A couple of bits of news which are encouraging in what otherwise appears to
be a rather scary area: namely, the proliferation of kiosks and access to
them.
Item 1) Regarding Mosaic
People should be aware that NCSA, the people who developed Mosaic in
Illinois, have just launched a program to try to rework the Mosaic software
to make it more accessible to people with all types and combinations of
disabilities, and in particular to people who are blind. Adding keyboard
access, making it work better with screen readers, working with the Lynx
developers to increase the range of services available through Lynx, and
working with the World Wide Web community to develop better awareness and
use of accessible formats for data, are all part of this effort. The
initial work for this project is funded by Larry Scadden out of the National
Science Foundation, via the Mosaic Consortium. I'm on the steering
committee for this project, along with Drew Browning, who chairs the
project; Tom Shworles, from the TAAD (Technical Aids to Aid the Disabled)
Center in Chicago; Paul Fontaine, from the General Services Administration;
Larry Jackson, who oversees all of the Mosaic programmers at NCSA; and
Joseph Hardin, who is in charge of the overall Mosaic project. You will be
able to follow the progress of this work through the link to the project
which you'll soon find on the NCSA Mosaic Home Page. We will also be
following it through our ongoing mail-outs regarding Project Info Curbcuts.
If you're interested in being on this, you can send a note to:
and ask to be put on the list.
Item 2:
NTIA, the agency funding the National Information Infrastructure work out of
the Department of Commerce, just released funding on about 90 projects. One
of the projects funded was a joint effort by the World Institute on
Disability, the Trace Center, and the CPB-WGBH National Center on Accessible
Media (NCAM) to work with the disability community, industry, and other
organizations interested in this topic to determine what the issues and
needs are, and to suggest guidelines or perhaps standards for making the NII
accessible.
Item 3:
Trace was recently funded to move ahead with its Info Curbcuts project.
This is a project being carried out at the Trace Center at the University of
Wisconsin, again working in conjunction with WID, NCAM, and other groups
around the country. The purpose of this project is to develop specific
strategies and standard approaches for making next-generation information
systems in general accessible. "Next-generation information systems"
include information superhighway issues such as Mosaic, etc., as well as
stand-alone kiosks, on-line information systems, and interactive television
/ set-top boxes. A separate memo on this project has been posted to BLIND-L
requesting assistance and specific types of information on other programs
that we should be coordinating efforts with.
Item 4:
One of the key areas of concern for us has been access to touchscreen-based
kiosks and information systems. We've been working on a hybrid technique
that combines haptic (the sense of touch and where your arms/hands are in
space), auditory signals (natural and artificial sounds), and speech output
to allow individuals who are blind to operate touchscreen kiosks. A
prototype of this was demonstrated last week at Closing the Gap as a part of
an information superhighway laboratory we had set up at the conference. The
purpose of the lab was to allow people to try the various strategies we had
identified to date, and to provide input and suggestions for other approaches.
As a part of the lab, we had a standard touchscreen-based kiosk system that
had been outfitted with a new "talking fingertip" technique that we have
been exploring. It was tried out and successfully explored and used by a
number of conference participants who were blind or had low vision.
The kiosk, on which every screen of information was laid out differently,
allowed the users to try the "talking fingertip" with a wide variety of
screen formats and layouts, including graphic buttons, lists, data entry
using a numeric data keypad (similar to what would be required on an ATM
machine), and typing on an on-screen keyboard. While only an initial
prototype was used, we were encouraged by people's use of it. Perhaps a
comment from some of the people who had an opportunity to use it would be
the best way to characterize how well the approach did or didn't work. Doug
Wakefield, from GSA; Judy Dixon, from the Library of Congress; Curtis Chong,
from NFB; and George Kersher, from Recordings for the Blind, were some of
the people who had a chance to use it, and who might be able to comment.
More importantly, based upon feedback we got at the conference, we have come
up with what we will be an even more effective approach. We have yet to
prototype it and try it with consumers to see how well it will work, but if
it does, it should make for an even more natural feel and operation than the
prototype shown at CTG. In addition, we'll be adding a simple list access
mode to make the system more accessible for individuals who do not have good
spatial orientation. Again, as soon as we get this prototyped and/or
described, we'll send information out to people who register via the Info
Curbcuts address.
In the meantime, we will be continuing to solicit user input, both through
our testing with consumers in our area and by taking the system out to major
conferences nationally to get additional ideas and input. We're currently
scheduled for CSUN (March), RESNA (June), and both NFB and ACB (July) next
summer, and possibly the President's Commitee on Employment of People with
Disabilities (in Portland in Maine).
Despite all of this (hopefully) encouraging news, I share the concern being
expressed on the listserv regarding the speed with which next-generation
information systems are being developed and introduced which do not yet have
access built directly into them. For this reason, we're pulling out all of
the stops on of our efforts both to stop deployment of systems that do not
have access built into them and to figure out what the best approaches to
providing access to these different types of systems might be.
That's all for now. As always, if a) there is anything we can do to be more
effective in getting information out, or b) any other people or programs
that you think we should be coordinating more closely with, or c) any ideas
on how to better address these issues, please drop us a note.
Hoping all this stuff pans out as well in practice as it looks on paper....
Gregg
Gregg C. Vanderheiden, Ph.D.
Internet gcvander@facstaff.wisc.edu
608/262-6966 fax 608/262-8848
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