Reporters Look At Technology for Blind
Reporters Look At Technology for Blind
Reporters Look at Technology for
the Blind
From the Editor: In recent weeks several
prestigious newspapers and one distinguished magazine-format television news program have
taken a considered look at various aspects of technology for the blind. The first to
address the topic was the Louisville Courier Journal, which did a profile of long-time
Federation leader Tim Cranmer in its Sunday, February 15, 1998, edition. Here is the story
as it appeared:
Visionary in a Sightless World
Blind Inventor is Working on a Touchable Language
by Bob Deitel
Ideas and information literally whirred around
Tim Cranmer as he sat in his small at-home office in Louisville.
From a desktop scanner the pages of a book on
physics were being methodically transferred to computer and then reprinted in Braille for
Cranmer to read later. On the computer's screen flashed Cranmer's morning e-mail, the
words being recited aloud by software that instantly converted the text into speech.
Most ear-catching of all, however, were the
thoughts Cranmer himself was offering.
So much of science, he said, has involved turning
the unseen into the visible. Microscopes and telescopes reveal incredible detail. Machines
convert brain waves to drawings. All aim at uncovering new information by enhancing sight,
he said.
But what if science also could devise a way to
represent images in a touchable, or tactile, way for people with impaired vision, Cranmer
suggested. By starting with raised forms representing common objects, blind people might
learn a new language to help them observe and understand the untouchable— from
distant stars to tiny atoms.
Like sight, touch is a unique window to the
brain, Cranmer explained. What's needed are new tools to enhance that window.
"I know what a dog, cat, rubber ball, and
chair look like, but they aren't visual images—they are tactile images that I have
acquired over the years. We have to find a way to invoke those memories that blind people
have stored...and then go from there and begin to teach about other things," he said.
"I think that's where we're going in the
next millennium. I don't know that we'll be done by the end of it, but we're going to
start. We are starting."
And Tim Cranmer will rank high among the
pioneers.
He already has that distinction for many other
innovations. Now seventy-three, Cranmer has spent much of his adult life thinking up or
promoting technological advances, big and small, to help people who—like
himself—are visually impaired.
His earliest contributions date from 1952 to
1982, when he guided various Kentucky state services for the blind.
Tim Cranmer
Nearly forty years ago he devised the Cranmer
Abacus, a variation on the ancient Oriental tool for using beads on wires to solve math
problems. Cranmer's idea: add a felt backing to keep the beads from moving accidentally.
Thousands are sold annually to blind people worldwide.
In the early 1960's he came up with the Say When,
a compact, battery-operated device that hangs over a drinking cup and signals when poured
liquid nears the top.
Around 1970 he devised a Braille display pad that
could provide readings from electronic medical thermometers, timers, and calculators.
In the mid-1970's Cranmer thought of modifying a
computer to search a database of phone numbers and read out the numbers in sound and
Braille. He had engineers work out the details, and the result was a talking telephone
directory—first used by blind switchboard operators at the Universities of Louisville
and Kentucky.
Cranmer took the same tack to promote what
eventually became the Cranmer Modified Perkins Braille Writer—the first electronic
desktop Braille embosser. It did for blind readers what the dot-matrix computer printer
did for the sighted.
"My main interest has been in learning how
things work and how we can change the way they are to make them serve a better
purpose," said Cranmer, who shies away from being called an inventor. "I think
the most important thing I do is to influence the work of others."
And influence others he certainly has, said Marc
Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, the nation's largest advocacy
group for the visually impaired.
"Dr. Cranmer may be the best-known inventor
dealing with blindness in the U.S.," Maurer said. "I think he is certainly the
best-known blind inventor."
His reputation may soon spread further. He was
interviewed last month by the CBS News program "60 Minutes" for a planned
segment about technology that helps people with disabilities.
Although Cranmer officially retired sixteen years
ago, he never has stopped working. He first persuaded the National Federation of the Blind
to start a research department—which he then volunteered to head, at no pay.
