launch. The community expressed great excitement and enthusiasm with the amazing work done and how the site looks and performs. The FCC was absolutely thrilled with the site and could not give us enough kudos. Karen Peltz Strauss, Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Deputy Chief had the following to say regarding our contribution:

“Just when I think that you cannot top yourselves, you do! Today’s event was truly extraordinary and a debt of gratitude goes to all of you, an amazing team of people!   The accolades kept pouring in throughout the morning, into the afternoon and continue into the evening. You have made the Commission shine with your highly professional work. The presentations went off without a hitch, the TEC looked beautiful, and the clearinghouse ‘wowed’ everyone.

“By your work, you have elevated public attention on disability issues to a new level, demonstrating to everyone that what was unimaginable just a few years ago is now making communications a reality for people with disabilities. Thank you so much for all your incredible dedication and hard work to this effort.”

Posted on Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 4:03 pm and is filed under FCC, Web Design.

By: Umasankar Arumugam

— Mobile User Experience of the National Broadband Map »

Computech’s CMS Solution for the National Broadband Map

Late last week, WordPress’ Publisher Blog posted a story on the National Broadband Map’s use of WordPress to develop the interactive website. Computech’s Ivan Djordjevic was quoted in the piece as saying:

“The structure of the WordPress API allows us to develop much faster than any other CMS we’ve tried.”

The publisher blog is just the latest publication to acknowledge the outstanding work that Computech’s team — along side the FCC and NTIA — has accomplished. Check out these links for more mentions of the use of WordPress in the development of the National Broadband Map:

Posted on Monday, May 9th, 2011 at 11:59 am and is filed under Broadband Map, Web Design.

By: Darren Vandergriff

« Computech Influencing “The Future of Mobile” — Juan Marin talks Broadband Map Development »

Computech Makes an Impression at FCC’s Open Developer Day

Early last week, Computech took part in FCC’s Open Developer Day. Along with having a strong presence at the convention, Computech had multiple representatives at the meeting to showcase our FCC/developer APIs (an initial prototype that Computech built for the National Broadband Map), which generated a lot of buzz.

Among some of the day’s events:

• A discussion on how to optimize large amounts of data at a national level

• A general overview of the concepts and architecture of the National Broadband Map and its novel approach to web mapping

• The opportunity for a senior web developer to unveil his iPhone application demo to Chairman Genachowski, Chief Data Officer Greg Elin, and Managing Director Steven Van Roekel

When all was said and done, Computech was one of four teams that was able to develop something during the event, showcasing our ability to crank stuff out with a quick turn-around time and prove what talented individuals we have on our team.

Computech’s presence at the event was even mentioned in the press.

Posted on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Web Design.

By: Darren Vandergriff

« Computech to Provide Consulting & Software Services for PTS’ 800 MHz Band Auction — A peek behind the curtains »

A peek behind the curtains

Need a distraction from the second round of this week’s “snowpocalypse” talk?  Look no further than this marketing and design-inspired post.  While it may be hard to think about the next few weeks (looking at several feet of snow has that effect), we are really excited to re-launch our corporate website later this month.  While we’re still in the design and development phase of things, we’re giving you a sneak peek at what our new look might become:

*Sample home page

*Sample interior page

As you might expect, this is an in-house project.  And yes, we’re very interested in feedback on the look, so please feel free to comment below.

(*If you’re a part of our Yammer community, join the conversation there about how we might build upon our existing site to best promote our firm.)

Posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Web Design.

By: Computech

« Computech Makes an Impression at FCC’s Open Developer Day —