Google Labs unveiled its new site to aid the blind in searching the web today. Google Accessible Search service is aimed to aid those using screen readers. The service is designed to filter out sites that may have extraneous content on them and may not be ideal for screen readers to handle. Too much information can prevent users from finding what they need.
In a CNet interview, T.V. Raman, the research scientist in charge of the product built the service “for purely selfish reasons” after joining Google. Google encourages employees to work on independent projects using the resources of the company. Many of these projects have become part of the mainstream offerings, such as Google News.
The service examines the code on the pages of sites that are returned in a search. The algorithm favors pages with fewer visual distractions and will render well with images turned off.
The Accessible Search looks like a stripped-down version of the regular search product, as the main navigation is out of the way, allowing users to go directly to the search results. Comparing the results for “AOL Cancellation”, there is a significant difference between the results.
AOL Cancellation - Accessible Search results.
AOL Cancellation - Traditional Search results
Most noticeably, the YouTube video of the NBC interview is #4 on the standard search, but not in the top 30 results at Accessible Search. What is most prevalent on the Accessible search are news and blog sites, which makes sense as the HTML mark-up on blogs is usually clean and easy for screenreader translation.Thank you to Google for making serious steps for the Blind community. Google changed to creating alternative CAPTCHA’s a few months ago. This new service provides a very sincere effort to assist a very strong user community.
[Added] Rueters news does a much more extensive article on Dr. Raman and his “selfish reasons”, as he is blind and benefits from this service as well. Google could use more of this type of “selfishness”. The article goes into much more depth and offers some great information beyond the simple announcement. (Thanks, Rich)
Your AOL cancel links both point to the accessible search mate.
I really hope they run their own sites through the WCAG guidelines or they’re gonna be removing thier own content from the accessible SERPs
Comment by rich — July 20, 2006 @ 11:08 am
Thanks for the heads up on the link, Rich. Somtimes I load up the links in these posts and get confused.
I hear you - i’ve witnessed many a search engine rep confess ignorance to the WCAG. I don’t think they are using any WCAG guidelines to determine the search results, just WCAG intentions, knowingly or unknowingly.
Comment by Matt Bailey — July 20, 2006 @ 11:16 am
No probs. I actually read up a bit more and discovered at least for now the system uses something called ‘Google Co-op technology’ so the interface is very much borrowed. I expect they’ll triple-A it before they launch.
There’s an good article on Reuters with Raman too, titled ‘Google tests more accessible Web search for blind’ - I won’t put a link in incase I get spam filered but you should be able to find it by the headline.
Turns out Raman is blind himself so I guess it’s a labour of love.
Comment by rich — July 20, 2006 @ 11:28 am
I am legally blind and use Zoomtext 9.- on the computer. Your test is very difficult to read at magnification level 6 ( what I use)
Can you help with readable text?
Comment by Kenneth J. Haldeman — March 1, 2007 @ 10:02 am
Hi, Kenneth. Thanks for your comments! I’ve taken a look at the site using Zoomtext at magnification level 6, and I’m not really certain what the problem is. I did observe a problem with IE6 while I was checking, which may have caused you some navigational problems, but couldn’t identify anything really specifically related to the size of the text with Zoomtext.
Can you describe your problems further?
Thanks,
Joe
Comment by Joe Dolson — March 2, 2007 @ 5:20 pm