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class=640570222-10032007>Hey folks, this is not guide dog related, but it is an
interesting read no technology access for the blind. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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<P><FONT size=2>Tina, Nina and Sicily<BR><BR>**"Champions do more" Be sure to
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Subject: Fw: Are the Blind in a Bine<BR>To:
<Undisclosed-Recipient:;><BR><BR><BR><BR>> Are the blind in a
bind?<BR>> <BR>> <BR>>> Daily Herald, Everett WA, USA<BR>>>
Sunday, February 11, 2007<BR>> <BR>>> Are the blind in a bind?<BR>>
<BR>>> By Brian Bergstein, Associated Press<BR>> <BR>>> An IBM
initiative is making strides in helping decipher Web site<BR>>>
information for the blind<BR>> <BR>>> WESTFORD, Mass. - Cynthia Ice is
blind and lives in the suburbs, <BR>> so<BR>>> shopping on the Internet
can make her routine easier. But it <BR>> also leads<BR>>> her into odd
dead ends - like the time a technical shift in a <BR>> Web
grocery<BR>>> site made its meat department inaccessible to her
screen-reading <BR>> software.<BR>> <BR>>> "Everybody could go on
the Atkins diet but me," she joked.<BR>> <BR>>> Such troubles are
especially common for computer users with <BR>> disabilities<BR>>> as
the Web takes on many features that make sites appear more <BR>> like
dynamic<BR>>> programs than static documents.<BR>> <BR>>> While
that design trend gives many people more engaging Web <BR>>
experiences,<BR>>> good old static documents can be much easier for
screen-reading <BR>> software<BR>>> to decipher and narrate to the
blind. Such software has trouble<BR>>> interpreting newer "Web 2.0"
features, such as text that pops up <BR>> without a<BR>>> mouse click,
or data that automatically update in real time.<BR>> <BR>>> "The new
technology being implemented poses even more of a <BR>> threat to
the<BR>>> small accessibility wins we have made," Steven Tyler, who heads
<BR>> disability<BR>>> access services at Britain's Royal National
Institute for the <BR>> Blind, wrote<BR>>> in an e-mail. "Around 80
percent of Web sites we estimate as <BR>> having<BR>>> accessibility
problems, some considerable."<BR>> <BR>>> However, progress is being
made on programming hooks that would <BR>> help<BR>>> screen-reading
tools grasp the new Web's advanced layers of <BR>> content.<BR>>
<BR>>> Web architects at IBM Corp. have been laboring on a system <BR>>
called<BR>>> iAccessible2 that addresses some common scenarios
bedeviling<BR>>> screen-reading software.<BR>> <BR>>> For
example, consider software "trees" where clicking on little <BR>> plus
or<BR>>> minus signs in boxes expands data or rolls it up. To the ears of
<BR>> someone<BR>>> using screen-reading software, the setup can
present a <BR>> hard-to-visualize<BR>>> jumble.<BR>> <BR>>> To
deal with this, iAccessible2 makes it possible for a blind <BR>> user to
be<BR>>> told where text on the screen lies in the tree. A bit of text
<BR>> might be the<BR>>> second item on a list of five, for example, at
a "depth" of two <BR>> - meaning<BR>>> it required a click to be
revealed.<BR>> <BR>>> Aspects of iAccessible2 are being integrated into
the <BR>> open-source Firefox<BR>>> Web browser. The technology also is
entering IBM's Lotus and <BR>> Workplace<BR>>> office-productivity
programs. Ice, 48, who has been blind for 20 <BR>> years<BR>>> because
of diabetes, helps lead the effort in Lotus.<BR>> <BR>>> A longer-term
goal is to make it easier for blind people to deal <BR>> with Web<BR>>>
pages that offer complicated stews of changing information.<BR>> <BR>>>
IBM Web architect Aaron Leventhal pointed to basketball box <BR>> scores
that<BR>>> dynamically update dozens of statistics as a game progresses. A
<BR>> sighted<BR>>> person easily can zero in on the most vital
information - the <BR>> game score -<BR>>> and glance only occasionally
at unfolding data of lesser <BR>> importance, such<BR>>> as free-throw
percentages.<BR>> <BR>>> But how can a screen-reading program know to
utter only certain <BR>> stats as<BR>>> they are updated and not every
single one?<BR>> <BR>>> Leventhal and colleagues believe one answer is
to encode parts <BR>> of a Web<BR>>> page - in this case, certain
statistics - as "rude," "assertive" <BR>> and<BR>>> "polite."
Screen-reading software could be programmed to <BR>> vocalize
"polite"<BR>>> information anytime and the "assertive" data less
frequently.<BR>> <BR>>> This concept is still in development, but
Leventhal hopes it <BR>> becomes part<BR>>> of Web production tools so
site designers bake it in as they <BR>> create pages.<BR>> <BR>>>
"We don't want accessibility to be the thing that limits what <BR>> people
can<BR>>> do on their Web sites," Leventhal said. "We're not trying to
<BR>> slow down the<BR>>> world. We're trying to say, take
accessibility into account."<BR>> <BR>> <BR>>>
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/02/11/100bus_blind001.cfm<BR>> <BR>>
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