New Technology for the Blind? 213
Recently, quite a few questions surrounding technology for the visually impared have dropped into the Ask Slashdot in-box and I'd like to take the time to share these questions with you. Please read on for more.
Gaming Accessibility Recommendations?
openSoar asks: "I work for a company that makes and runs a virtual online world called SecondLife. One of the most inspirational stories I've heard recently has been about a group of people with extreme physical challenges and limitations who are using our software to great effect including (to quote from the original forum post) - 'the chance to be on an equal playing field for once, to not have to have folks get past what they look or sound like... to be warmly received... to play and have fun the way their peers do.' - I want to make things even better and provide a broad range of accessibility features and options. Time constraints mean I can't tackle everything so I'm trying to hit the really useful ones first. Of course, we're going to ask the users what they think but I figured that the folk here would also have some great ideas and suggestions."Blind Friendly Open Source Software?
scubacuda asks: "A friend of mine is blind, yet he effortlessly navigates through his Windows XP box (installing programs, buying stuff on eBay, reading web-pages, etc) using JAWS. When I asked him what open source resources were available for him, I was surprised to hear him say, 'Almost nothing.' Is this true? Are we just not looking at the right places, or do blind-friendly resources tend to be Microsoft-centric? I tried to get him to switch over to Firefox, but he says that it doesn't work as well with JAWS as IE does."MP3 Players for the Visually Impaired?
holden caufield asks: "As the geek-in-residence for my circle of friends, I've been asked the 'Which MP3 player should I buy?' question repeatedly, and I'm yet to offer an answer to them that doesn't rhyme with 'iPod'. Now I've been asked this very same question from a good friend who is blind (only *very* limited vision in one eye), and I'm thinking the iPod is still the way to go? Can anyone tell me their visually impaired experiences with MP3 players? Keep in mind, I don't mean 'can you now use it without looking at it?', since the learning curve would have been flattened for you by being able to study it originally. Any suggestions? A few reasons why I think the iPod will work for him:- Simple user interface
- Cursor changes can be heard with (or without) headphones on
- Bright back-lighting may be helpful for him.
- He uses a screen reader (JAWS for Windows), so compatibility with that is possibly more important than nearly any other feature.
- He is looking for an MP3 player. Ogg and FLAC compatibility is not a consideration, and will not weigh in favor of any device.
- Sorry, but switching to Linux is not an option, however open-source that is Win32-compatible is fine."
OS X works for me (Score:5, Informative)
I like OS X since it also has a bunch of other features for the handicapped, like zoom, contrast and grayscale adjustments. If you're not completely blind, this is quite useful. Check out the Universal Access preferences pane to see the hearing and keyboard and mouse stuff too.
mp3 player for the visually impaired? Hmmm, maybe a laptop running iTunes and the spoken interface enabled. I set it up to read any highlighted text when I hit F8. The only minor problem is that it reads the whole line in the playlist, the name, time, artist, album, genre, etc. That would make quick browsing kind of hard.
Re:OS X works for me (Score:4, Informative)
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2, Insightful)
The Mac, speaking English since 1984 (Score:4, Interesting)
A historical note:
I wasn't here, but I heard that the first Mac did, or was supposed to, introduce itself using MacIntalk. If true, in 1984 this would've had a lot of *ooh* *ahh* potential.
More history on Macintalk - Apple Technote PT22 (Score:4, Interesting)
Macintalk, the Final Chapter [apple.com] You can find some more tidbits on google's groups, search for Macintalk with a date filter of 1990.
Texas Instruments - speaking English since 1980 (Score:3)
I find it shocking that technology that was available as early as 1982 has progressed so little and isn't widely available.
Re:Not a high demand, ordering coffee from the car (Score:2)
The 2004 edition added speech recognition, and you can use it with or without having a predefined route. If you're just cruising around, you can ask things like "Where am I?" or "What is the nearest fast food?" and it'll come up with responses like "You are on eye seventyfive, nor
Re:OS X works for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course Apple was having to work on their accessibility issues for federal approval, but not only are they are going far beyond the absolute base requirements, they have made the same OS a productive work environment for scientific research as well. Therefore, I am more than happy to try and integrate OS X into patient education and use as well as in my basic science research in the lab.
