[gui-talk] Fwd: E-Access Bulletin: April 2007

[Steve Pattison]

>From: Dan Jellinek dan at headstar.com
>To: eaccess at headstar.com
>
>++E-ACCESS BULLETIN
>- ISSUE 88, APRIL 2007.
>
>Technology news for people with vision impairment
>( http://www.headstar.com/eab/ ).
>
>Supported by:
>BT Age and Disability Unit
>( http://www.btplc.com/age_disability/ )
>Ford Motor Company
>( http://www.ford.co.uk )
>
>NOTE: Please forward this free bulletin to others (subscription details
>at the end). We conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter
>(TEN) Standard:
>http://www.headstar.com/ten/ .
>
>
>++Special Notice: eAccess '07: Technology for All
>- 2 May 2007, New Connaught Rooms, London
>http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess07/ .
>
>E-Access Bulletin's third annual conference and exhibition on access to
>technology by people with disabilities is aimed at public sector bodies,
>technology suppliers, educational institutions, banks, private sector
>providers of goods or services, individuals with a disability and
>organisations providing at least some of their information or services
>digitally.
>
>Supported by Ability Magazine and the RNIB, eAccess'07 is a high-
>level event drawing together all the strands needed for modern public
>and private sector organisations to draw up progressive policies on
>accessibility.
>
>Speakers include: Richard Howitt MEP, President of the European
>Parliament's All-Party Disability Intergroup; Paul Timmers, Head of
>ICT at the European Commission's Inclusion Unit and Jonathan
>Hassell, Accessibility Editor, BBC Jam; and panellists from RNIB and
>University of Southampton.
>
>For more information and to register visit:
>http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess07/
>And for sponsorship and exhibition opportunities please contact Claire
>Clinton on 01273 231291 or by email at:
>claire at headstar.com
>
>[Special notice ends].
>
>
>++Issue 88 Contents.
>
>++Section One: News.
>
>01: Home Computer Assessments Triumph In eWell-Being Awards.
>- annual inclusion award recognises AbilityNet online service.
>
>02: UN Launches Campaign For Inclusive Technology
>- seeks partnerships with industry and government.
>
>03: 'Talking Lampposts' Hit The Streets Of Portsmouth
>- providing location information when activated.
>
>04: New Browser Aims To Make Video Accessible
>- IBM technology includes audio playback options.
>
>
>News in Brief: 05: Easy Converter - document conversion service; 06:
>BBC Jammed - education resource suspended; 07: Site Rewarded -
>award for charity website; 08: Free Speech - text to speech software.
>
>Section Two: 'The Inbox' - Readers' Forum.
>09: Italian Literati - Free audio downloads of Italian literature.
>
>Section Three: Focus - Web Accessibility
>10: Now You See It, Now You Don't: A recent exchange between web
>accessibility experts on the E-Access Bulletin Live blog revealed some
>hot tips and insights into ensuring vision impaired web users get the
>best out of "alt tagging" - the descriptions designers attribute to
>graphics and images.
>
>Section Four: Focus - Geographical Information Systems.
>11: Online Mapping for Everyone. Christopher J. Andrews writes on
>the need for the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) profession to
>recognise web-based GIS must be accessible to all, particularly among
>the "whirlwind of Web 2.0 technology."
>
>[Contents ends].
>
>
>Section One: News.
>
>
>+01: Home Computer Assessments Triumph In eWell-Being Awards.
>
>A remote home computer assessment service from UK computing
>charity for disabled people, AbilityNet, has won a prestigious annual
>award recognising excellence and innovation in the use of information
>and communication technologies (ICTs).
>
>The eWell-Being awards
>( http://www.sustainit.org/ewell-being-awards/index.php ),
>supported by E-Access Bulletin sister publication E-Government
>Bulletin, celebrate the social, economic and environmental benefits of
>ICT. They are hosted by SustainIT, a sub-group of the charity UK
>Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (UK CEED).
>
>AbilityNet's remote assessment
>( www.abilitynet.org.uk/athome_remote )
>won the 'Age and disability' category, one of nine award categories.
