- From: Kelly Ford <kford@teleport.com>
- Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 07:05:22 -0800 (PST)
- To: kford@teleport.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 07:01:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Kelly Ford <kford@teleport.com>
To: webwatch-l@lists.teleport.com
Subject: NY Times: Bringing the Visual World of the Web to the Blind
Hi All,
The New York Times ran a story on the web and folks who are blind this
morning. The full article with hypertext links can be found at:
Linkname: Bringing the Visual World of the Web to the Blind
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/circuits/articles/26blind.html
The article is below with the URLs for the referenced web sites included.
I am somewhat disappointed to again read the myth propagated by Microsoft
that the accessibility problems in Internet Explorer 4.01 were corrected
in just over a month. Interesting to constantly read that when beta
testing of screen readers to work with IE 4 is just now getting started.
Microsoft's constant claims that the accessibility was corrected in about
a month ignore the fact that the version of Active Accessibility was
changed and well I've stated my opinions on this here before.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still thrilled to have access to the web and to be
able to read all I can but I wish some of these articles would really
investigate the claims that get tossed out as fact. Apologies for the
numbers in brackets in the article but Lynx, my first choice in web
browsers, does this to make navigation easier. When Will Microsoft
include such a handy feature?
March 26, 1998
Bringing the Visual World of the Web to the Blind
By DEBRA NUSSBAUM
Curtis Chong has been using the World Wide Web for three years to
look up topics like music, fund-raising and medical research. He
also uses it as a way to teach and encourage other blind people to
get on the Web.
How does someone who cannot see the screen navigate the computer
and Web, which is full of glitzy graphics and icons?
[INLINE]
Credit: Marty Katz for The New York Times
Curtis Chong of the National Federation of the Blind helps Partricia
Maurer, a colleague, use voice synthesis and Braille software.
_________________________________________________________________
Chong communicates all his commands through the keyboard. His
printer prints in Braille. He uses the Internet Explorer 3.02 with
a piece of software called a screen reader and a speech synthesizer
to turn the written words on the screen into words spoken in a
computer-generated voice.
"We want to use the Web, and we want to use it like everybody else
does," said Chong, director of technology for the [4]National
Federation of the Blind, based in Baltimore. "We don't believe the
computer is the great equalizer for the blind, but it's one way to
make our lives better."
For the more than half-million blind people of working age in the
United States, getting on the Web may not only mean being able to
research topics of interest but may also be a necessary skill for
staying employed.
"It certainly affects the jobs of thousands of blind people," said
Gary Wunder, a blind man who is a senior computer programmer at the
University of Missouri Hospitals and Clinics. He is required to use
the Web in his job for project assignments and updates. "It isn't
just optional anymore."
While current statistics on the use of computers and the Web by
blind and visually impaired people are hard to find, technology
companies and advocacy organizations say the numbers are rapidly
increasing. Tens of thousands of blind people are on computers, and
every year more of them are learning to use the Web, Chong said.
A 1991 study published by the American Foundation for the Blind in
New York found that 43 percent of blind and severely visually
impaired people were using the computer for writing, said Emilie
Schmeidler, senior research associate for the foundation. Her
impression is that more visually impaired people are using
computers and the Web now, she said, and "more and more jobs
require the computer."
_________________________________________________________________
Being able to use the Web is critical to thousands of employed blind
people.
_________________________________________________________________
A screen reader or screen access program like the one Chong uses is
the translator that tells a speech synthesizer what to say when the
visual icons are accompanied by a text description. "It's my white
cane that helps me know what's on the screen," Chong said.
Henter-Joyce, a company in St. Petersburg, Fla., that manufactures
the popular screen reader called JAWS (Job Access With Speech) for
Windows, has between 15,000 and 18,000 customers, said the
company's president, Ted Henter. He said the customer base had
increased four to five times since 1995.
At least seven companies make the screen readers. Henter-Joyce's
JAWS is one of the top sellers and costs about $795; the company's
new version, to be released this spring, will include a speech
synthesizer. The National Federation of the Blind Web site includes
a [5]computer-resource page that has information on how to get in
contact with the companies that sell the readers.
RELATED ARTICLE
[6]Guidelines for Making Web Pages Accessible to the Blind
But getting the technology right is only one piece of the package.