That in turn led to global conferences on
technology for the blind. It also gave Cranmer a budget to pay for engineers to work on
new ideas, including his own. One of Cranmer's early acts, Maurer recalled, was to
convince the Federation that a talking computer could be developed for only $4,000. The
ultimate cost neared $20,000, but the result was "the best technology for computers
that existed anywhere," Maurer said.
Cranmer's work duties today involve voluntarily
heading the International Braille Research Center. Some travel to headquarters in
Baltimore is necessary, but e-mail, phone, Internet, and fax let him handle most chores
from his home.
Married for forty-eight years, Cranmer and his
wife Thelma live in a small house just outside St. Matthews. They raised one daughter
Linda, now a school counselor in Scott County.
Cranmer's talent for tinkering dates to his
boyhood in Louisville's Portland neighborhood.
He was the kind of kid who would dismantle clocks
and locks to see how they worked. He would happily slice open a golf ball to learn how it
bounced. At fourteen he sent away for books on chemistry after hearing that rust on an old
pocket knife came from oxygen and iron.
A combination of eye problems left him blind
after he turned nine, and a lack of opportunity for blind people steered him away from his
dream of being a scientist.
Instead, he first made his living by playing
piano for pay, making costume jewelry, and tuning and rebuilding pianos. He still plays
piano and loves music, especially classical.
His hair is white and wispy-thin, but his voice
remains youthfully enthusiastic, and he flashes a wry and playful sense of humor.
Educated at the Kentucky School for the Blind,
Cranmer in 1979 received an honorary doctorate in applied science from the University of
Louisville. But of many honors through the years, he most cherishes two: when his name was
attached to a National Federation of the Blind of Kentucky award given to people who
enhance the lives of the blind and when he received the NFB of Kentucky's Susan B. Rarick
Award for Service—an award named after one of Cranmer's first teachers.
"I think recognition by blind people has
meant more to me than anything else," he said.
His lack of formal university training still
astounds some of his friends, one of whom recalls having many a conversation with Cranmer
about calculus before learning that Cranmer never took a calculus class.
To encourage future blind scientists, Cranmer in
recent years has helped lead an ongoing effort to standardize and consolidate the various
Braille codes used in English-speaking countries. Different codes cover non-technical
writing, computer notation, and math-science notation. Those Braille divisions create
education limitations, Cranmer said.
Which brings him back to his push for a new,
touchable language to convey more knowledge and information.
Much of what people learn is said to come from
vision, Cranmer said, "but that's not true for blind people. So tactile image is an
alternative. I think much of what is now passed on to sighted people, through sight, can
be communicated through touch."
It's a different way of looking at and making
sense of the world, he said.
Which is exactly how Tim Cranmer has pursued most
of his seventy-three years.
That was the Cranmer profile. Then, on March 26,
the New York Times weighed in with its story about access to the World Wide Web for blind
people. The reporter came to the National Federation of the Blind and spent a good bit of
time in the International Braille and Technology Center at the National Center. She
interviewed a number of people. Here is the story she wrote:
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,
Florida, 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, Massachusetts, has a free
service in which it analyzes Web sites and offers 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 October 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 thirty-five 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."
Then on March 29 the CBS program, "60
Minutes," devoted a segment, narrated by program co-host Lesley Stahl, to technology
innovations assisting the disabled. Parts of the story dealt with various new wheelchair
designs developed by users, but the largest portion was devoted to technology for blind
people. CBS is nothing if not thorough. The three minutes or so devoted to Tim Cranmer's
work and life were culled from more than three and a half hours of tape, much of it
recorded at the National Center for the Blind. Tim's rather acid comment about the
experience was that, if he had realized they were going to filter out all references to
the National Federation of the Blind and eliminate his clarifications of simple
statements, he would never have agreed to submit to the interview. Here is the transcript
of the relevant segment of the story:
STAHL: (Voiceover) A blind person can't see when
his coffee cup is filling up. But Tim Cranmer can, thanks to his own invention...
TIM CRANMER: It's a Say When.
(Footage of Cranmer with Stahl)
STAHL: (Voiceover) ...the Say When.
CRANMER: It lets you know when to stop pouring.
So we put this over the thing.
STAHL: Uh-huh.
CRANMER: And then we pour. (Beeping sound) There
you are.
STAHL: Before you invented this...