>Using Voice Over IP Telephony (VoIP), instant messaging and
>webcams, an assessor remotely evaluates the computing needs of users
>to best suit their requirements in their own home. So far around 500
>people have used the low cost service.
>
>"Its strength is reaching out to disabled people and responding to their
>needs in a flexible way," AbilityNet Head of Operations David Banes
>told E-Access Bulletin. "It also has potential for opening up
>employment to disabled people and assessments are shorter and
>sharper." Previously, AbilityNet assessed disabled computer users
>from the charity's offices.
>
>The BlueIRIS project from Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Society for the
>Blind in the UK and the Usability Exchange were commended in the
>same 'Age and disability' category.
>
>BlueIRIS provides audio news, information and entertainment over the
>internet created exclusively for vision impaired people using its own
>software. Over 1,200 pieces of original content have been produced
>and a national roll-out is planned.
>
>The Usability Exchange employs a range of disabled people to test the
>websites of organisations and companies as well as providing a
>platform to identify and resolve accessibility problems and help them
>understand the experiences of disabled web users.
>
>
>+02: UN Launches Campaign For Inclusive Technology.
>
>The Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication
>Technology, an international campaign to widen access to digital
>technologies, has been launched by the United Nations. It aims to
>encourage technology vendors to build accessibility into mass-market
>products by promoting worldwide adoption of new standards,
>regulations and legislation.
>
>Launched at the UN's New York headquarters in March 2007, the
>Global Initiative
>( http://www.g3ict.com/index.htm )
>aims to remove the need for people with disabilities to buy assistive
>products that are often expensive and difficult to maintain. In this it
>supports Article 9 of the recently unveiled Convention on the Rights of
>Persons with Disabilities, which requires governments to ensure that
>"technologies and systems become accessible at minimum cost." For
>more, see: http://fastlink.headstar.com/unaccess2 .
>
>Hendrietta Ipeleng Bogopane-Zulu, a vision impaired politician from
>South Africa, told the UN that a screen reader is essential for her work
>as a member of parliament. "I use [the Freedom Scientific Screen
>reader] 'Jaws'. But it's very expensive because it's dollar-based. When
>converted to [South Africa's currency] the rand, it becomes
>unaffordable for most people," she said.
>
>The main challenge is to strike a balance between changing industry
>practices while enabling global markets in accessible products to
>develop, which will help to drive down costs, said Axel Leblois,
>executive director of the Global Initiative. "Legislation and regulation
>can do a lot of good, but they can also fragment markets," he told the
>meeting.
>
>In March 2008 the Global Initiative will meet in Geneva to hear
>commitments from industry and international organizations to pursue
>specific standardization efforts. Regional meetings will be held in
>Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, and India, before the campaign draws to
>a close in March 2009.
>
>
>+03: 'Talking Lampposts' Hit The Streets Of Portsmouth.
>
>A public outdoor navigation aid has gone live in Portsmouth city centre
>in the UK that "speaks" locations live to vision impaired pedestrians.
>
>The 'talking lampposts' from REACT, provide an audible confirmation
>of their location when activated by an electronic fob carried by the
>pedestrian. This "audible signposting" is emitted from a small box
>attached to nine lampposts located in the city's retail centre using radio
>frequencies.
>
>Users hear audible messages such as "you are now at the junction of
>Arundel Street and Slindon Street, access to Post Office." Users
>purchase the activating fob for 30 pounds or pay a five pound
>returnable deposit for daily use, available from council mobility charity
>Shopmobility and from the Portsmouth Association for the Blind. "It
>gives reassurance. It allows more independence," Portsmouth City
>Council City Centre Manager Barry Walker told E-Access Bulletin.
>
>The fobs will also activate REACT boxes located in Leeds where a
>similar initiative has been rolled out.
>The Portsmouth scheme was funded with 35,000 pounds from
>Portsmouth City Council, the Single Regeneration Budget and private
>companies. The REACT system was developed in conjunction with the
>Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB).
>
>
>+04: New Browser Aims To Make Video Accessible.
>
>Technology giant IBM aims to launch a new web browser providing
>vision impaired users with new levels of control over multimedia
>content by the end of 2007.
