Access to Current and Next-Generation Information Systems
by People with Disabilities


Input Solicited

This document is a cooperative effort, and input is solicited. If you have any thoughts or differing opinions, see any omissions or errors, or can in any other way contribute to this effort, please do. This can be done on-line, or by phone, fax, or TDD.

This document was prepared with funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) (Grant #06-50-94033), and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the U.S. Office of Education (Grant #144E30012).


Organization

This "document" is actually a compendium of documents and information. The compendium is currently organized into the following sections:

  1. General Information on the NII (first draft)

  2. What are the general problems faced by people with different disabilities?(first draft)

  3. General Access Guidelines (first draft)

  4. Examples of Access Problems and Solutions within Specific Technologies (first draft -- partially done)

  5. More About the Internet

  6. About Kiosks

  7. Standard approaches (under development)

  8. Minimum accessibility standards (future)

  9. Areas of Consensus (future)

  10. Appendices and Reference Materials (future)

General Information on the NII

This section of the compendium provides information on the NII itself: what is it, what are the different things that go together to make up the NII, what can it be used for?

This section is organized to provide general overview information first, with references to more in-depth discussions on particular topics. (These will be found at the end of the section, or in the appendices for the printed version. For the on-line version, they are connected via links which will take you directly to the documents. In both cases, only those documents which are available which we can able to obtain in accessible form and without copyright restrictions are included, although references to the other documents are provided.)


Briefly, what is the NII, and what can I do with it?


What is the NII (National Information Infrastructure) or "information superhighway"?


What use would I have for the NII?


With technologies available today:


With tomorrow's technologies...


Components of the NII

In order to make the NII accessible, it's important to understand the different components of it. Although there are many ways of breaking it down, for this discussion we basically break it into four categories:

  1. Sources of information;

  2. Transmission mechanisms (pipeline);

  3. Translation and other services during the transmission process;

  4. Viewers.


Sources of Information

The first component of the NII is basically the information providers. These are the people who create the information or data which is sent over the NII to others. Information must either be produced in accessible formats, or in formats which can be easily translated into accessible formats. Examples of information sources include:


Transmission Mechanisms

Once you are connected to the information highway, you will have no idea exactly what channels the information will take, either coming to or going from you. In most cases, the information will travel over many different transmission mechanisms along the way.

Some examples of different transmission mechanisms include:


In-Transmission Services

At the present time, the phone company is barred from altering the signal in any substantive way between origin and destination. However, as more general NII services unfold, there may be many different ways that information is translated between the sender and the receiver. In many cases, these mechanisms will increase accessibility options. Some examples of translations include:

With these translators, information can be made available in the form most convenient at any particular time (e.g., via voice for someone who is driving a car, but who might want the information in printed form if they were at home or at the office). It is also possible to convert information from a form which is inaccessible to some people into other forms which are accessible (e.g., a fax for someone who is blind into electronic mail or voice).


Viewer

This category includes all systems or devices used to receive and display information. (If you are sending information, you would be a source, as described above.) In order to be accessible, the viewer must both be able to display the information in a form compatible with the person receiving it and have controls which are compatible with the individual's physical, sensory and cognitive capabilities.

Viewers can take a wide variety of forms, including:


How it feels when you use the NII

The look and feel of these information systems will vary greatly, depending upon their design, intended use, and the target audience. Some Internet-based systems are quite sophisticated, and provide powerful search and retrieval software and techniques. They are intended for use by people with more experience and knowledge who require more exact or powerful tools.

At the other end are systems which are available that require no training and are easier to use than your VCR or your microwave oven. In some cases, operation is rather like changing channels on your television and then making selections from choices presented on screen. Some systems have as few as two or three buttons, while others let you just touch the particular items or topics on screen that are of interest to you. Other systems under development will allow you to talk to them and explain what you are interested in.

[NOTE: Attached pages will show some of the many different forms that viewers and information can take.]


What are the general problems faced by people with different disabilities?


Access Issues by Disability

As one would expect, people with different disabilities have trouble with different aspects of the NII. These may vary from an inability to operate the various viewers to having difficulty with the actual form of the information being presented. For example, an individual who is blind may be able to easily deal with a list of empty seats, but would have difficulty if a photograph of an airplane was presented showing which seats were empty. The information is the same in both cases, but its presentation might make it more difficult to deal with.