CRANMER: Yeah?
STAHL: ...how would you know when you had gone to
the top?
CRANMER: You dip a pinky over the top, and you
burn your finger.
(Footage of Cranmer; Cranmer with Stahl; Braille
'n Speak;
Cranmer using Braille 'n Speak)
STAHL: (Voiceover) Tim Cranmer, blind from the
age of nine, has come up with scores of inventions over the last forty years. Call him the
Thomas Edison of devices for the blind. His crowning achievement is the Braille 'n Speak.
CRANMER: Open a file.
Computerized Voice: (From Braille 'n Speak)
Option zero, one...
STAHL: (Voiceover) It's a powerful—but very
light, less-than-a-pound—portable computer with a Braille keyboard that blind people
carry with them everywhere.
STAHL: What have you stored in there? This is
something you use. This is your own machine.
CRANMER: I use this every day, yes. I have my
database in here, all the telephone numbers and addresses since 1976. (Footage of Cranmer
with Stahl; Cranmer using Braille 'n Speak)
STAHL: (Voiceover) And his calendar, and a
month's worth of reading.
STAHL: You could store a whole book in there, for
instance?
CRANMER: Yes. I could store a novel. Right now I
have the poetry of John Keats. That's just temporary. I'll erase that one of these days
and replace it with War and Peace or something.
STAHL: (Voiceover) Anything he puts into the
Braille 'n Speak can be retrieved instantly, either in a computer-generated voice...
CRANMER: I'll have it read that back.
Computer Voice: (From Braille 'n Speak) My name
is Lesley Stahl.
STAHL: (Voiceover) ...or, with this advanced
model, in Braille. These dots pop up and down on a display bar to form Braille letters.
CRANMER: Now, you see, there is your name
spelled, L-E-S-L-E-Y, right there.
(Footage of Millicent Williams using Braille 'n
Speak in class)
STAHL: (Voiceover) From home, to the business
world, to the classroom, the Braille 'n Speak is erasing a lot of the You-can't-do-thats
for the blind. Without it Millicent Williams would have a hard time keeping up with her
classmates at Georgia State University. With it she's probably taking better notes than
anyone else.
CRANMER: (Voiceover) They just type away in
class.
STAHL: What? And then they go back to their
room...
CRANMER: Uh-huh.
STAHL: ...and play it back?
CRANMER: They play it back. They search for
things so that they can listen to specific items.
STAHL: This has to have made a...
CRANMER: That's—that's right.
STAHL: ...an enormous difference...
CRANMER: An enormous difference.
STAHL: ...to people in—in holding
information.
CRANMER: I think it will be regarded as the most
significant technology in the twentieth century for the blind. That's my feeling about it.
(Footage of Cranmer; Ted Henter water-skiing)
STAHL: (Voiceover) What Tim Cranmer has done with
the Braille 'n Speak is helping blind people accomplish things society never expected of
them. Ted Henter is another blind inventor who's demolishing stereotypes. Water-skiing is
just his hobby, though he was world champion a few years back. His breakthrough invention
is something called JAWS.
TED HENTER: JAWS is software that makes the
computer talk.
(Footage of Henter with Stahl)
STAHL: (Voiceover) Ted was blinded twenty years
ago in an auto accident. What did you do before?
HENTER: Before I was blinded?
STAHL: Yes.
HENTER: I was a motorcycle racer.
(Vintage footage of Henter's racing motorcycle.)
STAHL: (Voiceover) Clearly Ted Henter needed to
find something else to do.
HENTER: (Voiceover) I was a sighted kid; I grew
up with dreams. But once I was blinded, I—none of those were relevant anymore.
They—they weren't going to work for me. So I had to think up new dreams. So I had a
few minutes of despair, but I—I got over it real quick. Ten minutes. And I
realized...
STAHL: Ten minutes? No.
HENTER: Yes.
STAHL: Really?
HENTER: Ten minutes of despair. Because then I
realized, well, there have been blind people around for centuries. And I knew that what
happened to me was for my own good. I knew something good was gonna come out of it.