>
>The browser will enable users to adjust and navigate through audio
>output from streamed video content using keyboard shortcuts.
>
>Developed by vision impaired employee Dr Chieko Asakawa at IBM's
>research laboratory in Tokyo, the browser includes pre-defined
>shortcuts that enable users to start and stop video files, adjust the
>volume and playback speed of audio output, and choose whether to
>listen to the video soundtrack, output from a screen reader, or an audio
>description track if it is present.
>( http://fastlink.headstar.com/abrowser ).
>
>The browser aims to solve two main problems vision impaired people
>experience with online video content: playback is usually controlled
>with buttons, and files often launch automatically when a web page is
>opened. At present, the so-called 'A-Browser' has been developed to
>work with the Windows Media Player and Adobe Flash content, but it
>is not yet clear how many of the numerous other multimedia formats it
>will be compatible with.
>
>
>++News in Brief:
>
>+05: Easy Converter: A desktop application allowing organisations to
>convert their Word and pdf documents into accessible structured html
>web pages has been launched by Northern Ireland software company
>RiverDocs. RiverDocs Converter costs 399 pounds and is available
>from:
>http://www.riverdocs.com .
>
>+06: BBC Jammed: The free interactive online learning service for
>schoolchildren aged between five and 16, 'Jam' from the BBC, has
>been suspended after legal arguments from private sector companies
>that it is damaging their commercial interests. Ofcom is undertaking a
>market impact assessment and public consultation on the issue:
>http://fastlink.headstar.com/jam2 .
>
>+07: Site Rewarded: British charity Vision 2020 has won an award for
>its user friendly website which provides vision impaired people with an
>online library, bulletin board and online discussion forum as well as
>alerts for relevant events and activities. The National ICT Hub Awards
>are hosted by the UK charity the National Council for Voluntary
>Organisations:
>http://fastlink.headstar.com/vision2020 .
>
>+08: Free Speech: Free text to speech software for speakers of
>Belarusian, Russian and English has been launched aimed at students.
>The Sakrament LibReader has been developed by Russian speech
>technology company Sakrament with the support of UNESCO
>Moscow:
>http://fastlink.headstar.com/sac1 .
>
>
>[Section One ends].
>
>
>++Section Two: 'The Inbox'
>- Readers' Forum.
>
>Please email all contributions or responses to
>inbox at headstar.com .
>
>+09: Italian Literati. Corrado Calza writes: "Salve! This is a very brief
>contribution to let readers know about a new service by the Italian
>National Broadcasting Company (RAI). Through its internet site, RAI
>provides plenty of mp3 audiobooks free to download. They are
>regularly updated good quality Italian readings of novels, but mostly
>short novels, by major international authors like Katherine Mansfield,
>Guy De Maupassant, Kafka and many others.
>
>"This is the direct link to the download web pages:
>http://fastlink.headstar.com/itrai1 .
>
>"The site is only in Italian but there is a text only version you can get
>by clicking on the 'Solo testo' hot spot at the bottom left of the page.
>Once you get the 'Solo testo' version, downloadable audiobooks are in
>the last chapter named 'Audiolibri.'
>
>"'Ascolta' is listen; 'Scarica' is download. To scroll the list of all the
>audiobooks available you can use the hotspots 'Precedenti 10'
>(Previous 10) and 'Prossimi 10' (Next 10). The pages are sponsored by
>the Italian National Blind Association (UIC) but none of my blind
>friends have ever heard about this service."
>[Responses to inbox at headstar.com].
>
>[Inbox ends].
>
>
>++Section Three: Web Accessibility
>- Alt Tagging.
>
>+10: Now You See It, Now You Don't
>by Leonie Watson and Patrick H. Lauke.
>
>The following exchange comes from posts made on E-Access Bulletin
>Live, the blog of E-Access Bulletin
>(http://www.headstar.com/eablive/ ):
>
>So just what is a decorative image? It seems to me that one person's
>eye candy is another person's emotional link to a website. For some,
>decorative images are those horizontal rules, bullets and other forms of
>minor 'clip art' we find sprinkled around the web. For others, the term
>is wider ranging. It includes more content rich images such as photos
>and artwork.