P.S. There is a movement within the National Library for the Blind to replace all of their "books on tape" with a digital format compatible with
iPod is all visual (Score:2)
You're kidding, right? The iPod is totally visual. After the 1G Apple doesn't even have a tactile feedback controller. The entire UI is based on visually dialing through hierarchical lists. It is ill-suited for visually impaired people from both a hardware and a fundamental software architecture POV.
Magic Interface? (Score:2)
How do you move your selection focus between different playlists, or genres, or artists, without getting visual feedback? Navigating within a single linear array is trivial for sighted and unsighted alike, but beyond that?
This post explains in much better detail [slashdot.org] why the iPod is currently spectacularly un-optimized for non-visual ope
Re:OS X works for me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2)
The KDE Accessibility project is cooperating closely with other accessibility projects (GNOME, SpeechDispatcher, ...) to develop common solutions for blind users.
Last August, the KDE project has organized a "Unix Accessibility Forum" as part of the KDE World Summit. Attendees included people from IBM, Novell, Sun Microsystems, Trolltech, BAUM Retec, GNOME, Mozilla, and the Free Standards Group.
In January, there will be another meeting to discuss close cooperation for impaired users, organized by the Fre
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2, Insightful)
At some point or another, we have all (most likely) had an original tape walkman.
Could you operate that from your pocket without pulling it out?
An iPod is designed to be held in your hand and played with - like a modile phone or a deck of cards, its not designed for use whilst tucked away.
It seems like styling and design has overtaken functionality.
Maybe, it could be recaptured by allowing a simplified clicker interface on the pod, sacrifice extra
Re:OS X works for me (Score:3, Interesting)
So si
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2, Interesting)
The attraction of a large media player to me would be "plays as much stuff as the radio, but I can choose what to listen to".
Simple skip buttons for Song/Folder would be enough for me. Sure, that way, I lose the pointless searching for music, and get on with playing it.
I wouldn't have put the music on the device if I didn't like it, and at the point of putting it on, I can do whatever searching and arranging I want.
I have winamp on
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2)
As for whether or not you need to search, that's really up to the individual, I guess. Sometimes I make winamp randomize the playlist, and sometimes I sort by artist/album so that I can listen to a whole album. But sometimes I feel like hearing a particular song, and it's nice to be able to ju
Re:They didn't cure it... (Score:2)
But there is a guy, today, who has a visual implant and can see shadows. It's powered by a huge brick of a computer he lugs around, but the basic technology is in place, and it will only get better from there. even being able to see black-and-white would be good enough for most blind-people... it's way better than seeing nothing.
Current implementations (Score:2)
Then, there's the arguments that, at least un
Re:Current implementations (Score:2)
Crutches and Kicking Them Out (Score:2)
Re:Crutches and Kicking Them Out (Score:2)
Re:Crutches and Kicking Them Out (Score:2)
Actually, I'd disagree there... True sign language involves multiple conventions involving time and place. They also cut out a lot of the unnecessary words in the language. On the other hand, the sign language you get from the average college course or regular elementary school is likely to be the highly inefficient English-to-ASL
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2)
Re:OS X works for me (Score:2)
Doane College [doane.edu]
Panther has this (Score:2)
Go into the System Preferences and click the "Universal Access" pane (4th row down, the "System" section, farthest icon to the right, a figure in a blue outlined circle). The first thing that appears (under the "Seeing" tab) contains just such features.
Oddly enough, the text-to-speech features are all adjustable under the "Speech" pane (4th row down, the "System" section, 3rd icon from the right, a micropho
Blind + Linux = BLINUX (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget KDE (Score:3, Interesting)
The KDE Accessibility team is in the process of integrating speech synthesis into KDE. Not only does this mean better support for visually-impaired and speech-impaired users, but the new features should also prove for a fun desktop experience overall.