(Footage of Henter using computer with Stahl watching)
STAHL: (Voiceover) The good that came out of it
was that Ted began studying computers. And before long he developed software that read
computer text and turned it into speech.
COMPUTER VOICE: (From JAWS program) I have
several other questions.
(Footage of man using computer)
STAHL: (Voiceover) With JAWS reading the computer
screen, suddenly blind people, with a 70 percent unemployment rate, could compete for all
kinds of jobs that used to be unthinkable.
HEATHER STUBBS: (On phone) FedEx. Heather Stubbs
speaking, may I help you?
(Footage of Heather Stubbs; Stubbs using JAWS
program for customer service call at FedEx)
STAHL: (Voiceover) If you call FedEx, you might
get a blind customer service agent.
STUBBS: (On phone) Is this on a shipment that
you're about to make?
STAHL: (Voiceover) You're in one ear of her
headset asking her to track a package. The JAWS voice is in her other ear...
COMPUTER VOICE: (From JAWS program)
Nine-one-three...
(Footage of computer screen)
STAHL: (Voiceover) ...telling her what's on the
computer screen.
COMPUTER VOICE: (From JAWS program)
T-R-A-C-E-apostrophe...
(Footage of FedEx employees)
STAHL: (Voiceover) FedEx has about a dozen blind
employees working the phones using JAWS.
HENTER: You don't have to be limited by your
blindness. You can go out and do these things. You can go to college. You can get a Ph.D.
You can get a job as a computer programmer, as a software designer, as an attorney.
(Footage of computer screen using Windows)
STAHL: (Voiceover) Ted's biggest challenge has
been Windows with all those icons and graphics. It's made computers much easier for most
people, but how in the world can a blind person point and click?
HENTER: Windows was very, very difficult.
When-when Windows came along and—and companies started switching to it, blind people
were losing their jobs. And we were getting calls all the time that "Hey, if you
don't come out with a Windows product soon, I'm gonna lose my job." And a lot of
people did.
STAHL: What you're saying is that—that when
the computer does something to make it easier for me, it's a disaster for blind people. I
mean, the very progress that helps me hurts you.
HENTER: In many cases, yeah. And you have all
these people that are creating vision-oriented systems, sight-oriented, then we have to
come along and—and make it work for someone who can't see.
(Footage of Henter; computer screen; man using
computer)
STAHL: (Voiceover) Ted figured out a way to make
Windows work for blind people. Now he's making the Internet accessible. But every day he
and his team of programmers have to overcome new obstacles the sighted computer world
throws their way. How often do you have to change your software 'cause there's a new
problem out there?
HENTER: We—we change it weekly.
STAHL: Weekly?
HENTER: All—almost daily, depending on the
week. So we're constantly working on it.
(Footage of Henter's employees)
STAHL: (Voiceover) The "we" includes
twenty other blind employees.
Unidentified Man #1: Open a start menu.
STAHL: (Voiceover) So if you're a blind customer
using JAWS and you have a question; you're likely to get a blind technical support guy to
answer it.
Unidentified Man #2: We just wanna really stay on
fixing problems.
STAHL: If you were to choose a word to describe
what this does to help a blind person or what your goal is, what would it be?
HENTER: I think "equality" is a good
word.
This broadcast created quite a bit of comment in
cyberspace. The Blazie listserv fielded a good deal of traffic, including some inquiry
about the precise origins of the Braille 'n Speak. Deane Blazie, who certainly should know
what happened and when, wrote the following e-mail explanation, which we include with an
eye toward history. Here it is:
Monday, March 30, 1998
Subject: Who Invented the Braille 'n Speak?
I knew this would start a lot of discussion, and
you'll probably hear a lot of replies from others about this.