>So, you might ask, what's the problem with this varied point of view?
>The answer is simple: alt texts.
>If you Google for the term "decorative image + alt texts", you'll come
>across countless sites that suggest that a decorative image be given a
>'null alt text.' It's possible that we can all agree that for minor forms of
>clipart, a null alt text will do nicely. But it gets a little more difficult
>when it comes to more complex images.
>I'm not talking about diagrams, blueprints or other information rich
>images. There's no argument that they should always carry an alt text,
>possibly even a long description. I mean the vibrant, emotion rich
>images that provide a website with a sense of atmosphere.
>It's sometimes argued that providing such images with descriptive alt
>texts provides too much "noise" for a screen reader user. If we screen
>reader users stopped to listen to every alt text, every time we came
>across an image, then this assumption would probably be right. But I'll
>let you into a secret: we won't.
>Like sighted users, we'll skip around the content of the page until we
>find something that interests us. If the first few syllables of an alt text
>sound promising, we'll pause to read. If they don't, we'll move on to
>the next element on the page. Also like sighted users, we're often
>likely to pause on something unimportant, but which captures our
>imagination.
>A good alt text can conjure up wonderfully stimulating mental images.
>A friendly smile is the same in print, photo or wax crayon. Whether
>you listen to an image or see it, the emotional response is the key
>factor, so why should we recommend that these emotion rich images
>should be given a null alt text and hidden from screen reader users?
>Perhaps it's time we introduced another group of images: 'emotion rich
>images' and encouraged the practice of providing descriptive alt texts
>for them. If people don't want to listen to the alt text, they won't. If
>people don't want to pause and look at the image, they won't. In either
>case, it's good to have the choice.
>What would they sound like? For me, they would describe the content
>of the picture to the extent I could understand the reason it had been
>put there. [Web consultancy] Nomensa's Christmas card last year, sent
>out digitally, contained a picture of a little girl standing in the middle
>of a snow covered glade, surrounded by fir trees. She had her arms
>flung out sideways and her face lifted to the falling snow. The strapline
>was "experience is everything".
>I could picture that scene perfectly. Even if I'd never seen fir trees or
>had no idea what different colours really looked like, I could still
>conjur up the feeling of snow falling, the bracing air, feeling good,
>feeling happy, feeling alive.
>People get worried about alt texts, but they're just the same as
>describing a picture to a friend on the phone. You use language that
>describes the moment captured in the image, that's all.
>- Response by Patrick H. Lauke:
>In many situations, 'fluff' images, I'm particularly thinking of those
>stock photography monstrosities like 'businessmen shaking hands,' are
>only there to give a visual representation of the tone of voice that
>should already be present in a page's copy. In those situations, I would
>strongly argue that, even without descriptive alt text, the mental images
>would be conjured up by the tone of voice of the body copy itself.
>As ever, it's impossible to generalise rules for alt [tagging]. It all
>depends on context, and on whether or not the same meaning and the
>more ephemeral "feel" are maintained.
>- Response by Leonie Watson:
>Patrick's right, in as much as it's difficult to create general rules for
>this, but I'm not sure I place so much faith in the linguistic capability
>of body copy. If every web page were littered with evocative phrases
>such as "stock photography monstrosities", then things might be
>different. The catch is that a phrase like that is only evocative because I
>know exactly what he means when he writes it.
>Perhaps this is the rub. Not every visually impaired person was born
>that way. I could see perfectly until my mid 20s, so I know what
>Patrick means by "stock photography monstrosities." Someone who
>had never seen at all would have less understanding, but the
>description "business men shaking hands" still conveys something to
>everyone.
>That's the key factor, one person's monstrosity is another person's Van
>Gogh. The choice should be theirs, not the developer's. Of course,
>stock photography is something I personally don't miss in the least.
>NOTE: Leonie Watson is Head of the Accessibility Research
>Programme at web consultancy Nomensa and Patrick H. Lauke is a
>freelance web developer.
>[Section Three ends].
>
>
>++Sponsored Notice: Describe Online - Bringing Customers to You!
>- Providing Online Text Guides to Public Venues.