If Web pages do not have text that identifies graphics or if they
have moving type, they will not be accessible. The [7]World Wide
Web Consortium, made up of universities, corporations and research
organizations and based at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, started a three-year project in 1997 called the Web
Accessibility Intiative that is creating guidelines to make
technology and Web pages more accessible to blind, deaf and
disabled users.
The National Federation of the Blind has eight [8]accessibility
guidelines for Web pages that can be found on its Web site.
The [9]Center for Applied Special Technology, a nonprofit research
and development organization in Peabody, Mass., has a free service
in which it analyzes Web sites and offer suggestions for their
accessibility.
The change from DOS, a text-based operating sytem, to Windows, a
graphics-based operating system, was a setback for the blind.
"The world enthusiastically embraced Windows, and we were left
out," said Wunder, who is also president of the Missouri chapter of
the National Federation of the Blind. But in the last two and a
half years, Microsoft "has shown concern and responsiveness" to the
blind, Wunder said.
Version 3.02 of Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer, includes a
component called Microsoft Active Accessibility, a layer of codes
that are compatible with accessibility aids like the screen reader.
In addition to aiding blind users, these codes also hook into
software that helps users who are deaf or have other disabilities.
But a newer version, Internet Explorer 4.0, was released on Oct. 1,
1997, without the Active Accessibility component. Angry letters,
phone calls and e-mails let Luanne LaLonde, Microsoft's
accessibility product manager, and others at Microsoft know that
this was unacceptable.
"We got a lot of e-mail," she said. In early November, about 35
days after the release of Explorer 4.0, Microsoft released Explorer
4.01, including Active Accessibility.
Web page design, of course, is an element of accessibility. Vito
DeSantis, manager of field operations for the southern regional
office of the New Jersey Commission for the Blind, uses the Web to
find research on the eye condition that has made it impossible for
him to see the computer screen for the past three years. He also
likes to read newspapers on the Web.
For visually impaired Web users like DeSantis, the vertical columns
on the Web present the biggest problem because screen readers pick
up the information horizontally.
"You have to really know how to navigate around the screen,"
DeSantis said. "I imagine quite a few people might get frustrated.
Sometimes it's just not worth the effort."
While screen readers help, Wunder said, "no screen reader has made
the Web as easily accessible for the blind as for the sighted."
Even with top-of-the-line screen readers, Web pages have to have
text explanations for graphics and icons or the visually impaired
computer user cannot move.
"You get a screen and it says, 'Image, image, image,'" Schmeidler
said, quoting the sound her screen reader makes when the cursor
hits an icon without accompanying text. "You have no idea how
frustrating it is."
In addition to the advice on making a Web page accessible from the
National Federation of the Blind and the Center for Applied Special
Technology, the World Wide Web Consortium has a group of volunteer
computer experts who are leading the [10]Web Accessibility
Initiative. The group's goal is to write guidelines for Web page
authors who want to make their pages accessible for all disabled
users. A rough draft of the recommendations can be found on the
consortium's Web site.
"Everything is voluntary, and the documents are called
recommendations," said Professor Gregg Vanderheiden, director of
the Trace Research and Development Center at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison and a member of the group. But for businesses
and government agencies, making sites accessible may not be
voluntary, he said.
In a policy ruling in September 1996, the Department of Justice
said the Americans With Disabilities Act did cover access to Web
pages.
"A Web site is an electronic front door," Vanderheiden said. "But
blind users often have to let individual Web page authors know that
they can't understand their pages.
"Sometimes people instantly go and fix it, and sometimes people
don't care."
Blind users say they want basic instruction on how to navigate the
Web and get what they want. They do not need long descriptions that
are intended to help them see pictures or other graphics.
"Don't try to tell me how wonderful the Mona Lisa is," Wunder said.
"You can't do that, but you can tell me how to get the picture and
print it out for my daughter."
______________________________________________________________
11. http://www.nfb.org/
12. http://www.nfb.org/computer.htm
13. http://www.nfb.org/webacc.htm
14. http://www.w3.org/
15. http://www.w3.org/wai
16. http://www.cast.org/bobby
Received on Thursday, 26 March 1998 10:05:25 UTC