A brief overview of the problems for each of the major dimensions of disability is profiled below.


Physical Disability

People with physical disabilities can have very widely ranging abilities and limitations. Some people may have complete paralysis below the waist but may have no disability at all with their upper body. Others may have weakness overall. Some may have very limited range of motion, but may have very fine movement control within that range. Others may have little control of any of their limbs or may have uncontrolled sporadic movements which are mapped on top of their purposeful movements. Some with arthritis may find that hand and other joint movement is both physically limited and limited by pain.

A physical disability by itself does not usually affect a person's ability to perceive the information itself if it is in audio or visual form (or both). With future systems which may involve tactile information as well, people who have lost sensation or whose motion impairments that make tactile exploration difficult may have problems. Even today, people with severe motor impairments involving control of their head or eyes may have difficulty with visually presented information.

For the most part, however, people with physical disabilities find electronic presentation of information to be a great benefit since it removes the need to manipulate physical books and papers which may be difficult or impossible. This benefit, however, is dependent on their being able to manipulate the interface on the information system and to position the display if it is viewing angle dependent.

Of the four access components (Source, Pipeline, Translator, and Viewer), the issues generally concern the fourth component - the device that presents the information to the user: when addressing people with physical disabilities.


Low Vision

People with low vision may have any one of a number of problems with their vision ranging from poor acuity (blurred or fogged vision) to loss of all central vision (only see with edges of their eyes) to tunnel vision (like looking through a tube or soda straw) to loss of vision in different parts of their visual field as well as other problems (glare, night blindness, etc.). In some cases, enlarging the size of the image or print can make it more readable/interpretable. Locating things in predictable places also helps by reducing the search times needed. For some, including those with very severe visual impairments, enlarging the text may not be enough and other techniques including those listed under blindness below can be used.


Blindness

Most people who are legally blind have some residual vision. This may vary from just an ability to perceive light to an ability to view things that are magnified. Because of this, good blind access techniques assume no vision but are designed to work with the visual image (or enlarged visual image) in such a way that the user can make use of any residual vision they may have.

Problems faced by users who are blind can be sorted into four inter-related categories:

  1. Control

  2. Text Access

  3. Access to Graphics

  4. Access to Animated Movies or Graphics

Control: Systems that rely on eye-hand coordination (mice, touchscreens, etc.), or systems that involve a global view of the screen to operate effectively (picking an item out of a collection of items scattered on the screen, or items that are distinguished by what they are near or by their visual grouping) present problems to screen readers. Controls that are graphically represented (picture buttons, clicking on items in a picture, scrollbars, graphic palates, etc.) also cause problems. On public systems, all access to controls would have to be built in.

Some users prefer braille to voice as a form of output, and others, such as those who are deaf- blind, cannot use voice and must use braille. However, only about 15-20% of people who are blind know braille, so it cannot be relied on as the only way to present information.

Text: If the information system is implemented on a microcomputer for which there is a screen reader available, then access to text on the screen is usually not much of a problem - providing the text is drawn to the screen using the standard system text rendering tools. This is particularly true for text blocks. Text which is associated with graphic objects, or whose location or relation to other text or objects is important to understanding the text, can pose problems even if the screen reader can read the text. Screen readers can also have difficulty with text that is presented as side by side blocks in the same window or document. This is particularly so if the text is shaped or flowed around an object making column identification even more difficult. Text in column form is also a problem, particularly in matrices where all cells are not filled or where the contents of a cell do not identify which column it would fall in. With public systems, where would be no ability for the user to add a screen reader, the reading of any text on the screen would have to be done by the built in access features of the information system.

Graphics: In addition to graphic elements or controls (which if properly implemented could be accessed via commands and text labels, visible or invisible), current information systems are including more and more information in graphic form. Maps, charts, pictures and other graphic information are being included both as individual self-contained documents (e.g., a file with a picture of the moon in it) and incorporated into other documents (e.g., a chart or picture embedded in a text document).

