Web Site Accessibility Blog

Voice Recognition and Learning
ClaroRead, from EnableMart, enables users to integrate with Dragon Naturally Speaking to create a powerful tool for reading, proofreading and composing emails, papers or homework assignments. People with dyslexia benefit from the features like advanced spell checking, homophone support, word prediction, and audio feedback. When used with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, ClaroRead becomes learning software that can be voice controlled for easier access.

Word Prediction Software
Premier Predictor Pro, from Premier Assistive Technology, is a word predictor program that integrates with all of the programs on a user’s computer and websites. The program scans documents on the hard drive and builds a customized prediction list of words. The tool also allows for easy dictionary look up and a text-to-speech function that says the word to make sure that it was the intended word for the user. This technology eliminates keystrokes and also assists with cognitive disabilities, such as dyslexia.

Assistive Technology Comparison Shopping
Empower Technologies teams with Microsoft to offer Assistive Technology products through comparison shopping sites including MSN Shopping and Windows Live Shopping. With the increasing need and demand for AT products, Microsoft partnered with Empower’s shopping comparison solution to offer consumers side-by-side comparison shopping.
MSN Shopping AT Comparison

Windows Live Shopping AT Comparison

News is so scattered form all directions, I thought I would place everything that is swimming around in my brain into one place. Rather than forcing myself to write a long post that may never get completed, this seems like the best way to disseminate a lot of information very quickly and easily.

Joe Clark comments on Amazon’s need for “hard evidence” to support accessibility. Joe nails it, as usual.

Courtesy of 456 Berea St., the X-Ray Firefox extension - see your markup on the page. You don’t have to view the source code, but can see the elements on the page. One of the best extensions I’ve seen in months.

UK Government Website Failure: An analysis. Preview: it’s the authoring tools that are at fault.

Bluffmail: Phone-based voice email

PowerPoint extension with text-to-speech capability, Tuval. Now I don’t have to speak at seminars, I can let this software read my speaker notes and just handle the Q&A. Seriously, this is a great extension for those who would like to have a copy of the PowerPoint presentation and not just the visual slides. However, I don’t know many other speakers on my circuit that use their speaker notes function. I can see a lot of future in this, as websites can enable people to download presentations to assist on software troubleshooting, set-up, or many other applications that can be presented effectively in both visual and descriptive text/speech.

This must be IBM’s week. Starting on October 3, 2005, IBM is giving away accessibility software on its website. While some are 90-day trials, and the license cost is certainly affordable. The offerings include:

Keyboard Optimizer: An application that monitors a user’s typing patterns and optimizes for mistakes. This is geared for those situations where users may not be able to lift fingers quickly from the keys.
Mouse Smoothing Software: for users with hand tremors or difficulty moving a mouse.

In addition to these user technologies, IBM is also offering applications ands software for programmers, These are designed to allow development companies increase their accessibility reach by using some very unique products.

I’ve downloaded the aDesigner software program, and I’m sure that I’ll be posting a review of it soon. This software allows programmers to view their site in different vision and blind user modes. The advantage is for designers to actually see what the user sees in the design aspect, rather than reading text-based reporting or line corrections from standard accessibility code testing.

Opera has taken the next step in its evolution by offering the browser for free. Opera 8.5 is now available as a free download without the banners and licensing fee. There is a paid premium service available for assistance and troubleshooting, but this is big news. Opera’s main competition was FireFox, which was free, and I think that helped FireFox grab a big lead.

Opera is also making their browser available for WAP-enabled phones, smart phones and many wireless PDA’s. Be sure to check their extensive list of products that can run the Opera browser’s small screen rendering.

An Arizona school is replacing textbooks with laptops in order to implement an Internet and electronic-based curriculum. Apparently, this is to keep teachers from “marching through the textbooks”. Is this the actual solution to the problem? I mean, there are very bad teachers and very good teachers – is the change of book to computer going to suddenly make a bad teacher a good teacher?

My own perceived hesitations aside – this is a great step for accessibility in the classroom. All students will have access to electronic documents and curriculum, and additional software could be loaded onto the student’s machines that require assistive technology. Not bad from that angle. This solves many problems in access and availability.

However, the cost of the laptops is $850 each, contrasted to the cost of textbooks between $500 and $600. One of my favorite cultural commentators is Neil Postman. In his book, “Building Bridges to the 18th Century,” he makes the comment that school systems all over the country are spending millions of dollars on placing computers into the classrooms. However, “there certainly does not exist any compelling evidence that any manifestation of computer technology can do for children what good, well-paid, unburdened teachers can do. So where is the outcry from teachers?”

He makes an excellent point. Everyone cheers when schools spend massive amounts of money on computers, but what if that same money were used to attract quality, well-paid teachers into the schools? What if that money were used as incentive to retain teachers whose students consistently perform well and show improvement? Instead, teachers applaud the purchasing of technology, and poor salaries and layoffs are pervasive.

Back to the Arizona plan. The most concerning thing to read is the superintendent’s statement that he’s not altogether sure how the transition will take place. Now that’s scary. Make a drastic change in curriculum with no clear direction or plan in place.

Which wraps this all up in a pretty little bow. There needs to be a clear goal in order to know if you have attained it. I constantly see this in the web marketing business. Most sites are not designed with a clear purpose. Therefore, there is no clear way to measure success, because success was not defined from the start.

Why don’t more people use assistive technology in their online research? Just because someone does not have a disability, does that mean that they cannot benefit from using assistive technology? Assistive technology, in my opinion, has the ability to help everyone.

