[gui-talk] Accessible Internet News reader

[Peter Donahue]

Good afternoon everyone,

    I received this from the President of our Tennessee affiliate and wanted
to see if anyone is familiar with this product and how blind-friendly it is.
Here is the information:


-----Original Message-----
From:
saurabh2590 at gmail.com
[mailto:saurabh2590 at gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Saurabh Gupta
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 3:51 PM
To: Seay, Michael
Subject: Internet accessibility tool for blind users - AccessibleNews
Plugin

Hello,

I am writing you on behalf of Proaxsys Instruments Pvt. Ltd,an Assistive
Technology start-up. We have recently launched a powerful accessibility
tool for blind Internet users, called AccessibleNews System
<
http://www.accessiblenews.com/plugin>

(
http://www.accessiblenews.com/plugin)

As you are aware, most of the Internet is very difficult to use,
sometimes even inaccessible, for blind people. This is because most web
designers do not implement Accessibility guidelines. Thus, a very
important education and employment opportunity is denied to blind
persons.

The AccessibleNews System makes the Internet websites accessible. It is
instrumental in bringing employment and information offered by the
Internet to blind persons. A brief article about how it works is
included below.

I am keen on bringing the benefits of this technology for blinds and
would like to invite you to participate in a social cause of empowering
blind people.

Do try out the AccessibleNews Plugin and recommend it to people whose
future you believe in.

We would love to hear from you with feedback about the AccessibleNews
Plugin and to answer any queries for the same.

Best regards,
Saurabh Gupta.

About the AccessibleNews System

The Internet is a very important source of self-employment and
information. However, it remains largely inaccessible for blind and
visually impaired persons, because most web designers are not aware of
accessibility guidelines. The poor design often impedes rapid navigation
across the page, and makes it really difficult for blind persons to
quickly find the information one is looking for. This causes
difficulties for blind users in leveraging the powers of the Internet.

A user's solution to this is the AccessibleNews System
<
http://www.accessiblenews.com/plugin/> .
It is an extension for
Internet Explorer that tries to format a webpage according to the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines. It further rearranges web pages so as
to make them easier to use and faster to read with screen readers.It
attempts to determine the correct sequence of reading every web page, as
intended by its designer. It then present this same sequence to the
screen reader, so that the user reads it "correct side up".  As a
result, the important content in the page, that the author has
highlighted in the layout, comes up to the top, while the other
relatively less important things go to the bottom. Thus, navigation
links, advertisements, etc do not obstruct the user's view of the web
page.

It takes away all the hassles of navigating poorly designed websites,
and increases the speed at which blind users can locate useful
information on the Internet.They do not spend precious time in merely
understanding the layout of pages and locating useful content. They can
use even those web sites, which they found difficult or even impossible
so far.This significantly improves the speed at which blind persons can
find information on the Internet. The AccessibleNews plug in forms a
vast improvement over mere linearizing as currently done by screen
readers.
The AccessibleNews Plug in can be found at
http://www.accessiblenews.com/plugin/

Testimonials

"The product is wonderful and makes life really easy for reading news
papers on the Internet." - Dipendra Manocha, Director, IT & Services,
National Association for the Blind, India <
http://www.nabdelhi.org/>

"Thanks and thanks again. I read news as part of my job and it just
became a lot easier. I am really enjoying AccessibleNews a lot." - Jean
Parker, Producer, Disability Radio Worldwide
<
http://www.rfpi.org/disabilityradio/>

"Another great product that holds tremendous promise for the visually
impaired Internet user." George Abraham, CEO, Eyeway.org
<
http://www.eyeway.org/> .

"AccessibleNews has helped me cut down my reading time immensely. So,
this will certainly become a primary tool for me." - Kiran Kaja,
Hyderabad

"AccessibleNews is excellent. No longer do we, as visually impaired
people, have to weigh through unwanted links, graphics, banner ads, etc,
just to find the articles we're interested in. Thank you very much!" -
Chris Hallsworth

Proaxsys Instruments Pvt. Ltd.
C-2, Madhavbaug,
Sir Mathuradas Visanji Road,
Andheri (E),
Mumbai 400 069.
Phn. No. +91 22 26832175
http://www.proaxsysreader.com
<
http://www.proaxsysreader.com/>
Peter Donahue