Animated Graphics and Movies: There is no known method for providing people who are blind with a means to interpret moving pictures themselves. The only known way to make this information accessible is to provide a running vocal annotation of the movie.


Hearing Impairment

Users with hearing impairments need to have some method for adjusting the volume or for coupling the sounds more directly to their hearing aids. Both of these are hardware considerations and can be met with systems having volume controls and headphone or audio jacks. Users who have more severe hearing impairments may also use a combination of these techniques as well as techniques for people who are deaf (below).


Deafness

Users who are deaf have not had much trouble accessing computerized information systems in the past. Audio information was usually limited to an occasional beep - which was often accompanied by a visual event anyway.

With the advent of multimedia, more and more information is being presented auditorially. If the information is also presented visually at the same time (as when a voice comes on which is reading information which is already on the screen), then the user with a severe hearing impairment needs no accommodation. If the auditory information is not presented visually as well, however, then some type of optional visual presentation is needed for the information to be accessible by users who are deaf.


Deaf-Blindness

People are referred to as having deaf-blindness if they have both a severe hearing impairment and a severe visual impairment so that most strategies for people who are deaf or who are blind will not work well for them.

People who are deaf-blind have a particular problem with access to information systems since most of the strategies for access by persons who are deaf depend on vision and most of the strategies for blindness are auditory. That restricts access strategies mostly to the tactile sense, and the use of braille in particular. As mentioned above, it is rarely possible or practical to build a dynamic braille display into the information appliance (today). Making a system braille compatible therefore, usually means providing a means to connect a braille display, and reformatting the text so that it makes sense and is readable on a braille display.


Cognitive and Language

This is perhaps one of the most difficult areas to address - though to a small extent it is addressed daily. Part of the difficulty lies in the tremendous diversity that this category represents. It includes individuals with general processing difficulties (mental retardation, brain injury, ...) people with very specific types of deficits (short term memory, inability to remember proper names, etc.), learning disabilities, language delays and more. It is also not something which is easy to see or measure. Finally the range of impairment within each of the categories can (like all disabilities) vary from minimal to severe with all points in between.


Cross-Disability Access Issues

As mentioned earlier, people with different disabilities have different access problems and may require different access strategies. In some cases, the access strategies are completely independent of each other, and there is no cross-disability access issue. For example, most features for people who are deaf and features for those with physical impairment can co-exist in a system without conflict.

In other cases, access strategies for one group may also facilitate access by another group. For example, a speech output mode would facilitate access both by individuals with visual impairments or blindness and by those with cognitive or language impairments.

However, there are times when making a system more accessible for one population can make it less accessible for another if not implemented properly. For example, when information is changed from a visual presentation to an auditory presentation to facilitate access by people who are blind, it can make it more difficult or impossible for people with hearing impairments to access the system, and vice versa. In these cases, it is important to look at methods that allow concurrent or alternate presentation of information.

Probably the most difficult, however, are situations where an individual has multiple disabilities, such as visual and hearing impairments, or visual, hearing, and physical impairments. Often, the most efficient strategies within each of these disability categories entails fully utilizing the other senses and motor capabilities. Since multiple impairments are common, especially in people who are older, these cross-disability or mixed disability issues must be considered.


Within disability differences

Even within a single disability, the type and degree of impairment can vary widely, rendering one or another strategy more or less effective. In addition, due to individual factors or training, different individuals with the same degree of disability may prefer or find different strategies to be acceptable or unacceptable.


Need for consensus information

Since it is not possible to build every different possible variation into products, it will be important to identify key strategies which are effective across a broad range of users, and for which there is (or can be generated) general consensus both within and across the disability groups. Without such consensus, industry often feels hesitant to proceed with one strategy over the others.


General Access Guidelines

This section provides some general guidelines and strategies for making information systems more accessible. The following section provides a number of specific examples of ideas or strategies which can be used with one or another technology.


General Accessibility Notes

It is not possible to make all products accessible to all people no matter what their severity and combination of disability. However, information systems are probably the most flexible of all types of products, and therefore lend themselves well to universal design. As a result, it should be possible to make most of these systems accessible to anyone who has sufficient cognitive ability to understand their use. (It would not be possible to make a system for completing taxes on-line usable by someone who was profoundly retarded. On the other hand, it should be possible for someone with mild to moderate retardation to operate information services and shop by Internet if they are able to shop independently at stores today.)

