- From: David Poehlman <david.poehlman@handsontechnologeyes.com>
- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:12:35 -0400
- To: "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>, <wai-xtech@w3.org>
Another freebe is found in Mac Osx.4.x ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net> To: <wai-xtech@w3.org> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 3:43 PM Subject: Re: reCAPTCHA implementation problems what follows is an excerpt from my reply to ben when i emailed him about the status of the plans he had outlined, and which can be found at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2007May/0048.html this was just a quick knee-jerk reaction to some of the problems ben is experiencing as an implementor so as to accessify and increase the usability of the reCAPTCHA interface. for those of you joining this thread late, you can test the reCAPTCHA yourself at: http://www.recaptcha.net/ basically what follows is some very basic low-level advice, but since i placed an excerpt from ben's personal reply to the wai-xtech list http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2007Jul/0009.html it is only fitting and proper to also archive the other side of the conversation, in an attempt to avoid redundancy at such a meta-level; i don't believe there to be anything inflamatory about the information i provided him, which is a polite way of saying, if you know of a screen reader developer (windows, linux, and mac) please post that info to this thread, rather than argue over market-share for products x y and z ---- Begin Excerpt of GJR's Reply to Ben M ------- as for screen-readers, you can either try the free Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader for windows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NonVisual_Desktop_Access (description) http://www.nvda-project.org/ (the NVDA project's site) there is also charles chen's FireVox self-voicing extention for FireFox: http://clc4tts.clcworld.net/clc-firevox_doc.html which is also free... also, you might try contacting the major screen reader and screen magnification software developers -- i'm sure that there would be buy in for the screen-reader or screen readers that helped make reCAPTCHA accessible... here are the 3 major players in the magnification and/or screen-reader business: http://www.freedomsci.com/ (JAWS and MAGIC) http://www.gw-micro.com/ (Window-Eyes) http://www.yourdolphin.com/ (HAL and SuperNova) of particular note is that HAL offers the user a choice of keyboard layouts -- one can overlay the JAWS keyboard or the Window-Eyes keyboard (or use the native HAL keyboard) which makes the learning curve a little less steep, as it is easier to switch to something an individual user is familiar with -- the keyboard overlay for another screen reader's commands, but with the functionality of HAL or SuperNova (more bang for your buck if you have to purchase) i like the 7 out of 8 rule, but worry that those with cognative problems may be flummoxed by the backwards looping; i think a switch from the google-like implementation to alternating voices of different characteristics (male to female to deep male voice to childlike voice, etc.) would be sufficient to trick voice-recognition software, such as in the (real life) case of a blind user who also happens to be a double-amputee, and has to rely on speech-input as well as speech output: if the user is male, he needs to train the voice-recognition software to correctly interpret his vocal commands (while wearing an earpiece, so that the software cannot hear his screen-reader's output) AND then switch his screen reader voice and/or voices to the opposite sex, so that when both voice-input and voice-output are used together, it responds only to his voice, and NOT that which issues from a speech synthesizer, so that the voice-recognition software does not misinterpret synthesized speech, as issuing commands or entering text into an editable document; obviously, if the user is female (real life case: paralysis of one arm, and an arthritis in the other arm which is so severe that her hand is locked into a clenched position) you simply do the opposite of what i just outlined above -- use male voices for speech output, and train the voice-recognition software to recognize your (female) voice... so, if each alpha-numeric character was spoken in alternating voices, such as "average male" to "average female" to "male child" to "female child", and so on, i think you could foil attempts at speech recognition not by adding noise and backwards loops, but simply by changing voices within an audio captcha thanks again for all of your time and patience (we are trying to get someone to take responsibility for firing aural clues using ACSS when triggered by user interaction or by their assisstive technology (especially curtis, as FireVox supports the CSS3-speech module) -- one path i'm ivestigating is to integrate XML Events into HTMLx (the work of the HTML WG) and into XHTML2 precisely for the purpose of firing purely aural cues (which help a lot more people than the blind, when actually implemented) -- the problem is, no one wants to allow anyone access to their OS' native embedded audio renderer -- the beneath the hood engine that fires system sounds and plays embedded files without opening a media player instance, so the long-term approach is to define an XML Event that is interoperable and standard across platforms, so that there is more buy-in by developers... but for now, let's deal with today's technological realities, with an eye to the future development path that the HTML WG ends up pursuing in the area of forms -- and, hopefully, that path will lead to integration with XForms... type at you soon, gregory. -------------------------------------------------------------- DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors. -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary -------------------------------------------------------------- Gregory J. Rosmaita, oedipus@hicom.net Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/ --------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Thursday, 12 July 2007 01:12:48 UTC