For most of us, using a computer and surfing the web is an almost entirely visual experience. We move cursors around the screen, click buttons and menus, read text and look at pictures. But although most of us rely on monitors to use computers, blind and visually impaired users haven’t been left out. James and Uleshka talked to blind programmer Masafumi “Max” Nakane to find out more about usability both on and offline for those who can’t see.
Max, how does a blind person use a computer differently to a sighted user?
It’s not much different, you use the regular keyboard you simply know the keys by heart. For the output, you’ve got to use some kind of software that either reads things and speaks them to you or describes things using Braille.
Could you describe a Braille display for us?
It’s a box that connects to the PC, usually through USB, though in the old days it was either serial or parallel. I think some of the latest devices have a Bluetooth connection. Depending on how much money you want to spend, it has between 40 and 80 Braille cells, and one Braille cell contains either 6 or 8 dots to represent one Braille character.
You have a few buttons on the device itself that you can use to send commands to the screen reader software on the PC. At one time you can only display forty characters, which is obviously not enough for viewing the entire display. So you use the buttons on these devices to move the focus around the screen, as if you’re looking through a straw, and you have to put the fragments together in your brain to make up the entire image.
When do you decide to use the screen reader and when do you prefer the Braille reader?
Well, it depends. For programming and such I would use Braille mostly, as it is more accurate. If I want to read a book though, I don’t use Braille, as it’s slow. The speech software has a very high speed-reading mode; one volume of a book could be read within 3 hours, so it’s quite fast. When I have to proofread I use both; I listen to the speech to see if it sounds ok, and at the same time I’ll check with Braille.
Max, you used to do a lot of accessibility research for the W3C and now work as a researcher for Auto-ID Lab. Japan at Keio University. Now more than ever accessibility has received a lot of press - but do you actually find that things are improving? Are most blogs easy for you to navigate through?
Well, yes and no. First you have to understand a few basics:
A screen reader tries to steal information from the web browser. Internet Explorer parses the HTML and the screen reader simply accesses the information from memory. My screen reader lets you jump from one heading to the next, so you can quickly move through the page. But without the appropriate heading tags, the screen reader doesn’t know where to jump. Using proper heading tags in HTML to define a line of text as a heading is much better than using font tags to just make the text look like a heading, which is still quite a common thing to do.
Max in our meeting room chatting about accessibility issues
Many blog templates, such as those in Movabletype make extensive use of heading tags, so it’s actually quite easy to jump through the page and to a beginning of an article. But the blogger has to have a great understanding of how HTML pages are made, and if you get someone who’s not really interested, who’s not really a geek, you can’t really expect them to know what’s behind it.
Another thing is that that this kind of functionality isn’t available in every screen reader. So people using a simple screen reader still have to still listen to the whole thing before getting to the real content. You’ve got to overcome all this to make it really accessible for everyone.
Here are 3 things you can easily do to make your website more accessible for everyone:
1: Use the “alt” attribute to describe images Providing alternative text descriptions of images on your site will allow visually impaired visitors to understand what is being shown, even if they are accessing the site via screen or Braille readers. But don’t add “alt” descriptions to spacer images (the invisible images that are sometimes used to control a page’s layout) as screen and Braille readers will read these out too!
2: Write meaningful links Making links understandable out of context helps users who might not have read the whole sentence, or are scanning the page for links. So instead of an ambiguous “To see my birthday photos, click here”, try “Have a look at my birthday photos”. You can also add a “title” attribute to the link to provide more information when the user hovers over (or focuses on) it.
3: Use effective page titles and headings Your page title will be the first thing a screen reader tells the user – so it should be as informative as possible without getting too long. Many visually impaired users will then listen to the headings within the page to help them get to the part they want. If you haven’t added heading tags correctly, this can’t be done!
Simple and effective! Thank you for the advice.
How do you actually find portable electronic devices? Let’s say MP3 players. Are they difficult for you to use?
Oh, some of them, yeah. I haven’t really used an iPod, because its inevitable software iTunes is almost impossible to use on a PC with a screen reader. I have a player that can also be used as USB storage, so I don’t need any special software to transfer my stuff into the player. I don’t really use many of the functions, which probably aren’t needed anyway.
You mentioned that you are using a PC – is that because you like using PCs, or is it that most speech software is only made for PC and not for Mac?
There is nothing useful available for Macs really. I think Apple is now trying to develop some accessibility solutions for blind people, but I’m not sure how far they have gone, and also I don’t think they are doing it in any other language besides English.
Interesting… How about using mobile phones?
About four years ago Docomo made the first cell phone that had a speech output. Their priority target was senior citizens, but they also added some features which were useful for blind users, too. The first model only read out menus and emails and it let you browse through your phone book using speech output.
The second model also reads web content using speech output. AU has two models that speak, as far as I know. Before these phones, I simply remembered the sequences that you have to use in order to store and retrieve that number.
Are there any products that are specifically designed for blind people that you use?
There are a few things that talk in my house, like a clock, a remote control for the air conditioning, and some talking scales, things like that. But they’re not really designed for blind people, because you can buy them from regular stores.
But I don’t think my watch is made for anyone else but blind people: you can touch it to tell the time.
When I first came to Tokyo, I was really surprised by all the things that were talking, the musical pedestrian crossings and train stations with different melodies, baths that tell you when they’re hot… Do these things help you, or irritate you?
Well, mostly they’re helpful. Sometimes things get a bit too much, but you can ignore it if you want. It’s not loud enough to be a problem yet.
Finally, if I can ask one more question; I noticed some Braille on a drink the other day. What does it tell you?
Those labels can only be found on alcoholic drinks so that blind individuals who don’t want to drink alcohol can safely take out what they want from the fridge. But it’s different depending on the company; most cans just say alcohol, but on cans by the “Kirin” brewery, one side says “Kirin” and the other side says “beer”. The space on the can is too small for more than three or four characters of Braille so you don’t really have much choice as to what you can put there.
Those labels can only be found on alcoholic drinks so that blind individuals who don’t want to drink alcohol can safely take out what they want from the fridge. But it’s different depending on the company; most cans just say alcohol, but on cans by the “Kirin” brewery, one side says “Kirin” and the other side says “beer”. The space on the can is too small for more than three or four characters of Braille so you don’t really have much choice as to what you can put there.
0 kommentarer:
Post a Comment