CLARIFICATION ON A COUPLE OF POINTS REGARDING MY LAST MAIL

From: Brian Buhrow (buhrow@lothlorien.nfbcal.org)
Date: Tue Feb 28 1995 - 08:47:07 PST


        In my previous message, I made reference to a conference sponsored by the
Archemedes Project. They will be hosting another conference concentrating
on the problems of the GUI interface for blind and visually impaired
individuals. The first conference was held in November of 1993 and I was
the NFB representative. I thought, in light of the upcoming conference, I
would post the recommendations that came from the last conference. It is
interesting to note that, although much progress has been made in some of
the areas mentioned, all of the points made continue to be very relevant
today. I think point number 5, the education of the blind in the use of
these new technologies, is particularly important. Those of us who are on
the list and who are technically competent, often forget about the more
pragmatic users who merely want to get the job done with the technology
available. Because we have access to the latest software, the newest
equipment, and because we know the developers of the technology, often on a
first name basis, we forget that the equipment available for students in
blind training centers is not necessarily up to date. This means that
students are learning to use technologies which will not be of any use to
them when they leave the training center and compete to enter the work
force.
        I realize that some of the people on this list work in areas other than
with technology directly. In other words, they use technology to get work
done rather than to spend their time supporting the development or the
operation of technology. I would like to ask those people, who stand away
from the fire fight of technology advancement, to think about ways useful
training of blind people in the use of these technologies can be achieved.
I'm not saying that people who work with the development of this technology
directly cannot be equally effective at coming up with ideas which will
work, or that they shouldn't contribute, just that I think those away from
the development of technology lend a useful perspective for us on the front
line to keep in mind.
        In order for this technology to succeed and in order for the blind to
achieve equality in the work force in our changing society, it is
imparative that we solve the education problem -- not just for travel,
daily living, and the like -- but for how to use this new and exciting
technology as it emerges. The good news is that solutions are being found.
 The better news is that as more and more blind people from all walks of
life learn to use this technology, we who develop it will get feedback on
how to make it better, more useful, and more efficient for our blind
colleagues in the work force.

        As you read these recommendations, think about the ones which are a little
dated and the ones which still need to be addressed. Please send comments,
suggestions, and ideas on what we should bring to the next conference to
me. We should have someone represent this group at this next conference
and I wouldn't want them to go to the conference empty handed or empty
headed as the case may be.
-Brian

P.S. This version of the document is the one which was sent out before all
the attendees had an opportunity to comment on what Scott and Mckinley came
up with. Although I do not seem to have a copy of the final write up, I
believe the changes between that version and this one were fairly minor.

*****************************************************

Draft recommendations from the Access to GUI Conference

Asilomar, California

November 28 - December 1, 1993

Date of this document, December 20, 1993

THE GUI ACCESS PROBLEM

Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) use icons, pull-down menus,

windows and other non-textual devices to enhance communication

between computers and their users. Pointing devices, such as the

mouse, are also an integral part of the GUI. Such interfaces, as

found on MacIntoshes, PC's running Windows, and almost all of the

more powerful workstations, have proven to be a boon for many

users. Blind users, however, are an exception. For them, rather

than improving access, the GUI has made computers less accessible

than they were before. Screen reading programs for text-based

computers are mature products which do a good job of

automatically transcribing text into speech or Braille. Similar

screen access programs for GUI-based computers are still in the

early stages of development and are not yet able to provide

comparable performance or ease of use.

The scope of the GUI problem is staggering. At present, GUIs are

mainly associated with relatively high performance personal and

corporate computers. But there is no end in sight for the

development of GUIs, which will become the standard interface not

only for computers, but also for appliances of all sorts. As

GUIs proliferate, it will be necessary to have general access

solutions. The GUI access programs developed thus far tend to be

tightly linked to particular computers or operating systems. All

of the present solutions are retrofits but ultimately,

accessibility should be an integral part of all interface

designs.