Seems very relevent!
POPFile (Score:4, Informative)
He did all three and I have heard from users that POPFile works well with screen readers. I'm not sure about JAWS in particular.
It wasn't particularly onerous to get the Bobby AA mark for the software and I'm always happy to have another satisfied user.
John.
Re:POPFile (Score:3, Interesting)
"If you want to work on it then you need to do that PLUS you need to make it pass the Bobby Accessibility Guidelines".
Beware that just because something passes Bobby, it doesn't necessarily mean it's completely accessible. As the W3C [w3.org] themselves point out, there is no automated test that can prove or disprove that your site is accessible. Several people have come up with accessibility checklists [google.co.uk], however, which are a good place to start (as is Bobby, for that matter; it's just not a good place to finish)
Bobby not the be-all (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, Bobby has some problems, and gets a couple of things outright wrong. But the major problem is the number of things that it just doesn't get at all.
A recent spanish study found that one site passed all the Bobby tests, but was completely inaccessible. There are tools out there designed to get people involved enough to do the right testing.
If anyone speaks spanish and PHP and wants to work with accessibility and RDF, developing an application called Hera (two parts - One for manual stuff that's sl [sidar.org]
Interactive Fiction (Score:5, Informative)
For diversions, how about Interactive Fiction [ifarchive.org]? It has a textual interface that lends itself well to speakerbox usage, shell [shelltown.com] accounts, and there's a vast library [ifarchive.org] of free titles available.
Re:Interactive Fiction (Score:2)
AFAIK both NetHack [nethack.org] and CConq [xconq.org] (the console version of XConq) are fairly hard to play through screen readers because of the way terrain is represented.
Your milage may vary, though.
Interactive Fiction [ifarchive.org] has no such problem, however.
Phison mp3 player (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Phison mp3 player (Score:2)
US Govt contracts requires good tools (Score:2, Informative)
These tools are also the future of computers. We all want to speak to and hear our computers, we all want to use small interfaces that are low resolution and high contrast.
Re:US Govt contracts requires good tools (Score:3, Insightful)
The unfortunate rider is "except where it is illegal". Eg I can't use decss to make a DVD player for epileptics that filters out flashing video, or various other similar things. Apparently the right of the MPAA exceeds the rights of the epileptics.
And then we have ebooks..
"Bitkeeper doesn't pirat
Re:US Govt contracts requires good tools (Score:2)
Bitkeeper would be a somewhat limited tool for pirating movies.
Re:US Govt contracts requires good tools (Score:2)
Of course, dear Blighty isn't as progressive as Canada, but...the DeCSS thing...?
iqu
Re:US Govt contracts requires good tools (Score:2)
They do still harass companies selling non-EU region DVD's but they all moved out of the EU (and out of EU tax regimes) into cou
Sad truth (Score:4, Informative)
As far as the Ipod goes, that's a terrible idea. He needs one with tactile controls. Ideally, it needs at least 6 control buttons on it, Play/pause, next, previous, volume up/down and power. The Ipod is about the last place you want to look, as the wheel thing will do him absolutely no good.
Re:Sad truth (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sad truth (Score:2)
Itch & Scratch (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as they say, open source software is written when someone has to scratch an itch. Sounds nice, but it has that one unpleasant consequence: the open source community satisfies primarily the needs of the open source community, while the commercial & proprietary software developers at least try to pretend they actually satisfy the need of their customers. Since there's not much blind people among the open source community - there's not much free software writting for them. But since blind people have money and are able to buy a piece of software - there is some commercial software written for them. I think it's as simple as that.
Re:What itch does MS really scratch? (Score:2)
RockBox (Score:5, Informative)
Rockbox is an open source (GPL) firmware project for the Archos Recorder MP3 player (among others). They've done great work, which included Talkbox - extra code which can allow the MP3 player to 'talk' to the users.
Now the problem is that the actual hardware itself is terrible - that is not the Rockbox teams fault, of course, though.