As a result, it is not possible to make products absolutely accessible. When a building or product is designated as "accessible," therefore, it generally means that the building or product meets the minimum standards for accessibility. Often, architects and manufacturers can and do go beyond the minimum standards.

Within the area of information systems and the NII, there are currently few accessibility standards. There are, however, guidelines and strategies for making information systems more accessible. The purpose of this document is to collect and encourage the development of guidelines. Through input of both consumers and industry, it is also hoped that effective and practical minimum accessibility standards can be identified as well as strategies and techniques for going beyond these minimum levels.


General Accessibility Guidelines

Listed below are general access strategies which can be applied across all information systems along with the major disability groups which would be affected.

  1. Visual Information

    For all information which is presented visually (or stored as an image), have an alternate or supplemental presentation (or storage format) of the information which does not require vision (e.g., auditory format or ASCII text).

  2. Auditory Information

    For all information which is presented auditorially (or stored as a sound file), have an alternate or supplemental mode of presentation (or storage format) which does not rely on hearing (e.g., visual mode or ASCII text file). (Auditory information includes beeps or any sounds other sounds if they convey information.)

  3. Eye-Hand Coordination Controls

    For all controls which require eye-hand coordination (mice, trackballs, ordinary touchscreens), provide an alternate or supplemental mode which does not require eye-hand coordination (e.g,. keyboard, talking fingertip touchscreen).

  4. Physical Requirements

    For any input or control mechanisms which require fine movement control, physical dexterity, reach, or strength, provide an alternate mechanism which does not. Avoid mechanisms which require simultaneous activation of two buttons, latches, etc.

    Avoid timed responses, or provide a mechanism for making the times very long.

  5. Connectivity

    Wherever possible, provide an external standard connection point which can be used to connect alternate displays and/or alternate input / control mechanisms (e.g., infrared link or RS232 port with alternate display and control capability).


Some Quick Tests

Although not rigorous, the following quick tests can be used to identify weaknesses in the design which can be addressed prior to formal testing of the system with consumers from the different disability groups. In all cases below, "novice" is defined as someone who has never seen the system before, and who has received no instruction in the use of the system.

  1. Have a novice use your system while wearing headphones playing loud music.

  2. Have a novice use your system wearing a blindfold.

  3. Have a novice use your system using nothing but a single unsharpened pencil held by the eraser end.

  4. Try to operate your system using a single finger while someone randomly moves your shoulders about, causing you to have involuntary and unpredictable hand movements.

  5. Try operating the system while repeating every word after a person as they read continuously from an unknown novel.

  6. Speed up any timed responses by a factor of 5, and try to have a novice operate your system.

  7. Try operating the system while wearing frosted glasses which prevent you from making out any typical-sized print.

Instructions should be given to the individual only after they have constrained themselves in the manner described below (e.g., if all instructions are provided with your system, the "novice" should try to use the instructions while wearing headphones, while blindfolded, while using nothing but the eraser end of a pencil, etc.) This includes trying to use any manuals, videos, etc., under these conditions.

If your system fails any of these tests, you might think about why it failed, and see if there are alternate or additional designs or operating modes you might use to allow your system to pass the tests. While you're at it, you might consider how these new modes could also benefit your other customers who do not have disabilities.


Examples of Access Problems and Solutions within Specific Technologies


Introduction

Although the accessibility issues tend to follow general themes, such as those cited in the last section, they tend to manifest themselves somewhat differently in different technologies. Also, different technologies have different constraints which must be accommodated in any access strategy. For example, providing a large on-screen print mode or large buttons is easier to do on a computer screen than it is on a cellular telephone or a pocket paging device. In addition, different technologies may also provide different opportunities for incorporating access features. For example, a pocket computer may have an infrared data link already built into its architecture, while a telephone may not. As a result, it may be easier to connect assistive technologies to one than the other.

In this section, we explore some different NII technologies and discuss the access problems as well as current and future strategies for making them accessible.