The Asilomar Conference on Access to GUIs brought together

computer users, researchers designers and developers from

industry,

academia, and rehabilitation to investigate what has and should

be done about this problem. About one-third of the forty

participants were blind. What follows is a draft of the

recommendations developed by this Conference.\footnote{The

Conference was sponsored by Project Archimedes at CSLI, Stanford,

the Western Blind Rehabilitation Center, Veterans Administration,

Palo Alto, and the Sensory Access Foundation, Palo Alto. The

present document is a draft written by Elizabeth Macken, John

Perry and Neil Scott based on notes taken during discussion; it

has yet to be approved by the other participants.}

RECOMMENDATION TO PROMOTE ACCESSIBLE INTERFACES

An accessible interface presents and receives information in

forms which match the sensory and motor capabilities of the user.

In the case of a blind individual, this usually entails auditory

or tactile representations for information that would otherwise

be presented visually. Ideally, an accessible interface will

allow a blind user to function with the same speed and efficiency

as a sighted user.

Five recommendations were produced by the participants of the

Asilomar Conference on Access to GUIs. The first two

recommendations address two conditions necessary to encourage

designers and developers to devote energy to the creation of such

interfaces: basic knowledge and standardization. The third

recommendation addresses the need for designing access into

equipment rather than retrofitting later. The fourth

recommendation addresses the need to distinguish between

information and the form in which it is presented. The last

recommendation draws attention to the special training needs of

blind GUI users.

RECOMMENDATION 1: Governmental and non-Governmental funding

agencies should encourage vigorous efforts to develop alternative

accessible interfaces to GUIs for blind users.

 * The design of such interfaces should explore innovative ways

to emulate the way GUIs enable users to express relationships or

respond to cues by directly manipulating screen objects.

 * Alternatives to the GUI should not be limited to direct

analogs of existing visual displays.

 * This research would involve:

  - Interdisciplinary efforts which build on to the existing

state of the art.

  - Basic research into the perceptual and cognitive procceses of

blind individuals

  - Research and development of alternative display modes using

text, sound, tactile and haptic representations.

  - Product-driven research in the design of access tools that

blind users could employ to perform the functions that graphical

devices already provide for sighted users.

Such interfaces can be thought of as the "front-end" of a link

between the user and the computer. The "back-end" of this link

connects with the operating system and/or GUI of the host

computer. For the front-ends to work, the back-ends must provide

information in a neutral format that can be used with any

appropriate user interface; visual, auditory, tactile or haptic.

Current accessible front-ends are designed around proprietary

back-ends, developed for particular GUI-based products such as

Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh or X-Windows. This approach

has the potential to provide a high level of access for these

products but provides no help at all for other computer-based

devices which also have GUIs, such as VCRs, microwave ovens,

information-kiosks, ATMs, and telephones which use touch-screens

and graphical color displays. The rapid proliferation of GUI-

based devices has left current access technologies behind. (In

addition to compatibility problems, there are severe financial

constraints. For example, a GUI-based product like a cable-TV

selector, costing less than $100, cannot incorporate a special

interface costing many hundreds of dollars.) The only feasible

way to provide universal access to such devices is to mandate

that they provide a standard interface to an external access

device.

RECOMMENDATION 2: An independent university or federal

laboratory should be commissioned to develop and maintain a

standardized protocol for connecting special access technologies

to computer-based applications.

Accessing the information in a GUI is extremely complex and

cannot be done without cooperation from the developers of the

GUI. As with all commercial software, details of the internal

organization and operation of each GUI is closely guarded.

Developers of access software experience great difficulty in

obtaining sufficient data from the GUI manufacturers.