I've seen on the mailing list some blind users who've written in just to comment about how helpful and useful the Talkbox features of Rockbox are. So it seriously does help people. It is an amazing project, and I really wish I had worked on it myself.
Anyway, check out the manual or something to check that it is suitable.
Re:RockBox (Score:4, Informative)
For those not bothered to click the link, an interesting cut from it:
The Archos Jukebox is an embedded device and as such there are space limitations to what can be done to support blind accessibility within Rockbox. All of the configuration options have voice prompts, and Rockbox can speak directory and file names, but in general informational messages displayed on the screen and detailed debugging information are not available to blind users. For the Recorder, specifically, the quick settings menus are not spoken - although they can still be used by memorising what each key does while in these modes. Sorry.
Rockbox is however fully usable and configurable by the blind, and many sighted users are using the voice user interface by preference so they can operate their Jukebox without looking at the screen - while driving, for instance (isn't that reassuring?).
Rockbox on iRiver (Score:2)
Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver hardware [rockbox.org].
The choice of porting is constrained by how open a platform is to open source developers. To quote one of the Rockbox developers here on
Gnome has screen reading support (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gnome has screen reading support (Score:2)
My experience from talking to blind people is that Gnopernicus is not yet stable enough to compete with the mature console screenreaders that exists for Linux. But experienced users have started to use it successfully, and in one or two years, Gnopernicus might well have evolved into a good everyday tool for blind users.
By then, the application support for it will also have substantially grown: The KDE projec
Re:Gnome has screen reading support (Score:2)
Re:Gnome has screen reading support (Score:2)
iPod?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Using the iPod in the car is *infruriating*, because with a WHEEL it is difficult to select one of 311 artists, or one of 520 albums.
Spin-spin-spin...backspin, backspin, click click click.
It is *difficult* to *impossible* to select an album, artist or song when confronted with 35GB of music.
Wheel-selection is only somewhat practical to select a playlist (since I only have 2 dozen or so). A wheel interface is impractical unless you can constantly look at it / see it, and you have a limited number of items to select from.
The iPod interface is *overrated*.
Re:iPod?! (Score:2)
I've never had a problem with the iPod interface. Infact I find it piss-easy, and would be hard pressed to find another way to find something faster that didn't involve a live search-as-you-type feature, as like iTunes.
Exactly what would be a better interface, BTW? You do realise that the iPod interface was designed to be looked at while opperated, right? It may not be suited to the visually impared, but that doesn't mean it's in anyway over
Clarification (Score:3, Funny)
You're saying the iPod is a bad choice for a visually impaired person, because you have a hard time using it while *driving*?
Just wondering...
Re:iPod?! (Score:2)
The iPod has a "on the go" playlist
simply hold down the button on a song/artist/whatever and it adds it to the "on the go" playlist
Re:iPod?! (Score:2)
I just got my ipod and am really suprised there aren't more playlist features. To me the ipod interface seems a little too dumbed down.
I know I know
Re:iPod?! (Score:2)
KDE 3.4 Will Talk to you (Score:2, Offtopic)
night blind? (Score:2)
Re:night blind? (Score:2)
Using iPod for talking books (Score:3, Interesting)
iPod (Score:2)
Here's one to ponder - voting system for the blind (Score:3, Interesting)
My hope here is that some of you folks interested in this topic might have some insight on a related issue with the US voting systems.
I've been a spectator in a recent discussion regarding the best approach to delivering a secure voting system to the blind. It was an offshoot of some discussions on the current US voting systems, their serious shortcomings, and solutions. So far, I haven't read what any proposal that made much sense to me - they are all either extremely expensive (ie: everyone gets a special $3k reading wand) or otherwise highly impractical (ie: convoluted, multi-step, off-the-cuff type procedures to supposedly ensure a secure vote for the blind citizen).
I'm no expert in this area, and I want to understand it a bit better. Can anyone suggest a practical solution that could be reasonably implemented across the US ?