The FireFox Browser has a free screen reader plug-in, Adobe now has screen reading technology, Jaws is somewhat affordable, but not without need. However, Jaws does offer a 20-minute demo version.

Educational research on reading comprehension research shows that people learn through a combination of three sensory factors: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. People tend to learn faster when exposed to more than a single factor, thus the curse of endless PowerPoint Presentations. Ideally, I suppose PowerPoint’s can assist learning when they are not combining charts and graphs with a droning speaker, but that’s just my opinion. People learn better when they can use all three sensory abilities, and the retention increases when they do. All people rely on these, and people largely rely on one more than the others, but can benefit from all.

So, why do people who do not need assistive technology take advantage of the assistance that is available? I wondered this the other day as I attempted to sit and read an on-line book. It was one of the most difficult experiences I have ever had, I couldn’t get past the first page. I can sit and read a book for hours, but yet I get distracted by the slightest agitation when reading online. I even realized that I really don’t fully read web pages – I skim.

However, the experience of reading the printed page is just that – an experience. The preparation and time spent reading a printed text is not the same as the reading online. For one, it is much easier for me to read a book than to read the same text online. The contrast of the text on the page is much easier to see, as well as the “horizontal� aspect of turning pages. People can see when the page ends in a book, as opposed to a web page.

So why do so many tests (Second Language education) (6th Grade reading assignment), seem to indicate the comprehension from using the web is better than the standard printed page? The results of both seem to indicate the hypertext environment, the use of images and multimedia as factors in better comprehension from web/computer learning.

In a Multimedia learning study, there is surprising results comparing reading combined with other auditory or sensory features.
When compared with the learning performance of the control group, the people in the different groups always demonstrated more learning:

• Hearing spoken text and looking at graphics – 91% more learning,
• Looking at graphics alone – 63% more,
• Reading printed text plus looking at graphics – 56% more,
• Listening to spoken text, reading text, and looking at graphics – 46% more,
• Hearing spoken text plus reading printed text – 32% more,
• Reading printed text alone – 12% more,
• Hearing spoken text alone – 7% more.

So, from looking at these results, we can see that websites can be powerful tools if they combine graphics, text and auditory assistance. People can rely on those additional factors which help them learn, but also learn from other factors, such as layout, deduction and reinforcement.

What I find interesting is that the group exposed to the spoken text and graphics had a significantly higher retention rate (91%) than those reading the text and seeing the same graphics (46%).

I think it is pretty obvious that anyone can benefit from assistive technology. Being aware of what it provides and sites can be improved to take advantage of these technologies can only help to provide a better experience for all users. Seemingly, integrating additional multimedia could also improve the sales and lead rate of a website – couldn’t it?

So, I’m going back to read this online book later today, and I’m going to use the Firefox plug in to speak the text. It’s not an official experiment or study, but I’ll let you know how it goes . . .

Text Cloner Pro from Premiere Assistive Technology will be going on sale later this month, as an alternative to expensive, bundled solutions. Text Cloner is a high-speed and high detailed scanner that allows documents to be quickly scanned into a computer for screen readers to give access to low-vision users.

The high speed mode is designed to find only text and scan it quickly. This mode is especially helpful for students, researchers and those who need to review pages of documents.

A test of the Text Cloner software using a low-end Dell computer running Window-Eyes software resulted in scanning and recognition of five pages a minute with 99% accuracy. The affordability of this software and the integration will allow users to have fast access without high-priced bundled alternatives, as many assistive products tend to be. Text Cloner also avoids proprietary formats, allowing users to export text to Word or other word processing programs.

Text Cloner Pro will retail for $99.

A new software called IVEO from ViewPlus Technologies adds audio labels to pictures and digital images on websites. The software allows the images to be labeled with audio tags which can describe the image or information the graphic was intended to communicate.

For low-vision or blind users, this can open up another avenue of experiencing a web page or accessing research that is presented in the forms of diagrams or charts. The software is also available with the IVEO Touchpad, which also provides a tactile description of the image. The two can be used together to provide both a tactile and audio description of images.

The company sees promise in developing this software as an educational enhancement, allowing teachers to help students in discovering the ways that they learn best, regardless of disability or learning style.

This is a very good application, but you have to wonder how many companies will spend time and effort to implement something as simple as image speech tags in their web sites. Most companies don’t even take the basic steps to be more search engine compatible or gain rankings – is this something that would even appeal to those that don’t make web site marketing a priority?

Israeli engineers have developed Maestro, a voice –only internet for searchers.

The articles mainly focuses on commuting as the primary application of the software, which I guess is the most “marketable� (read: profitable) application. But let’s not overlook the obvious. A completely hands free way to browse and search the internet and have search results and pages read back to the user. While there are similar systems in place, Maestro allows the user to customize search results, such as number of results returned, search methods and styles and the voice pitch settings. Such advanced search features can easily become standard assistive technology in helping disabled users gain greater access via search interface.

The developer’s greatest concern in this article is the safety of drivers using a hands-free internet while driving. Cell phone usage has caused many accidents, but they feel that a totally voice activated internet will help keep drivers from being distracted.

Yeah, right.

A great story about an affordable hands-free browsing alternative device for a child with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1. This disease severely limits the ability to move muscles movement, especially in his hands and fingers. The SmartNAV from NaturalPoint is an assistive technology that allows users to navigate websites by dwell-clicking and an on-screen keyboard with a top price of $399. This is comparable, and better - reading the testimonials on the Natural Point web site, to typical headset units that do not include those features, but still cost over $1,000 without software. The NaturalPoint SmartNav allows families to purchase his system without grants, fundraising or other extreme measures.