The Kentucky Pocket Braille device was developed
in the Kentucky Department for the Blind by Fred Gissoni. Without putting words into
Fred's mouth, it was intended to be a reasonably priced, VersaBraille-like device. Fred
noticed that, if you removed the keyboard circuit board from this device, you would have a
notetaker without any output device. He and I and Tim Cranmer discussed this while I was
at Maryland Computer Services, and we all agreed that, if you just added speech output,
you could have a really nifty notetaker. When Maryland Computer Services was sold in 1986,
I left and did consulting work. But I really wanted to get back into this industry, and I
began developing the Braille 'n Speak in my basement. I took the Kentucky PocketBraille
documentation, added speech, and changed the processor and memory circuits, and in July of
1987 I introduced the Braille 'n Speak at the NFB convention. Before that I consulted a
lot with Tim and Fred on what it should look like. The first model was wedge-shaped
because us sighted guys thought that Braille keyboards should be sloped like typewriter
keyboards—Dumb old sighted guys. So I fixed the case to be smaller and flat. I also
sat with Fred and Tim, and we worked out the navigation chords so that they were mirror
images. That was very significant, and it made the Braille 'n Speak a much better product.
Deane Blazie
By the way, Phil Hall was also instrumental in
helping with the Braille 'n Speak. He did some of the speech programming. Another fellow,
Bill Ashcraft, did the reverse Braille translator.
So you decide who invented the Braille 'n Speak.
I certainly have no problem with Tim and Fred saying they invented it. Also don't forget
that "60 Minutes" did more than four hours of interviews with Tim and only
published about three minutes of it. I'm sure, if we heard the whole thing, it would be
much clearer.
I'm just glad we are all around to have done it.
Deane
The concluding media examination of technology
for the blind in the current go-round was a story that appeared in the Washington Post on
Saturday, April 4. The story was apparently supposed to be a look at the Blind Industries
and Services of Maryland (BISM) Web site, which the reporter seems to have been told was
the only accessible one on the Internet. The reporter, Paul Valentine, had previously done
stories about the NFB, so he contacted us for background information and got several
fairly substantive interviews and demonstrations.
Despite the more balanced comments of Curtis
Chong, director of the NFB Technology Department, and Richard Ring, director of the
International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind, the notion that the BISM Web
site is something special has been spread fairly widely, both by BISM PR and by the Post
article. When asked for a clear and objective description of the BISM site, Mr. Chong
provided the following statement to the Braille Monitor:
I have looked at the BISM Web site, and I find it
no better or worse than many others I have come across. I appreciate the description of
pictures and the meaningful labels for hypertext links, and I think the text is formatted
reasonably well. Web page designers would do well to adopt the BISM Web design approach.
However, for BISM to portray its site as anything
unique or extraordinary (implying that many other sites are not as accessible), is both
misleading and irresponsible. It is unfortunate that the Washington Post article which
appeared on Saturday, April 4, characterized the BISM site as a "rarity in the cyber
world." In point of fact, sites such as BISM's are not as rare as the article would
lead one to believe. I have always maintained that good Web design should incorporate
graphics and text in a meaningful way to everyone—blind and sighted alike. BISM has
simply followed good design principles in developing its Web site.
With Mr. Chong's statement to provide
perspective, here is the Washington Post story of April 4:
Helping the Blind Handle Computers
Technology Allows Greater Accessibility
by Paul W. Valentine
Washington Post Staff Writer
Richard Ring sat at his computer, tapping at the
keyboard. He nimbly logged onto the Internet. A few more keystrokes and a query box popped
onto the screen. Ring typed in the words "coral snake." Moments later the screen
announced 738 hits.
Routine Net surfing? Hardly. Ring is blind, and
his Internet voyage was accompanied by a voice synthesizer that talked him, keystroke by
keystroke, through each step.
Ring, forty-seven, chief of international Braille
and technology for the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore, is one of a growing
number of the estimated 535,000 blind people nationwide who regularly use computers for
work, education, and pleasure.
With technological breakthroughs occurring almost
daily in text-to-voice scanners, Braille printers, and specially designed software to help
overcome the barriers of icons and other graphics of the visually oriented World Wide Web,
blind users are finding it increasingly easier to get on the information highway.
"There are lots of bumps on the road, but
we're getting there," said Curtis Chong, the Federation's director of technology.
"There are a lot of things on the Internet we still can't use, but more are becoming
available."
Traditionally confined to books and other
documents published in Braille or recorded on audiocassette tapes, the blind are being
encouraged by the Federation and other organizations to develop computer skills, not only
to enjoy the fruits of the Internet but also to enhance their employability in an
increasingly computer-dependent work world.
