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Developing PC's for the Legally Blind? 46

Posted by Cliff from the computing-ideas-for-the-disabled dept.
Jon asks: "My father is legally blind, to the point of not being able to see more then just a vague shadow, if even that. His one hope has always been to use a computer. I've decided to build him a PC that would allow him to send and receive email as well as read the weather to him, yet not require any voice recognition. Input would be done by showing him where certain function keys are and possible putting special marks he can learn on the rest of the keys. Has any of the slashdot readers tackeled a project like this before? I've seen several projects, yet none that seem like a good solution, or are not complete. Any insight you have would be greatly appreciated."
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Developing PC's for the Legally Blind? More

Developing PC's for the Legally Blind?

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  • Screen readers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JasonMaggini ( 190142 ) on Monday April 21, 2003 @09:20PM (#5777686)
    I have worked on a computer that had screen readers installed for a user that was legally blind. It would read everything on the screen. "Mozilla. Title Bar. Slashdot. File Menu. File. Edit.." etc. Seemed like it would take a lot of concentration.
    XP has some sort of narrator program built in, I believe.

  • I have a client with similar needs... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrIcee ( 550834 ) on Monday April 21, 2003 @09:26PM (#5777721) Homepage
    I've a client in his 70's. I submitted a similar slashdot article [slashdot.org] a couple weeks ago, but specific to voice recognition.

    My client is literally blind in that all he can see are vague shapes. He is also a hard-core smoker and his voice is fairly inconsistant.

    He uses JAWS [worklink.net] which is a program that reads information on the screen. I find it terribly annoying but he likes it's functionality.

    He wanted voice input... and I called a number of vendors including IBM's voice project etc... but all of them said NO GOOD for nearly blind users as the training sessions are very long and involved and the user has to READ the screen (impossible).

    He received a few weeks ago a flyer about the QPOINTER [commodio.com] software product. This product is fairly new and not much is out there. I contacted the company and they said training was fairly short (15 minutes or so). I inquired if I could print out the training sessions and they (very nicely I might add) had their programmers send me the training sessions as text files. I printed them out in 2-inch high Arial Black letters on paper (29 pages worth) and brought them over and said "can you read these" and he said "nope". Great... but we installed the software anyway. The training system allowed me to pause so I would pause it, read a couple words to him and then un-pause and he would repeat them. We trained for about 3 hours and indeed it would open up the browser for him, etc. One problem was that he couln't read the visual cues that QPOINTER pops up - but by placing things in a KNOWN order I was able to get him around that.

    However, when it came time to entering URL's etc... we were only able to get about 10% accuracy from the program - mainly due to the fact that his voice, after years of smoking, is terribly inconsistant. We retrained for a couple of hours on another day but to no improvement. Thus - we scrapped the voice input idea since he would have no idea if it recognized words and letters correctly or not.

    At this point, frustrated, I realized that since I can type totally with MY eyes closed, he should be able to as well. Unfortunatly, he doesn't know how to type - but his wife used to be a typing instructor so... I went out and purchased him the ergonomic MS keyboard (the one with the huge split down the middle). I did this because that keyboard makes finding the proper keys easier due to the split (you don't need to hunt for the raised bump). His wife is currently going to try to teach him to type, and once he gets that down I'm going to go over the special key functions and try to make it work for him.

    This is an area ripe for development. As us geeks get older we will encounter the same problems and we WILL demand a solution. Voice recognition is great, but it doesn't work except as a productivity enhancement (e.g., you still need to be able to read). A bigger screen would not help because no matter how big the letters are, he can't read them. Same for a head-up display. And voice input on a system that is ALSO doing voice output provides it's own set of problems (solved currently by using a headset mic).

    Good luck - and let us know if you will, how this went for you!!

    Aloha

    • Actually, before reading this article, I hadn't even thought about applying this type of technology to myself. Thanks for the eye opener MrIcee. [slashdot.org] But it is true. As we get older, this type of technology is going to become all to personal. I should really have considered it before, since I'm near sighted with over 13 points of loss so far. (If my glasses weren't this new carbon stuff, my glasses would be a little short of a 1/2 inch thick on the edges.)

      Anyway, the first thing that came to mind was a vision o

      • I had thought about the Braille option fleetingly... Since he is in his 70's I figured that it would be easier to teach him how to type on a standard keyboard... than to try to teach him Braille AND how to use Braille input, etc. (not to mention that I don't know Braille myself ;). I suspect that if I were to take him down the Braille line of thought, that the cost of equipment, lessons and travel to someplace that would teach them (he's on the Big Island of Hawaii) wouldn't be worth the time and trouble.

    • My client is literally blind in that all he can see are vague shapes. He is also a hard-core smoker and his voice is fairly inconsistant.

      [...] At this point, frustrated, I realized that since I can type totally with MY eyes closed, he should be able to as well.

