Chapter 2

There are many existing systems in place to allow limited access for visually impaired people to news and current affairs.

Radio and Television are a very good medium for getting up-to-date news. Some very good radio stations and television channels exist. Many people rely solely on radio for news. Receiving radio is free, and blind people get television licenses at a reduced rate, so both are fairly cheap and easy ways of getting information.

Within the UK many areas have a talking newspaper service whereby audio cassettes are sent to visually impaired people, usually either at weekly or biweekly intervals [NEWS] [TNAUK]. These cassettes are usually produced by local volunteers and provide local news and views. The cassettes are sent out in special wallets that have reversible address labels, so that the recipient can turn the label abound and send the cassette back easily. This service takes advantage of the fact that the post office provides free postage for blind people.

The RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) provide a large number of services for visually impaired people [RNIB]. They provide a wide range of magazines on all subjects from TV Guides and local events, to children’s books and professional journals. They can either provide these in Braille format or on a disk for use with a computer equipped with a screen reader (screen readers are discussed later in the chapter), and they have a limited number of publications available on their web site for anyone to access.

Other services that are available from the RNIB include an express reading service, which allows a visually impaired person to have a specific piece of text read and recorded onto cassette. Services to help organise holidays, providing accessibility to music, hotels and restaurants are also provided, as well as a service that provides tactile maps.
In the USA, many other more advanced systems exist. One such system, called Newsline [NEWS], receives digital transmissions from newspapers on the morning of publication, converts this information into computer-generated synthetic speech, and transmits it to a local service centre which visually impaired people can call on touch tone phones. The service currently supports a number of national papers, including USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times, as well as local newspapers in their specific areas. The service is provided free to individual subscribers, and the costs are paid by local authorities, interested organisations, agencies or other sources.

The Internet is a vast and useful source of information on practically any subject imaginable. For users who have some limited vision, solutions such as large screens and screen magnifiers may be sufficient to allow them to use a computer and view web pages. Various tools to allow partially sighted users to use a computer are provided as part of the Windows operating system on PCs [MSOFT].

Many people with no vision at all use DOS screen readers – these are applications that read out all the text on the screen and the text typed by the user. Such screen readers are limited to use with DOS applications. This is much simpler than a graphical operating system, greatly simplifying the process of getting across to the user exactly what is happening and reducing the risk of “getting lost”. This is because DOS is a simple text-based command interpreter and does not rely on complex graphical concepts such as icons, windows and menus. DOS based systems allow users only limited access to the Internet and email, which are commonly available only on window based operating systems.

The Internet can be accessed when using a DOS screen reader through the use of a text based web browser such as Lynx or DOSLynx (Lynx is the UNIX based version) [LYNX]. These browsers only relay the text of the web page to the user, missing out images and other non-text content. This also means that the browser misses out any sound, music or video files. Advantages of using such a system are:

Visually impaired users can use a graphical operating system to access the Internet, either by using a more advanced screen reader, or some sort of talking web browser. There are many screen readers on the market, many of them include some quite sophisticated features for getting across to the user exactly what is on the screen by listing open windows, reading out menu items, etc. A basic screen reader (called Narrator) is included free with the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system [MSOFT].

Talking web browsers are similar to screen readers, but are geared specifically to reading the contents of web pages. Talking browsers are available from numerous sources, IBM provides one called “Homepage Reader” that can be downloaded from their web site and evaluated for 30 days, after which a charge is made [IBM].

One existing system that attempts to simplify the process of understanding web pages is a talking web browser called BrookesTalk, which has been developed by Oxford Brookes University [BROOK] with help from the RNIB [RNIB]. BrookesTalk allows the user to get an idea of the content of a document without having to read it in detail, and allow them to jump between different sections of the page easily. It does this by analysing the page and providing a summary including the number of words on the page, the title, the main headings, and a list of links on the page. It then allows the user to jump between the different sections using function keys, and to “mark” certain pieces of text that are interesting and they wish to go back to later. It also provides advanced word searching facilities so that the user can find specific words within a page – helping them to determine whether the page is going to be of interest to them.

Studies have been done into how sighted users gather information from a web page [BRPUBS]. The decisions taken upon first seeing a web page include “what is it about” and “does it include the information I require”. Sighted users obtain this information quickly by “scanning” the page to build up a working picture of its contents. Users tend to look for headings, images and links to orient themselves and help them decide which parts of the page they needed to concentrate on.

One challenge for a project such as the one in this report is finding a way of replicating this sequence of actions in a way that is accessible to people who cannot use visual scanning to orient themselves within a web page.

The BBC was criticised over its web pages (which are some of the most visited pages in the UK) being laid out in a way that was difficult to understand using a screen reader or talking browser. After discussion with the RNIB they have attempted to address the problems with access to their web pages by producing a tool called Betsie [BBC].

Betsie is an application that runs on the BBC server, and when requested automatically re-formats the web pages of the BBC and a few other organisations so that they are more easily read using a screen reader. The tool alters the text on the page so that it is all in one column instead of the multiple columns that it was in before. It moves the navigation bar that contains all the links to other parts of the site to the bottom of the page. This makes the pages a lot easier to understand using a screen reader by cutting down on the disjointed sentences and interleaving of words that can occur when multiple columns of text are used on a page.

