March 26, 1998
Bringing the Visual World of the Web to the Blind
By DEBRA NUSSBAUM
Curtis Chong has been using the World Wide Web for three
years to look up topics like music, fund-raising and medical
research. He also uses it as a way to teach and encourage other
blind people to get on the Web.
How does someone who cannot see the screen navigate the
computer and Web, which is full of glitzy graphics and icons?
Chong communicates all his commands through the keyboard.
His printer prints in Braille. He uses the Internet Explorer 3.02
with a piece of software called a screen reader and a speech
synthesizer to turn the written words on the screen into words
spoken in a computer-generated voice.
"We want to use the Web, and we want to use it like
everybody else does," said Chong, director of technology for the
National Federation of the Blind, based in Baltimore. "We don't
believe the computer is the great equalizer for the blind, but
it's one way to make our lives better."
For the more than half-million blind people of working age
in the United States, getting on the Web may not only mean being
able to research topics of interest but may also be a necessary
skill for staying employed.
It certainly affects the jobs of thousands of blind people,"
said Gary Wunder, a blind man who is a senior computer programmer
at the University of Missouri Hospitals and Clinics. He is
required to use the Web in his job for project assignments and
updates. "It isn't just optional anymore."
While current statistics on the use of computers and the Web
by blind and visually impaired people are hard to find,
technology companies and advocacy organizations say the numbers
are rapidly increasing. Tens of thousands of blind people are on
computers, and every year more of them are learning to use the
Web, Chong said.
A 1991 study published by the American Foundation for the
Blind in New York found that 43 percent of blind and severely
visually impaired people were using the computer for writing,
said Emilie Schmeidler, senior research associate for the
foundation. Her impression is that more visually impaired people
are using computers and the Web now, she said, and "more and more
jobs require the computer."
Being able to use the Web is critical to thousands of
employed blind people.
A screen reader or screen access program like the one Chong
uses is the translator that tells a speech synthesizer what to
say when the visual icons are accompanied by a text description.
"It's my white cane that helps me know what's on the screen,"
Chong said.
Henter-Joyce, a company in St. Petersburg, Fla., that
manufactures the popular screen reader called JAWS (Job Access
With Speech) for Windows, has between 15,000 and 18,000
customers, said the company's president, Ted Henter. He said the
customer base had increased four to five times since 1995.
At least seven companies make the screen readers.
Henter-Joyce's JAWS is one of the top sellers and costs about
$795; the company's new version, to be released this spring, will
include a speech synthesizer. The National Federation of the
Blind Web site includes a computer-resource page that has
information on how to get in contact with the companies that sell
the readers.
But getting the technology right is only one piece of the
package. If Web pages do not have text that identifies graphics
or if they have moving type, they will not be accessible. The
World Wide Web Consortium, made up of universities, corporations
and research organizations and based at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, started a three-year project in 1997
called the Web Accessibility Initiative that is creating
guidelines to make technology and Web pages more accessible to
blind, deaf and disabled users.
The National Federation of the Blind has eight accessibility
guidelines for Web pages that can be found on its Web site.
The Center for Applied Special Technology, a nonprofit
research and development organization in Peabody, Mass., has a
free service in which it analyzes Web sites and offer suggestions
for their accessibility.
The change from DOS, a text-based operating system, to
Windows, a graphics-based operating system, was a setback for the
blind.
"The world enthusiastically embraced Windows, and we were
left out," said Wunder, who is also president of the Missouri
chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. But in the last
two and a half years, Microsoft "has shown concern and
responsiveness" to the blind, Wunder said.
Version 3.02 of Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer,
includes a component called Microsoft Active Accessibility, a
layer of codes that are compatible with accessibility aids like
the screen reader. In addition to aiding blind users, these codes
also hook into software that helps users who are deaf or have
other disabilities.
But a newer version, Internet Explorer 4.0, was released on
Oct. 1, 1997, without the Active Accessibility component. Angry
letters, phone calls and e-mails let Luanne LaLonde, Microsoft's
accessibility product manager, and others at Microsoft know that
this was unacceptable.
"We got a lot of e-mail," she said. In early November, about
35 days after the release of Explorer 4.0, Microsoft released
Explorer 4.01, including Active Accessibility.
Web page design, of course, is an element of accessibility.
Vito DeSantis, manager of field operations for the southern
regional office of the New Jersey Commission for the Blind, uses
the Web to find research on the eye condition that has made it
impossible for him to see the computer screen for the past three
years. He also likes to read newspapers on the Web.
For visually impaired Web users like DeSantis, the vertical
columns on the Web present the biggest problem because screen
readers pick up the information horizontally.
"You have to really know how to navigate around the screen,"
DeSantis said. "I imagine quite a few people might get
frustrated. Sometimes it's just not worth the effort."
While screen readers help, Wunder said, "no screen reader
has made the Web as easily accessible for the blind as for the
sighted."
Even with top-of-the-line screen readers, Web pages have to
have text explanations for graphics and icons or the visually
impaired computer user cannot move.
"You get a screen and it says, 'Image, image, image,'"
Schmeidler said, quoting the sound her screen reader makes when
the cursor hits an icon without accompanying text. "You have no
idea how frustrating it is."
In addition to the advice on making a Web page accessible
from the National Federation of the Blind and the Center for
Applied Special Technology, the World Wide Web Consortium has a
group of volunteer computer experts who are leading the Web
Accessibility Initiative. The group's goal is to write guidelines
for Web page authors who want to make their pages accessible for
all disabled users. A rough draft of the recommendations can be
found on the consortium's Web site.
"Everything is voluntary, and the documents are called
recommendations," said Professor Gregg Vanderheiden, director of
the Trace Research and Development Center at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison and a member of the group. But for
businesses and government agencies, making sites accessible may
not be voluntary, he said.
In a policy ruling in September 1996, the Department of
Justice said the Americans with Disabilities Act did cover access
to Web pages.
"A Web site is an electronic front door," Vanderheiden said.
"But blind users often have to let individual Web page authors
know that they can't understand their pages.
"Sometimes people instantly go and fix it, and sometimes
people don't care."
Blind users say they want basic instruction on how to
navigate the Web and get what they want. They do not need long
descriptions that are intended to help them see pictures or other
graphics.
"Don't try to tell me how wonderful the Mona Lisa is,"
Wunder said. "You can't do that, but you can tell me how to get
the picture and print it out for my daughter."
Related Sites
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National Federation of the Blind
Computer resources
Accessibility guidelines
World Wide Web Consortium and the Web Accessibility Initiative
Center for Applied Special Technology
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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