Despite training and work facilities designed
specifically for the blind—such as Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, with
manufacturing plants in Baltimore, Salisbury, and Cumberland—nationwide unemployment
of the blind stands at 70 percent, according to Federation estimates.
Making computers user-friendly for blind people
involves several mechanical and electronic adjustments. Fundamental among them is
elimination of the mouse and replacement of all mouse functions with keystrokes.
The user then tabs up, down, and across the
screen, using the directional arrow, enter, and other keys to manipulate the cursor. As
the cursor moves, an electronic screen reader scans any text it encounters and sends
signals to a synthesizer that converts the written words to voice. If the cursor is moving
through a blank area of the screen, the voice synthesizer says "blank" with each
keystroke until the cursor comes to a block of text, where it starts reading.
When Ring called up "coral snake," he
tabbed to a document called "Everglades Coral Snake," and the voice began, in a
steady monotone: "A coral snake has a black head with alternating red, yellow, and
black stripes . . . ."
Ring and others say there are two major stumbling
blocks in converting written language to voice on the computer screen: graphics and any
text arranged in columns.
The device cannot read a graphic, such as an icon
or photograph, and simply calls it a graphic, or it reads a coded image file name assigned
to the graphic by Web site designers that sounds like gibberish, such as
"pic-dot-gif."
To get around this, blind users can
electronically label icons with brief descriptions that can be scanned by screen readers.
With photographs and other more complex pictures Web sites must be specially designed with
additional captions, or text descriptions, that translate image file names into simple
terms such as "green globe of earth" or "Orioles logo." Few sites are
designed with that feature.
Similarly, text arranged in columns is a problem
because readers scan horizontally from left to right across the entire screen, rather than
down one column at a time before going to the next. However, a small but growing number of
sites are being designed to permit column-reading. Others have reformatted columnar texts
to read left to right.
Still another feature helping the blind is a
text-only button, which, when activated by the user, instructs the screen reader to skip
graphics and send only text to the voice synthesizer.
To encourage the spread of special sites, the
World Wide Web Consortium, a network of academic and computer-industry specialists based
in Boston, recently started forming guidelines for Web page designers to make sites more
accessible not only for the blind but for deaf and other disabled users.
Chong, of the National Federation of the Blind,
hopes the word will spread. So many Web sites, especially commercial ones, he said, are
cluttered with graphics that "make them look pretty and sell lots of products . . .
but blind people can't use them."
Blind Industries and Services of Maryland in
Baltimore recently opened a fully accessible site including graphics—a rarity in the
cyber world. It contains information for both blind and sighted people, ranging from job
openings and vocational training for the blind to lists of products manufactured and sold
by Blind Industries, such as paper notepads, tote bags, floor care chemicals, and
washcloths.
The site was specifically designed to include
graphics, said Blind Industries spokeswoman Angela Hartley. "We didn't want just a
plain boring screen because sighted people use the site as well," she said.
Creating the graphics-friendly site required
"a lot of major revisions" of conventional Internet design concepts, said Steven
Crawford, chief executive of Columbia-based Shore Studios, which designed the site at no
cost to Blind Industries.
The Blind Industries site, though far outnumbered
by more conventional ones, "helps to make a level playing field for everybody,"
said Daniel K. Woytowitz, head of Blind Industries' computer technology center.
Jennifer Cocnavitch, twenty-six, a student
undergoing an eight-month computer course at the center, spoke hopefully of becoming an
English teacher as her fingers glided over a classroom keyboard.
"Knowing how to use a computer and getting
on the Internet are important" to getting a job, she said.
Organizations with blind-related Web sites and
their
Internet addresses include the National
Federation of the Blind,
<www.nfb.org>; Blind Industries and
Services of Maryland,
<www.bism.com>; World Wide Web Consortium,
<www.w3.org>; Trace
Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
which does
research in Internet accessibility for the
disabled,
There you have a report on what the media have
been saying in recent months. It hasn't always been accurate, but all in all, a lot of
Americans know more today about the challenges facing blind computer users than they did
at the start of the year, and that fact is bound to be constructive.
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