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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