Wall Street Journal Article about GSIC.
A blind teacher from Portland, Ore., Kelly Ford navigates the World Wide Web using special "screen reader" software that
dictates text from Web sites, word processors and other applications. But graphics and elaborate Web-page layouts routinely
gum up the dictation.
"You're looking at a Web site through what I like to call a soda straw," says Mr. Ford, adding: "If you're blind, man, the
interface ain't meant for you.
For many people with disabilities, the race to put newspapers, references, catalogues and chat lines on the Web stirred the
promise of access to a wave of new information. But as the Web's design gets more complex, disabled Web surfers are
growing worried that too many sites are shutting them out.
Jay Leventhal, a resource specialist for the American Foundation for the Bind in New York who is blind himself, tried going
on-line for his account information but says most of the home-banking sites don't work with his screen reader. "They're some of
the worst," he says.
Geoff Freed, project manager of the Web-access project at WGBH, a Boston public-television station, estimates from his
peregrinations around the Web that less than 1 % of sites have acted to make their pages accessible to the disabled.
Simple Changes
Activists for the disabled say the design changes required to make a Web site accessible are simple: Alternative text versions of
the site, with written descriptions of photographs, informational graphics and image maps, are helpful for the blind. Allowing
control of a page's font size aids other visually impaired users.
Captions for Internet audio files are crucial for the deaf and dyslexic, while subtle modifications can make it easier for users with
other physical disabilities to navigate a Web page using voice-control software or a keyboard instead of a mouse.
"It's not hard to do," says Phil Santoro, a spokesman for Big Yellow, an Internet directory service operated by Bell Atlantic
Corp. Revamping the site to make it accessible for the disabled was simple enough, he adds, that Big Yellow didn't bother
researching how many of its users were actually disabled.
Frustrated blind users are also getting relief from on-line companies that don't use the Web: One company in Vancouver, British
Columbia, General Store International Corp., plans to give disabled customers a free television set-top computer with
screen-reader software so they can shop for groceries from a CD-ROM catalog.
When the sites work well, they can be invaluable boons for people with disabilities. Mr. Ford says that digital versions of print
publication enable him to indulge a passion for sports news without relying on someone to read the paper to him.
"Awe and Wonder"
"I cannot explain to you the awe and wonder the first time I could read a paper on-line," says Mr. Ford, who runs an e-mail list
focusing on blindness issues and the Internet. "All my life I could never read the newspaper."
Web accessibility has some big-name backers. Microsoft Corp. has devoted a full-time staff to incorporating disability friendly
features into its software. The Redmond, Wash., software giant's accessibility program dates back to 1988, when the company
was contacted by the Trace Center, a research and development group at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, about making
its Windows 2.0 operating system easier for disabled people to use.
Provide alternative text for images
Provide text equivalents for audio information
Ensure that text and graphics are perceivable when viewed without color
Format tables so they can be understood by text-to-speech or Braille software
But Microsoft's track record on accessibility has been mixed. Last year, the company touted a host of new accessibility
features in the new version of its Web browser, Internet Explorer 4.0. But the redesigned browser didn't work with an older set
of programming hooks in Windows, known as Active Accessibility, that had improved the way screen readers worked with
other applications.
The Explorer programs annoyed many blind users, who were further irked when Microsoft released an upgrade to the browser
that contained other glitches. "It was really a major problem, and Microsoft didn't do a good job on that," admits Greg
Lowney, Microsoft's director of accessibility. "That was a real disappointment, especially for people in the blind community.
They really let us know that."
Top Priority
Microsoft took notice. In February, the company hosted an accessibility day at its headquarters, where Chairman Bill Gates
reassured an audience of disability experts and others that accessibility was a top priority. The company also expanded its
disability design team and appointed Mr. Lowney director of the program.
Microsoft's struggles with Internet Explorer highlight a chronic problem for disabilities activists: the unforeseen glitches caused
by constant software upgrades. But another problem is making site operators aware that they are shutting out the disabled.
Mr. Lowney says part of his mission at Microsoft is to convince programmers that not everyone is like them. "One of the
greatest sources of problems is that designers of Web sites and applications are often young people whose eyesight is 20-20
and who have dexterous fingers," he says. "If they like the mouse, they think everyone else does." (The Wall Street Journal
Interactive Edition provides textual descriptions of graphics and a text only table of contents that simplifies navigation for blind
users.)
In 1996, the U.S. Justice Department stated that the Americans with Disabilities Act, a groundbreaking law requiring
government and other public facilities to make themselves accessible to the disabled, may apply to the Internet. To some, that
has raised the possibility that disabled users could sue Web site operators who fail to make that site accessible.
Scott Marshall, vice president for governmental relations at the American Foundation for the Blind, says there is still so much
ambiguity surrounding the relevance of the ADA and other laws to cyberspace that he doubts whether they would provide
much aid in court.
Welcome To The General Store
THE WEB isn't the only personal-computer technology being used to open up the world for the disabled.
The General Store International Corp., which offers home grocery shopping to about 2,000 customers in Vancouver,
British Columbia, about 10% of whom are disabled., is looking to take its service high tech. Currently, about 60% of the firm's
customers pick cereals, soaps, and other goods from a CD-ROM catalogue and transmit their orders directly to a General
Store Representative over their personal computer's modem.
But The General Store has a novel plan to lure more of its customers on-line.
This Fall, the company plans to offer disabled customers a new television set-top computer with a modem, screen-reading
software and a wireless scanner that can identify goods by their product code. The uses of the device--called CARAT or
Convergence and Related Advanced Technologies--go beyond identifying products: for example, running a can of chili over the
scanner could trigger verbal cooking instructions. A special computer navigation device for quadriplegics is also in the works.
There's another enticement for the disabled: General Store is waiving the $35 monthly rental fee it charges other users to use
CARAT.
General Store hopes Carat's consumer- friendly design will win over the techno-timid. The device uses two ingredients of
today's personal computer--an Intel Corp. Pentium processor and Microsoft Corp.'s. Windows operating system--but it works
with ordinary television sets and contains a DVD player, a new replacement for the compact disc, for playing movies. And
Carat comes with Internet-access software for those who decide to venture into cyberspace.
Glen Easthope, chief executive of The General Store, acknowledges the loan program stems partly from charitable desires. But
it's also designed, he says, to help him go after a substantial but neglected market of disabled customers who aren't familiar with
the on-line world. The free computer, he says, will help entice users who are otherwise intimidated by the notion of on-line
shopping. "It's definitely a business," says Mr. Easthope. "Were going to make money from this."
|