Re:Here's one to ponder - voting system for the bl (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Here's one to ponder - voting system for the bl (Score:2)
Accessibility is a main selling point of the electronic voting machines that worry so many of us Slashdotters. They have screen readers, large fonts, high contrast, and support multiple languages. This is a good thing for those who need these features.
Of course, a system we could trust would be a good thing for everyone.
Voting system for the blind (Score:2)
Thanks for the reply. The discussion has turned lately to how someone who is blind can verify their vote, securely, and without breaking the anonymity of the voting booth. It's a challenging set of requirements !
And in general, the current electronic voting systems (voting machines AND tabulators) are bad, real bad... I think secure electronic voting machines are possible - it's not that computers are 'bad', the particular systems now are. Suggesting an electronic solution to the blind voter problem
The problem isn't limited to the blind (Score:2)
We've already had problems with the butterfly ball
The Screen Magnifiers Homepage (Score:3, Informative)
I have tried ZoomText and it is excellent. I have also tried almost every freeware/non comercial screen magnification software listed at magnifiers.org, but to be honest with you, none have even come close to being usable. Most of them offer no more functionality than the magnifyer bundled with Windows. I have not tried freeware/opensource screen readers, so I cannot comment on them. I would suspect that nothing would even come close to JAWS.
Regarding you friend's experience using Firefox with JAWS, I have run into several programs that wouldn't work with ZoomText. FireFox was one, Putty was another. The software could not track the cursor properly. These Programs seem to be mostly compatible with very popular software packages.
emacspeak (Score:2)
Re:emacspeak (Score:2, Insightful)
My 12-yr-old son has been using Emacspeak for about two years now. It was a pain to set up as we are using the IBM ViaVoice TTS engine that was available for Linux for a while (but no more, even back then), meaning that I had to scrounge around and make do with some outdated zip files. The situation was also complicated by the fact that I was trying to use the somewhat broken built-in Via audio; things got much easier when I put in a cheap but authentic soundblaster card. Using a free software TTS engine
Re:emacspeak (Score:2)
Command Line is Best for Blind Users (Score:2, Informative)
inspired me to try it: unplug my monitor and go.
http://www.eklhad.net/cli.html [eklhad.net]
Virtual Worlds for the blind (Score:2, Interesting)
More on AI [geocities.com]
Non-GUI UI (Score:5, Insightful)
Building computers that focus on whole-system TTS interfaces via CLI apps seems to be a much better approach. Has anyone done anything like this that is explainable to a computer-illiterate blind grandmother?
Re:Non-GUI UI (Score:2)
Task oriented applications like you describe seem to be a great approach to these problems...more needs to be done to reduce, say, a linux box running 'mail' and a tts app to the point where the end-user doesn't need to know or even conceptually
ZoomText is better than JAWS (Score:3, Interesting)
ZoomText is available from AI Squared [aisquared.com] and works great with Mozilla Firefox. Unfortunately at $395 the price tag is pretty hefty and there's no Linux version. Blind charities can usually sell the software at a discount, however.
The sysadmin in my CS dept is blind (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea what he uses, but he is completely blind. He has an audio output that reads what I assume is the output from the terminal at an incredible speed. I have never been able to understand what it is saying, but he is quick about the whole thing. Probably the fastest typist I know.
Re:The sysadmin in my CS dept is blind (Score:2)
Personally I think methods for using severely limited interfaces is a very interesting subject, and not just for the blind. There are thousands of places where there's just no room/money for a screen or keyboard or mouse, but where you want sophisticated interaction anyway. Your phone, for instance. Standard phones have
Re:The sysadmin in my CS dept is blind (Score:2)
Emacspeak (Score:2, Informative)
I'm kind of surprised nobody has brough up Emacspeak [sourceforge.net] yet. Since Emacs is already a complete text-based replacement for everything anyone could ever want to do with a computer system, making it blind and visually-impaired accessable is a no-brainer.
Plus, it's written by the blind, for the blind, and is it's own development platform. Is there anyone out there using Emacspeak that would care to comment on it?
bright? (Score:2)
The iPod's backlight is bright!
