Get ready I’m about to state the obvious, gas prices are clearly on everyone’s mind. It occurs to me that we seem to complain and speculate a lot about the reasons for the increase. Generally in discussions or news stories things like demand, or speculation or corporate greed will be attributed to the price inflation but you never seem to get the whole picture. In this light I propose a new project. This yet to be named project will be twofold. First, we need to figure out what exactly goes into the price of oil and consequently the price of gas. This should be easy enough, for the most part the information is publicly available. We will then consolidate this information to give a clear picture of what is going on and distribute it. The second part of the project is the big one.

It has been stated numerous times that our only real solution to oil prices currently is to curb demand. To do this we need a national program to reduce consumption. It’s probably safe to assume that for whatever the reason we can’t rely on the government for this. Additionally the thought of the government dipping it’s hand in the gas situation gives most economists and people who drove in the 1970’s the shivers. So why not open source the project? The number of miles driven in March by almost 11 billion miles compared to the previous year (U. S. Department of Transportation [PDF]), showing people are willing to change their habits. The open source model could create a program that is developed from numerous points of view taking into account a variety of situations. It could also include experts to make sure the program works and isn’t just hype.

Giving people a clear picture of the “whys” of the oil pricing will help to keep politicians from using gas prices as political ploys (or more likely allow people to see through them). This will also give people a motivation other than financial to join in a open sourced program to reduce consumption of oil. 

Over on Design Observer KT Meaney has written an article entitled: Greening the Grocery Store.  Her post recounts a design class focused on making recycling easier for consumers by effectively using design to educate consumers. Before you say doesn’t the little arrow thingy do that already? let me ask you does you recycling program accept #5s? Read on for a good example of design enabling education, and try to think of a better solution of our recycling symbols.

The recent decision to allow a lawsuit against Target Corporation on the grounds that their website isn’t accessible enough to the blind, has caused me to mull over the current solutions for the visually impaired. While I don’t want to comment on my thoughts about the lawsuit, I do believe that current solutions are out of sync with the present state of the web.

I’m sure this isn’t a completely original idea, but what if we served a separate style sheet to screen readers just like we would any other alternate means of browsing. This way we could optimize the content for screen readers.

But I also think there is a bigger opportunity here. I think there is a opportunity to create an opensource screen reader. There are numerous benefits to an open source screen reader. First being technology, as an open project the program can keep up with the most current web technologies. Secondly worldwide input can help to create the most usable screen reader (hopefully with a lot of input by people who actually rely on them) current solutions are generally thought of as pretty inadequate. Lastly the major benefit is cost, current screen reading software is prohibitively expensive. An open solution would make the Internet accessible to people who cant afford basic access to the net.

With the combination of an open screen reader and an new style sheet class a community of could open the Internet up to millions of people. The development could spur competition between software, and truly help to push the web towards true accessibility.