Over the course of this project, it is hoped that through experimentation, field trials and evaluations with users with different disabilities, and review by industry that standard approaches and practices within the different technologies will evolve.


Access in the Microcomputer Industry

A good place to start in looking at access issues and solution strategies is the microcomputer industry. It provides excellent examples of both of the major access strategies:

  1. building accessibility features directly in, and

  2. building "hooks" or connection points to facilitate use of the computers with third-party hardware and software.

It also provides very clear evidence of the practicality of building accessibility directly into electronic products. Finally, it highlights the role that both government encouragement and competitive pressures can play in encouraging the incorporation of features.

Currently, great strides have been made toward getting accessibility built directly into computers and operating systems. Problems still remain, however, and much can be learned from both the successes and the setbacks in the computer area as we look at the issue of access to the NII. This is both because computers are one of the major vehicles today for accessing the NII, and because they are the closest thing we currently have to the electronic information appliances that will characterize much of the NII access in the future.

First, a brief look at STATUS, describing what has been accomplished, will be presented. This is followed by a section describing the HISTORY behind the development, and lessons to be derived from it. This is in turn followed by a discussion of the major areas in which we still have THINGS TO DO in the area of access to computers, along with a discussion of the implications for the work on access to the NII.


Status

Progress in building features directly into standard products

In addition to a wide variety of access programs and adaptations from third-party manufacturers, there have also been gains in having standard mass-market computer manufacturers build disability access features directly into their computers and operating systems. Below are some examples:


Physical Impairment

A number of special features to facilitate access to computers by people with physical disabilities are now standard in a number of operating systems.

In addition to built-in software features, computer hardware designs at both Apple and IBM were changed to provide better disability access. At Apple, keyboard encoder chips were changed, and a number of design features such as single-finger latches and pop-up screens on portables, screen brightness buttons, etc., were modified to make them easier to operate with different physical impairments, headsticks, etc. IBM moved their power switches to the front, and changed the specifications to their floppy disk drive subcontractor to increase the tension on the spring and get disks that would reliably pop further out of the drive (3/4"), so that they could be more easily grasped . Pushbuttons were also made concave, to facilitate operation with mouthsticks, etc.


Hearing Impairments

Three key areas were headphone jacks, volume adjustments, and the SoundSentry/ShowSounds features. Headphone jacks and volume controls have accompanied the move to multimedia. Although these were specified and are now available, it is more likely that the multimedia trend is responsible than disability access considerations. The ShowSounds and SoundSentry features, however, are specifically targeted at individuals with hearing impairments.


Low Vision

A screen enlargement extension to the Macintosh operating system called CloseView was developed for Apple by Berkeley Systems, Inc., and has been a standard part of the operating system since 1987. The latest "Warp" release of OS/2 has a separate magnifier product, but it is not built in.


Blindness

A simple feature called "ToggleKeys" is available for DOS and Windows 3.1 via AccessDOS and Access Pack, and is built into Windows 95. ToggleKeys provides an audio indication of the status of the three indicator lights on the IBM keyboard for NumLock, ScrollLock, and CapsLock keys. This is a capability which is also generally available through screen readers, though handy on some compact keyboards for which there are no lights.

Direct access to operating systems by people who are blind is not provided in any of the operating systems at this time. One computer company, however, has built a screen reader for its operating systems: IBM created a screen reader for use with DOS. Interestingly, this was met with both praise and criticism. It did ensure that a screen reader was available for their computer, but was criticized by some as providing competition to existing third- party screen readers, despite the fact that IBM carefully priced their screen reader to be in the same range as other higher-end screen readers. IBM also built screen readers for OS/2, thus ensuring that a screen reader was available for this environment. IBM building their own screen reader also had the side effect of ensuring that the hooks necessary to implement a screen reader were present in the operating system. (IBM has made these hooks available to others.) It's worthy of note that even the screen reader group within IBM had difficulty in getting the hooks and accommodations needed built into the operating system.