I use it as a flashlight (seriously), and the first time I turned it on at night I had to scream "AAAH! MY EYES!" (because I'm a dramatic sort of fellow
Now I wisened up: I turn it on facing away from me so my pupils have time to adapt.
how about character-based linux on a speech synth? (Score:2, Informative)
Why is everyone perfect in game-world? (Score:2, Interesting)
CMS for blind people (Score:2)
Tooting my own horn here for a bit, but:
Plone [plone.org] has had excellent support for blind people for quite a while, and passes both the US Section 508 accessibility guidelines and the much stricter WAI-AA accessibility requirements.
I've seen several blind people use the CMS without problems, and it's quite a satisfying feeling to see that people can make use of your application even when they can't see it.
We regularly get thank-you e-mails from blind people that are extremely grateful for giving them a
http://gamesfortheblind.com/ (Score:2)
written by a totally blind programmer (and you thought C++ and asm was hard)
not open source but dedication like that deserves some kind of cash reward and OSS wont pay the bills, so support him, his customers and the great work he does
Depends on the person I guess.... (Score:3, Informative)
sh &>/dev/ttyS0
And he was up and running. I will admit though that he is a bit of a *NIX guy, and already owned a shell account (was new to Linux, but had used UNIX before). He's not a wizard granted, but he knew what he had to.
Re:Depends on the person I guess.... (Score:2)
JAWS and Linux (blind users) (Score:2)
Now... The problem is, of course, that these terminals are getting fewer and fewer by the day... Blame companies such as Microsoft and the makers of JAWS (can't remember the name of the company right now) for sucking dry the market.
Frankly, I have wrestled with JAWS quite a few times, for a friend who h
Re:JAWS and Linux (blind users) (Score:2)
Also partly a disclaimer, but I do a lot of work for some of the accessibility researchers at IBM, including some who are themselves disabled in various ways. The economics are always problematic, so they are always trying to think of ways to generalize and leverage the techno
Knoppix? (Score:2)
I'm blind myself (Score:2, Informative)
OK, as a blind person myself, let me try and address these questions.
There are actually quite a few games out there that the blind can play. Most of them are specially designed for us. For more information, I'd dirrect you to some [bavisoft.com] of [gmagames.com] the [bscgames.com] manufacturers [lworks.net]. For something that's a little closer to what the original poster was looking for, check out this [allinplay.com], this is the closest to a virtual world we have. The majority of these games are actually pretty good considering the size of the deve
Just an idea (Score:2)
IM Narrator (Score:2)
JAWS *IS* the unfortunate standard. (Score:3, Informative)
The project was sponsered to a large extent by Microsoft. They threw millions at it. Not surprisingly, the entire infrastructure around it consists of MS technology (interfacing with the legacy CNIB user data). We're talking W2K3 Servers, IIS, SQL,
The sole browser/screenreader combo targeted is IE/JAWS.
I can tell you, JAWS was not chosen for any sort of advanced features or (percieved) usability. From an implentation POV, it's a nightmare. It's archaic software that is very picky in what/how it reads. It predates browsers and does not play well with pages that are not specifically designed for it. That said, the only reason it was targeted for the project is that it is the de-facto standard screenreader for the blind community. It's been around so long that it's ubiquitous. And as bad as it is, the kids use it intuitively and to it's fullest extent. I couldn't believe how fast they had JAWS cranked up (it was reading the screen at something like 10x speed) and they jump around the page using the keyboard controls faster then I (a sighted person) could read what was on the screen! Really something.
Anyway, love it or hate it, it seems like JAWS will stick around for at least a while yet.
Rockbox Thread by New Blind User (Score:3, Interesting)
free speech synthesis (Score:2)
I'm sure there are other apps available. Just a matter of emerging them
braille terminal? (Score:2)
Not until the OS has a decent speech synthesizer (Score:2, Interesting)
In that work I have received loads of emails from people who would like to use Firefox in an assisted way. That is why I am planning to start a new project using the same rendering engine as Fangs to create a navigatable te
Re:Cruel Joke? (Score:2)