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."
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.
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*.
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.
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
Using iPod for talking books (Score:3, Interesting)
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).
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)
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!
Re:Sad truth (Score:2, Interesting)
Virtual Worlds for the blind (Score:2, Interesting)
More on AI [geocities.com]
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.
Why is everyone perfect in game-world? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:OS X works for me (Score:3, Interesting)
So since we CAN sort and categorize music, and we HAVE to be able to search or something, an mp3 player usually provides something more than just basic cd-player controls. And bigger, more physically present buttons would just take up too much space when most mp3-players are trying to become so small you can fit it in your nose (painlessly).
As for blind people, I expect they will be constrained, like they are now, with other electronic devices, to a few brands that make larger devices or blind-friendly devices. My mother-in-law is nearly blind, and the tape deck she uses for books-on-tape is huge, I'm sure in no small part due to the fact that blind people have to feel their way around it. A tiny device with a handful of tiny, non-descript buttons would not be that helpful.
I think blind people will be (sadly) marginalized until we can cure blindness, a la Geordi La Forge on Star Trek.
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 now, and I haven't done anything with it for days because it just plays my music. If I don't like a particular track, I skip it, if I don't like a genre just I move further down the playlist.
Its got hours and hours of none repeating music on a semi random playlist. Why would I need to search?
I think the chunkiness thinking sounds about right, and small illogically designed devices you must actually look at to use are just impractical anyway. A good example of this is with a horrible rectangle remote control for a tv. Good ones are ergonomically styled and based mainly on tactile feedback.
Rockbox Thread by New Blind User (Score:3, Interesting)
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 text representation of a web page. Much of the work is already done in Fangs.
Creating software for visually impaired users requires a decent speech synthesizer. This should preferrably be part of the OS. Check out FreeTTS [sourceforge.net] and the "alan" voice. FreeTTS is the only OSS speech synthesizer I know of. Does anyone know of a distribution with libraries for text to speech synthesis?