The other major advance deals with the X Window System Consortium. The Disability Action Committee for X (DACX), an intercompany cooperative group pulled together by the Trace Center, has gotten the hooks and structure necessary to support a screen reader for X Window system built into the base software from which most of the companies developing X Window system software. Based mostly on the work of Elizabeth Mynatt, who also headed the DAXC team dealing with the blindness access) and her team at Georgia Tech, the basic hooks for screen readers now exist in the X11R6 release code. Ms. Mynatt's team is now working on the development of a screen reader for X Window system with support from Sun Microcomputer.


Cognitive Impairment

Specific features targeted at individuals with cognitive impairments are not known to be built into any of the current operating systems. However, all of the trends toward graphic user interfaces and other attempts to make systems easier to use help to address this problem. So also do special interfaces targeted at children and at first-time computer users to simplify computer operation. The latest example is "Bob," an environment created by Microsoft to lie on top of Windows. It essentially presents the user with a room where different objects in the room represent seven basic programs (writing, calendar, simple database, etc.) Strategies which provide voice output facilitate access by individuals with cognitive impairments as well as by those who are blind. The built-in speech of Apple's Macintosh computers has facilitated development of programs for individuals with cognitive / language impairments. As mentioned above, however, other than trying to make computers generally easier to use, no specific features targeted at users with cognitive / language impairments are known to be part of current computer design, nor have any been included in any of the design guidelines that would not have been included in the set of guidelines for making products easier to use by the general population.


Brief History

In 1984, a meeting was held at the White House (OEOB). Representatives from major computer companies were invited to meet with representatives of government agencies to discuss ways that computers and operating systems could be made more accessible to people with disabilities. Larry Scadden, Frank Bowe, and Gregg Vanderheiden presented the case, which could basically be summed up as:

The response from industry was universal and encouraging. It can be best summed up as:

The meeting ended with a request from industry for a White Paper providing more specifics, and for a follow-up meeting.

A White Paper and a videotape were prepared (Vanderheiden, 1984) and industry representatives met again in 1985 . The videotape , which showed a variety of people with the full range of disabilities using computers in work and education environments. Again, the results from the meeting were very encouraging; industry responded that this looked very reasonable and asked for a set of specific design guidelines which they could share with their corporations and design teams.

A set of design guidelines was developed as a cooperative effort between consumers, industry, and researchers (Scadden & Vanderheiden, 1986). Those guidelines went on to be distributed and incorporated into internal design documents of several major computer corporations, including Apple, IBM, and Unisys.

The story gets cloudy from there. Although great enthusiasm was shown in these sessions, getting the changes incorporated within the companies' products was very difficult. The progress made from there appears to be a function of a number of factors, including:


Yet to Do

Problems with Access to Computer Systems

At the present time, great progress has been made in getting some access features built directly into a broad range of operating systems. Furthermore, these features have been implemented in a consistent fashion across platforms, greatly enhancing their utility.

However, there are several areas that still need extensive work.

  1. Access to graphic user interface by people who are blind;

  2. Access to graphic information by people who are blind;

  3. Hooks (or software connection points) for adaptive software;

  4. Access to multimedia sound; and

  5. Screen enlargement.

Each of these is discussed briefly, along with some observations and possible lessons to be learned.


1) Access to graphic user interface by people who are blind

Far and away the problem seen as being most pressing at this time is the ability for people who are blind to access computers using graphic user interfaces. This problem is divided into two parts:

The first of these is discussed here; the second is discussed in the next section.

The primary issue in terms of access to graphic user interfaces is creating a good screen reader for graphic systems. A number of causes have been cited for problems in coming up with an effective screen reader. Among them are:

Other issues also raised are:

Although there are many views on where we are and what the problems are with respect to graphic user interface (GUIs), there is a growing consensus (or something resembling a consensus) around a number of points. (Here I go out on a limb.)


2) Access to graphic information by people who are blind

A second major area of concern about access to computers is access to graphically presented information. In this case, we are not talking about windows, scrollbars, icons, pull-down menus, etc. All of those can be expressed in text or words, and accessing them is complicated but relatively straightforward - relatively, that is, compared to trying to figure out how to provide access to charts, pictures, diagrams, and photographs.

Even in the character-based DOS world, pie charts, images, etc., were inaccessible. This problem continues in the modern graphic operating systems. However, because of the ease of incorporating them into documents, the occurrence of these graphic presentations is rising sharply. Of even greater concern is its use in education and training materials, where graphics and even full-motion video is commonplace.