>
>Our mission is that every public venue shall have a text guide which
>explains that it exists; where it is; how to get there via public transport;
>what's on offer and how to obtain and use it.
>
>Our accessible website at:
>http://www.describe-online.com
>contains models of guides to a wide range of transport, civic,
>commercial and other venues. Our guides complement emerging
>technologies such as GPS and GIS systems.
>
>Bring more customers to your venues through our service.
>Contact us on: 0141 423 2683 or:
>terry at describe-online.com .
>
>[Sponsored Notice ends]
>
>
>++Section Four: Focus
>- Geographical Information Systems.
>
>+11: Online Mapping for Everyone
>by Christopher J. Andrews.
>The Geographical Information Systems (GIS) profession has always
>maintained a community-focused perspective that pervades both the
>development and use of geospatial technology. That perspective
>undoubtedly grows out of the fact that working with map data leads to
>the realisation that the world is fundamentally finite and has few
>insurmountable barriers.
>Geospatial technologists currently find themselves in the whirlwind of
>Web 2.0 technology, which has popularized web-based GIS in a
>manner that threatens to wrest the concept of the GIS developer away
>from the GIS community. The GIS establishment has the responsibility
>to bring its heightened level of community awareness to these new
>technologies and applications of GIS.
>An area that has been underrepresented in GIS technology but which
>addresses fundamental characteristics of GIS data openness and
>sharing is making web-based GIS tools more accessible to visually
>impaired and blind users.
>
>Many writers have described the internet as a levelling technology that
>improves access to information for everyone. The reality is that the
>internet offers a variety of technologies for information sharing, some
>of which are accessible to anyone who can read text and some which
>are not as accessible. Companies are rapidly adopting web
>development techniques such as Adobe Flash, graphic design and
>[programming language] JavaScript to enhance the user's experience.
>Unfortunately, poorly designed Flash animations, images with no
>descriptive, alternative ('alt') text, and JavaScript-masked hyperlinks
>(anchors in a Web page that use JavaScript to redirect the page instead
>of simpler html) will impede the ability of blind users to access
>internet-based information. Also, poor colour choices and fixed text
>sizes may render websites useless for colourblind or moderately
>visually impaired users.
>
>The population of web users with some sort of visual impairment may
>be larger than you realise. It's safe to say that at least 5.5 per cent of
>the
>web-surfing population is colourblind (based on a calculation of the
>proportion of the general public that is colourblind -
>http://waynesword.palomar.edu/colorbl1.htm .
>Male-to-female internet usage ratios actually suggest that the number
>may be closer to 7 per cent or 8 per cent in the US). According to the
>American Foundation for the Blind, approximately 1.5 million
>American computer users are blind or visually impaired (see:
>http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=15#num ).
>
>Furthermore, consider anecdotal evidence such as this: during a casual
>conversation, a friend of mine mentioned that the CEOs of her two
>former companies both needed to adjust web browser fonts to the
>maximum size to read web pages. Some of the current web technology
>trends include [programming tools] Ajax, user interface tools that
>heavily employ JavaScript, complex style sheets that use fixed font
>sizes and even mapping applications with built-in Flash and other less
>accessible technologies. Because of these trends, a gap has developed
>that threatens to make web-based GIS and non-GIS applications less
>accessible to the blind and visually impaired.
>
>There are compelling legal reasons for GIS developers to build web-
>based mapping applications that provide access to the range of visually
>impaired and blind web surfers. Numerous localities including the UK,
>the US and many individual states have legislation that has been
>interpreted by their respective courts to require that websites used by
>government employees or served by the government to the general
>public must be accessible to internet users with visual disabilities.
>
>Once the need for creating accessible GIS websites is recognised, the
>next step will be to figure out how to evaluate a website for
>accessibility. For legally blind web surfers, a website needs to be
>"readable," in that an assistive technology application is used to speak
>aloud all of the readable text on a page with some context information
>to support navigation. A combination of straightforward html element
>use and nuanced page layout combine to facilitate website readability
>for such users. Additional techniques improve readability for
>colourblind and visually impaired users.