The World Wide Web Consortium [W3C] (founders of the world wide web) “Web Accessibility Initiative” attempts to address the problem of making web pages accessible to visually impaired users. They have agreed on a comprehensive set of guidelines that all web pages should adhere to [W3C2]. These also include guidelines for the tools that are used to create web pages, and cover all aspects of web page design including active content, Java script, and all the latest web technologies. The guidelines focus on providing textual alternatives for images, providing alternatives to image maps that are commonly used on sites but are impossible to convey using speech, and providing provisions for very large font sizes and low screen resolutions for partially sighted users.
The W3C initiative is sponsored by a number of large organisations in the USA, including the National Science Foundation, the Microsoft Corporation, IBM, Bell Atlantic and others.

There are also many other organisations that have produced their own guidelines on accessible web site design, such as the Centre for Information Technology Accommodation [CITA]. Part of the problem is that there still does not seem to be any accepted standard rules, and even if there were, the nature of the Internet would make such rules impossible to enforce.

The problems with accessible web page design will never be completely solved, but more companies need to be made aware of the need to follow some basic guidelines and life will be made a lot easier for the visually impaired. A number of tools exist to allow site designers to check their site for compliance with the rules of accessible site design, one such site is called BOBBY [CAST]. BOBBY was produced by the Centre for Applied Special Technology. The BOBBY site allows you to enter a URL (Universal Resource Locator, also known as a web address) of a web site, and it will check the HTML code of the site and tell you if the site complies with the W3C rules of accessible design. If it does not, then BOBBY provides some suggestions on how it can be improved, and once it has been approved the site can show a “BOBBY approved” logo on the page. The BOBBY site also has a list of BOBBY approved sites to allow visually impaired users to find accessible sites easily.

In the UK, an act called the Disability Discrimination Act [DDA] was passed in 1995. This government measure was intended to reduce discrimination against disabled people. It covers organisations providing goods, services and facilities, and those employing disabled people. It means that if a disabled person thinks they are being discriminated against in some way, they will have a way of taking action to stop it. The success of such actions will depend on a decision about whether the act of discrimination cannot be justified, or is considered unreasonable.

The act also means that businesses will have to make a reasonable effort to provide information in a format usable by a visually impaired person. This does not mean that every corner shop has to have prices in Braille, but a large chain of supermarkets should have a freephone telephone helpline – it hinges on the definition of what is “reasonable”. Where there is dispute a court or tribunal can be used to decide.

A similar act was passed in the USA in 1990 called the Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA]. In 1996 a letter was passed on to Deval L. Patrick, the Assistant Attorney General, about the issue of access to Web pages for the visually impaired. In his reply he said that the ADA requires “state and local governments and places of public accommodation to furnish appropriate auxiliary aids and services where necessary to ensure effective communication with individuals with disabilities, unless doing so would result in a fundamental alteration to the program or service or in an undue burden”. He suggested that companies should be allowed to provide web pages that were mainly graphical as long as there was an alternative means of obtaining the information contained on them for no extra cost, and the web page clearly indicated how the information could be obtained.

Even talking newspapers do not go far enough to reduce the information gap between sighted and unsighted people. If someone else is reading the news then they can choose to miss out certain parts if they feel them inappropriate, this could be seen as a breach of the recipient’s rights as an individual. Even if the newspaper is read without any censorship, the choice of newspaper itself could mean that the news is from a particular political slant. It could be argued that a sighted person can go out and find many different viewpoints on the news of the day, thus gaining a much better picture of events – a luxury that is denied to unsighted people.

The Web is one technology that has the potential to address this problem.

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."

The project will attempt to address the problems with the existing forms of news and information distribution to visually impaired users, and hopefully help to improve the problems of freedom of information for visually impaired people. It is an attempt to bridge the information gap between sighted and unsighted people.

Access to topical information about various subjects can help a visually impaired person to fit in with the rest of society more easily. A visually impaired professional would find it easier to fit in with his/her peers at work if they can discuss the news and issues of the day, in the past the visually impaired may have felt isolated and unable to join in with such conversations.

Another reason that this project will be of great value to visually impaired users is that it will provide access to information other than news and current affairs. The Internet is an invaluable resource for finding out about almost any subject, and visually impaired users have been unable to effectively make use of this powerful tool in the past. By providing a quick efficient way of gathering information on a wide range of interests, it will help to bridge the “information gap” that has developed between sighted and unsighted individuals.

Currently, the visually impaired can only get their news from a limited number of sources, and are unable to see events from a different viewpoint. Sighted people have the freedom to look on the Internet and get the news from a completely different perspective, cutting propaganda and enabling them to form their own unbiased view of events. Unsighted people do not have as much freedom to do this, and as such are at a disadvantage. The project will attempt to reinforce the principle of “freedom of information” that is important for the efficient running of any democracy.

Chapter 2

Background and Rationale