Talk About the Blind Leading the Blind

Apr 19, 2008 at 6:59 PM
6 comments

I read an article in an online computer magazine the other day, talking about the problems blind and low vision folks continue to have when it comes to using computers. This is not really news. This problem has been around forever and there are an ongoing trickle of articles that come out about it. I could probably compare the article with another one written 5 or 10 years ago and come up with the same set of problems.

This article started with an interesting challenge, though:

"Put your graphical user interface to this test: Adjust the contrast on your display until the screen is completely black.

Now, perform basic e-mail, word processing and Web-browsing tasks.

What? Having a problem?"

Having a problem indeed! Screen readers, the bit of assistive technology designed to "read" a computer screen if you can't physically see it, does just that. In other words, it reads everything that's there.

Now, here's the problem: What you see on an internet computer screen is only a fraction of what's there "behind the scenes." A screen reader is not going to have an easy time interpreting what should and shouldn't be read. It's also not going to know what to read first if you're dealing with multiple columns, for example. I have some blind friends and became interested in this technology as a result. At one point I played around with a few screen readers, just to find out what they were like to use.

Well...they're chatty! It went to the top of my Firefox screen and read: "File, New Window, New Tab, Open Location, Open File, Close Window..." Yes, very helpful. It took forever just to get to the actual content of the web page. And then, it read that: "http, colon, double-slash, www dot vox dot com forward slash compose..."

Wonderful! Just wonderful!

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Blind users still struggle with 'maddening' computing obstacles

See video of Narrator screen reader in action

By Lamont Wood
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April 16, 2008 (Computerworld) Put your graphical user interface to this
test: Adjust the contrast on your display until the screen is completely
black.

Now, perform basic e-mail, word processing and Web-browsing tasks.

What? Having a problem?

Welcome to the world of the 1.3 million Americans who are blind. For
them, the world of personal computers, office automation and the
Internet offers mixed blessings. That world wasn't designed for them,
but with the right assistive technology, they can take part in it. When
everything works well, they have access to an ocean of information
vastly greater than anything previously available to the blind. But
pitfalls and maddening frustrations are a constant reality.

Screen readers

Blind computer users mainly rely upon screen-reader software, which
describes the activity on the screen and reads the text in the various
windows, explained Gayle Yarnell, owner of Adaptive Technology
Consulting Inc. in Amesbury, Mass. Yarnell is blind.

It can take a while to wade through a strange site -- it can be maddening.
Jay Leventhal, editor of /AccessWorld Magazine/

Screen readers cost between $500 and $1,000, although there are also
freeware screen readers, she noted. (Windows XP and Vista come with a
screen reader called Narrator, but even Microsoft Corp. says it's not
powerful enough for serious use.)

The screen reader's output can be sent to the computer's speakers as a
synthesized voice or to a Braille display. The latter uses tiny push
pins to create a pattern of raised dots that can be read by a moving
finger. A unit with an 80-character line (enough for one full line of
text) costs about $10,000, and Yarnell said that most blind people use a
40-character unit, which costs closer to $5,000.

Braille displays are better than speech for editing because individual
characters can be isolated, she noted, and they are a necessity for the
deaf-blind. She also said that it lets her silently read e-mail while
talking to someone else.

This is the default player used to display virally syndicated titles via
the Get the Code button.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1351827287www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1351824782
<http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1351824782>
Although major operating systems usually have built-in screen readers
for accessibility by the blind, they are rudimentary at best. In fact,
after starting Narrator, the screen reader that comes with Windows XP
and Vista, Microsoft's introductory screen says, "Most users with visual
impairments will need a screen reader with higher functionality for
daily use." Here's an example what a blind user would hear upon opening
up /Computerworld/'s Web site with Narrator activated in Windows XP, the
operating system most in use today.

But knowing what the screen is saying is just the beginning -- the blind
user then has to issue commands using keyboard shortcuts, because the
mouse cursor is useless. Using shortcuts involves a lot of memorization,
but at least the option is always available -- or at least it used to be.

"Starting with Version 3.1, Microsoft tried to make sure there was a
keystroke to do everything in Windows," noted Dave Porter, an
accessibility consultant and head of Comp-Unique Inc. in Chicago. "But
with Vista, we seem to have lost that thread." The main problem is that,
with Vista, the effect of a keystroke depends on the situation about a
third of the time. Also, there are things that simply can't be done with
keystrokes, said Porter, who is blind.

"It's not so much that the keyboard shortcuts are different but that the
user interface has changed," said Rob Sinclair, director of
accessibility at Microsoft. "We have gotten away from a lot of menus and
created a more simplified experience. No one would argue that there is
no learning curve, but we have seen value and heard great feedback from
those who have taken the time to learn the new version.

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Comments

Very eye-opening, so to speak! Several years ago I worked together via email with a blind woman on a website project, and I learned a good bit about scanning sites for accessibility (the one we created passed). But I can see by your post that things have gotten much worse with all the ads, spiffy menus, Flash items, etc that sighted users expect. Perhaps sites such as that could add something at the very beginning for the reader to read, which could tell the person how to enter a more accessible site...?

Thanks for making this point!

And I thought all the excess drivel on a site was a pain on dial up, I cant imagine having to wade thought all that just to read an article. I'm always surprised by how advanced technology is and still it isn't far enough sometimes.

Margy replied to KeyLimeTwist’s comment:
Apr 21, 2008
Reply

Yes, it is pretty amazing, isn't it? Stuff like this makes me even more grateful that I can see, even with 53 year old eyes!

[this is good]

I'm a blind screen reader user, and I have to say that although there are plenty of frustrations using a computer, things have moved on over the last few years.

For starters, my screen reader (NVDA) is free, and doesn't cost a thousand dollars like the commercial article.

The screen reader has ways of skipping some of the rubbish on web pages. For example, I can get to the next heading on a web page by pressing H, the next table by pressing T and so on. You have to understand what these headings and tables are first, of course. Not all blind people will find it easy to grasp page layout.

Most screen readers will have some sort of verbosity settings so that you don't have to hear everything on the screen. Also, quite ordinary Windows keystrokes help you through, such as F6 to get to the next pane, Windows and B to read the icons on the notification area at bottom right of the screen.

Yes, purely graphical content is pretty useless if you're totally blind, Flash isn't usually made accessible, though it can be, and AJAX menus and what not can be a real pain if your screen reader doesn't pick up screen updates. But these are known problams, and there must be plenty of programmers beavering away at solutions.

I use most things sighted people use on the PC, and feel I'm lucky to be doing it now, not 20 or 30 years ago. I use the Internet, most of which is text, so fine on the whole. I use Office software, and only wish they'd stop fiddling with it redesigning the interface to make it worse, but I survive.

Oh, my, this is ironic! After all the nice things I said in my first comment, I had to join Vox to post it, and Vox requires you to solve one of those visual puzzles (CAPTCHAs) before you can join. This means effectively that most blind people can't comment.

I have just enough sight to zoom in on the graphic and have a go at copying it, but really, the management should know better by now. Google and Twitter, among others, provide an audio alternative, which is another advance that's slowly happening. Come on, Vox, join the 21st century!

Somehow, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I strongly suggest that, as a blind user, you make your concerns known to Vox management. They need to know. People who are sighted tend not to think about things like that when they design websites. They have to be told!

Talk About the Blind Leading the Blind

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