>
>Although many projects may not budget the time for accessibility
>development and the expense of acquiring text to speech software for
>web browsing, the Lynx text-based Web browser
>( http://lynx.browser.org/ )
>can show the sighted user a rough idea of the website text that will be
>read to a blind user. While not used heavily by the blind or visually
>impaired community, the Lynx browser is free and offers sighted users
>some insight as to how informative and navigable the text information
>in a web page may be. Be aware that some page reading software will
>process JavaScript and Flash, so Lynx is not a complete representation
>of how a website reads to a blind surfer.
>Once the GIS developer has digested all the tools to assess website
>accessibility, the realisation strikes home that ultimately GIS has one
>simple problem. The most popular representation for GIS data on the
>internet is an image. Is it even possible to make an image more
>accessible to blind or visually impaired users? In fact, there are many
>techniques available to GIS developers to make map applications
>compliant with accessibility laws and standards.
>
>New technologies, such as the recently introduced Google KML search
>( http://fastlink.headstar.com/kml1 )
>may also open up the interaction between the web and the real world
>for the blind mapping enthusiast. Future web mapping applications and
>GPS sharing sites might keep in mind the use of technologies such as
>voice- and GPS-enabled personal digital assistants (PDAs) and touch
>tablet technology that open up geospatial data collection and analysis
>to the blind.
>The GIS industry has long recognized the levelling ability of mapping
>data and technology. The industry must ensure that its traditional
>community-based ethics perpetuate, even as inevitable changes in
>technologies and applications take GIS in new directions. Ensuring and
>enhancing accessibility to web mapping applications for blind and
>visually impaired web users seem like the obvious place to start.
>NOTE: Christopher J. Andrews is a Senior Consultant at MWH Global
>in the US. This article originally appeared in Directions Magazine and
>is reprinted here with permission, copyright Directions Media, 2007.
>[Section Four ends].
>
>
>++Special Notice: Web Accessibility Forum.
>
>Accessify Forum is a discussion forum devoted to all topics relating to
>web accessibility. Topics cover everything from 'Beginners' and 'Site
>building and testing' through to projects such as the new accessibility
>testing tool WaiZilla and the accessibility of the open source forum
>software itself.
>
>All you need to register is a working email address, so come along and
>join in the fun at:
>http://www.accessifyforum.com .
>
>[Special notice ends].
>
>
>++Special Notice: Braille Translations.
>
>Braille Translations provides a fast, cost-effective, high quality service
>of translating any document into Braille. We are able to provide Braille
>menus, public leaflets and business cards in Braille and help make you
>compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act. We can translate
>from large print, audio tape or audio CD.
>
>We can also help with premises accessibility including Braille Tactile
>Signs for toilets and other doors.
>
>All work is proof-read before dispatch and we are able to provide an
>express 24-hour service. Please call our offices for an immediate
>quotation or for further information on Freephone number 08000 190
>946; Mobile: 07903 996533; email ghow at brailletranslations.co.uk or
>see:
>http://www.brailletranslations.co.uk .
>
>
>++End Notes.
>
>+How to Receive the Bulletin.
>
>To subscribe to this free monthly bulletin, email
>eab-subs at headstar.com with 'subscribe eab' in the subject header.
>You can list other email addresses to subscribe in the body of the
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>
>Please send comments on coverage or leads to Dan Jellinek at:
>dan at headstar.com .
>
>Copyright 2007 Headstar Ltd http://www.headstar.com .
>The Bulletin may be reproduced as long as all parts including this
>copyright notice are included, and as long as people are always
>encouraged to subscribe with us individually by email. Please also
>inform the editor when you are reproducing our content. Sections of
>the bulletin may be quoted as long as they are clearly sourced as 'taken
>from e-access bulletin, a free monthly email newsletter', and our web
>site address http://www.headstar.com/eab is also cited.
>
>+Personnel:
>Editor - Dan Jellinek
>Deputy editor - Derek Parkinson
>Senior reporter - Mel Poluck
>Technical advisor - Nick Apostolidis
>Editorial advisor - Kevin Carey.
>
>ISSN 1476-6337 .
>
>[Issue ends.]


Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
Skype:  steve1963
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com