      I have to agree that the best input method for a blind is touch typing (it's the best input method for the rest of us, too). I'd also suggest using console apps only, as I cannot see any advantage from the use of GUI apps. Mouse is practically usel

  • XP And The Legally Blind (Score:3, Informative)

    by LiQiuD ( 571447 ) on Monday April 21, 2003 @09:26PM (#5777722) Homepage
    We have 3 developers that are currently legally blind, and they all have a special wrist-rest that has braile on it as well as a screen scraper (Jaws with the XP Narrator) and this seems to work for them...one catch, your video card must work with Jaws, alot of them don't...as for the keyboard, there are always little marks on f and j, teach him to find the rest of the keys from there. If that doesn't work, i have seen a few braille keyboards out there, but not sure where to get them... Feel free to email me to discuss this more - liqiud@havenbbs.com
  • I think Steve at [H]ardOCP [hardocp.com] has a mother who is blind and uses the computer. I'm not sure how much help is needed for her to use it, but he may be able to give you a reality check on what to expect.
  • Dragon naturally speaking, surf, email, etc [scansoft.com].



    You can also get telephone based e-mail from several vendors.

    • Doesn't the telephone based email only read it to you?

      It would be easier, and probably cheaper to pipe the email to a some type of reader..

      If you know of a telephone based system that can translate voice to email, let me know please.

      - Jon
      • here's one that claims to be able to do a reply back to the sender, not clear if it will initiate one though

        http://www.email2phone.net/default.aspx?google. c om

        Verizon claims full functionalty, receive, compose, forward, get scores, weather, etc all from one of their wireless phones and all voice activated once a two digit code is pressed in

        http://news.verizonwireless.com/news/2002/10/pr2 00 2-10-17.html

        On that dragon deal, I was trying out a beta they had for mac classic (well, I think it was them, dan

  • how is his braille? (Score:4, Informative)

    by not-quite-rite ( 232445 ) on Monday April 21, 2003 @10:21PM (#5778078) Homepage Journal
    There are a number of manufacturers that sell stick on caps for the keys. This allows people to convert an ordinary keyboard into a braille keyboard.

    see here:

    http://www.speedskin.com/html/home.asp

    Pretty damn useful. As for screenreaders, JAWS is alright, though all screenreaders are painful to use...

    I am currently working on a database of accessibility technology for those with print disabilities etc, so if you would like more info or you have info to share please email me

    luvgnu 'at' hotmail.com

    Good luck now!

  • Neat, but pre-built. (Score:3, Informative)

    by GiMP ( 10923 ) on Monday April 21, 2003 @10:22PM (#5778089)
    This isn't about building a computer, but rather a pre-built computer running Linux. It can also be used to access a Windows machine as a keyboard, but it can run independantly.

    http://www.papenmeier.de/reha/products/elbae.htm
    You can find one on sale here, although they don't seem to have the Qwerty version:
    http://www.tvi-web.com/products/elba.htm l

    Yes, it is painfully expensive.. but it is certainly a 'niche' item.
  • I work at a computer lab at my school that is geared toward the disabled. We have a few blind students who use the systems. Mostly they use a program called JAWS, that is a screen reader. Using key combinations they are able to navigate the screen with pretty good results. As far as marking the keys goes, we have braille stickers over the keys. I beleive there is a GNU/Linux solution out there... BrailleSpeake I believe. It is a distro for the blind, you would probably have to set it up. It comes with a s
    • Uhh... Let me correct myself It isn't braille speak... its its brlspeak: http://www.brlspeak.net/ Here are a few more good info links: http://blindpng.freeshell.org/links.html http://leb.net/blinux/ http://www.uni-paderborn.de/cs/heiss/blinux/index- en.html
  • I don't know how enterprising a programmer you are, but this shouldn't be too hard with a text-to-speech SDK. Below is a copy of a post I wrote in an ask slashdot: Communication Devices For Stroke Victims [slashdot.org].

    In this thread, the subject wasn't blind, but was restricted in motion. I suggested a moving cursor type summary of screen using a simply few-button interface. This could be easily altered to service the blind by having the choices read as they are scrolled. Keep this in mind, and here is a link to th [slashdot.org]
  • instead of labeling them F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7

    lable them with different patterns of rubber or felt. like

    F1 = ////
    F2 = \\\\
    F3 = 000

    etc...

    you also may want to find a keyboard which requires more pressure to type with so there are less errors while finding keys, like where's that F1... Feels Presser F4 F3 F2... ah there it is...
    "Opening mail"... "Opening Chat"... "Opening Browser"... WTF?

    -Code

  • Take a look at Blinux [leb.net], it's a Linux distribution especially targetted at the blind.

  • If blind people are feeling particully loaded and dont mind the fact the entire pc community has a hatred for them and says they should change computer that could consider Apple.

    http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/universalacc e ss .html

    MacOSX has some pretty neat features for the visualy impaired like white on black instead of black on white (Change the screen resolution and the colours go inverted.) which is really good if your eyes are tired because the text is more readable. You can make the mac speak a

  • I don't know about the legally blind, (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    but Wintel has shown us how to develop PCs for those who lack vision.
  • Just for the record, I use vi, but I've heard really great things about Emacspeak [sourceforge.net]. I've talked to a number of wearable computing folks who use prefer an audio interface to their wearable (over the expensive and bulky HMDs on the market today), and they all operate entirely in Emacs, because of this.
  • Include a barcode reader which can tell him what is in a can. Automated method would access a database of codes to find what a code means (and then keep a copy of the info for each code read "recently" for future use).

    Manual method would be to type in the meaning of unknown barcodes, with human or other assistance. Someone can look at the can with a webcam, OCR, inference (the barcode reader only knew it was manufactured by Campbell's, and I only bought one soup, so I know what it is).

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