GUI access software is being developed by private companies in a

very competitive environment. Each company has a particular

design philosophy and has worked out solutions to certain parts

of the problem. The developer of one of the leading GUI access

products stated that with the DOS version of their product, 10%

of their effort went into recovering the necessary information

from DOS and 90% went into developing the interface to the blind

user. In contrast, the GUI product has so far required 90% of

their effort to be spent in finding out how to recover the

information and only 10% has been available for developing user

interfaces. This represents a huge duplication of effort since

all of the developers are expending a huge effort on the same

problem. A common interface to the GUI would enable developers

of access packages to give full attention to the user interface.

Similar arguments can be made for the special access needs within

each area of disability.

This recommendation (2) could be implemented by designating a

federal laboratory (as part of diversification) to build onto

work already being done in the field. It is important that the

protocol be neutral and available to all developers.

RECOMMENDATION 3: Principles of Accessible Interface Design must

be defined and widely diseminated among all hardware and software

designers and developers, not only of computer systems, but of

all electronic devices which incorporate graphical user

interfaces. The general awareness of everyone should be

increased to take into account the importance of providing access

to all technology for everyone. These principles will include:

 * Definitions of successful access.

Successful access means

  - Being able to receive visual information through other

sensory channels, using as many channels as are available and

appropriate. - Being able to navigate about within the GUI

  - Being able to point to objects for making selections.

  - Being able to function at a rate comparable to that of a

sighted user.

  - Receiving feedback which confirms that the blind person has

received the same information as sighted counterparts, albeit in

different modalities.

 * Methods for measuring accessibility

 * Concrete guidelines about how accessibility can be provided in

specific circumstances

  - Incorporating redundant information; There should be

sufficient information available to allow it to be displayed in

more than one modality.

  - Providing flexible Interfaces which enable users to choose

the modality (visual, auditory, tactile) they prefer.

 * Involvement of blind (and other disabled) users throughout the

design, development and testing of all new products.

 * Promulgation of the concept that it is more desirable to

incorporate accessibility from the outset of product development

than to develop retrofits. In many cases common sense and

attention to a few simple principles will ensure that products

are accessible.

 * Strengthening the ADA to support computer accessibility.

Clear directions and guidelines should be given to designers,

manufacturers and system integrators to ease the burden of

implementation.

Even when hardware and software includes the capability for full

access, documents provided with the equipment, or produced by the

equipment, may still be inaccessible. The development of

high-powered graphical programs for creating, enhancing and

replacing text means that increasingly, printed information will

be provided in forms that and are not easily transcribed into

non-visual forms. Everyone should keep in mind principles which

promote access to documents.

RECOMMENDATION 4: In creating and disseminating electronic or

paper documents, computer users should be conscious of the

distinction between the meaning or content of information and the

form in which it is presented.

 * Nothing should be done which locks information into a

particular display mode.

 * Applications should produce information in a universal format

which conveys information content independently of the ways in

which it might be displayed. Appropriate display processors would

present the information to each user in a form most suited to

individual needs. This is the long-term key to universal access

to information.

Examples:

  - The source file for a graphically enhanced document might

include easily accessed definitions for titles, sections and the

like in addition to, or instead of, a single postscript file,

say. - Information should be provided in multiple forms. For

example: textual explanations should accompany graphics and

pictures; graphs and charts should be accompanied by the data

used to construct them.

For sighted users, GUIs are considered to be `user-friendly'.

Less user training is required for a GUI than for a command-line

interface. For the blind user, however, the opposite is

generally true because of lack of familiarity with the

fundamentally visual concepts that are used to organize the

information in a GUI.

RECOMMENDATION 5: A considerable investment in training of blind

users must be made to ensure they fully realize the potential of

modern computers.

Some examples:

 * Schools should use computers of the sort that students will

encounter in jobs. This is important for all students; it is no

less important for blind students.

 * Educational materials which develop the graphical and spatial

concepts required for working with GUIs should be provided for

blind students at an early age.

 * Funding sources must acknowledge the extra costs involved in

providing adequate training for blind users, particularly as the

cost of the products becomes relatively low.



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