At the present time, we do not have any good methods for translating graphic information into a form which is accessible by someone who is blind. There are no known screen readers extant or on the drawing board which can touch this problem.

At this point, it is useful to differentiate between graphic information and information which is presented graphically.

Graphic information is information which is pictographic in nature and difficult to express in some other form: for example, a photograph of an individual, a landscape, etc. Although you can write a thousand words, the picture conveys much more.

Information presented graphically may not necessarily be graphic in nature, but rather information that is presented graphically in order to facilitate its viewing and interpretation by individuals who can see. For example, a bar graph, a scatter plot, a pie chart, etc., are examples of graphic presentation of information that could be presented in text or words.

For information which is presented graphically, one access strategy is to store both the graphic representation (e.g., a pie chart) and the underlying data in the document. The data can then be viewed either graphically or tabularly (or in some other form, such a tactual) at the preference of the user. Both OLE and OpenDoc, as well as other document-oriented operating systems, would facilitate this approach.

For things like pictures, motion pictures, etc., the only known strategies are to include auditory (or ASCII text which can be converted to auditory or braille) descriptions of the graphic material. As mentioned above, often you would not be able to capture all of the information conveyed by the graphic image. However, except in the case of art, the graphics are usually presented in order to convey some particular piece of information which should be expressible, albeit less effectively, in words.


What industry can do to make graphic information more accessible

There is a role for both operating system and application developers in the solution.


Information system implications to be drawn from graphic access problems

Access to graphic information is a continuing problem which will only escalate as electronic information systems progress. Systems that are entirely text-based today, such as e-mail, will also likely evolve in the same direction as everything else, and begin including embedded text formatting, graphics, etc. If anything, this particular problem is likely to be greater on the NII than on computer systems today.

The only apparent way to address this problem is to address it on a number of levels:

  1. The people creating operating systems or information viewers (public information terminals, etc.) need to build tools into their systems to facilitate the alternate presentation of information.

  2. People who are developing the authoring tools need to include places within these tools for authors to add the alternate text or verbal description information when they are creating new information materials.

  3. The authors (sources) of information need to provide alternate descriptions for the graphic / video information they create / present.

  4. Information storage and transmission formats and standards need to include text or descriptive information within the graphic / video storage and transmission standards.

  5. Manufacturers and consumers need to be made aware of the benefits and uses of this alternate format information to people other than just those who have disabilities.


3) Hooks (or software connection points) for adaptive software

Although adaptive software manufacturers have been pretty skilled at finding ways of tapping into the operating system to get the signals they need, the increasing sophistication of operating systems and the trend toward systems which do not allow themselves to be patched or modified is creating problems. This applies not only to developers of systems for people who are blind, but also development of systems designed for people with physical disabilities, hearing impairments, and cognitive / language impairments.

As above, the first step in the process would be to identify a consistent and sufficient set of hooks or connection points, and then to have them built into the operating system.

Some initial efforts have been made both with Apple and Microsoft along this line. However, a defined set which could be implemented across versions of the operating systems does not yet exist.


Implications for Information Systems and the NII

Everything in this section on microcomputers, of course, applies, since microcomputers are one of the primary vehicles people are using to access the current NII. As we move to consumer product-like interfaces (set-top boxes, etc.), it will be interesting to see how fixed or how reprogrammable these systems are. If they are fixed, they will, like the public information systems, need to have all of their accessibility built in. If they are easily adapted, common connection points to the software or hardware will be needed.

For those systems which are used for purchasing materials (shop at home, for instance), there will undoubtedly be some issues raised with regard to security. If the connection points are restricted to control and display, however, this shouldn't be an issue.

If there is a wide variety of systems, the need for cross-system compatibility will arise.


4) Access to multimedia sound

In the past, providing access to sound has not been much of a problem, since it was not used much. On Apple computers, turning the volume to 0 produced a flashing menu bar for the system beep. Similarly, with the advent of AccessDOS and the Access Pack for Windows, the ability to identify any sound generated on an IBM compatible became available.

With the advent of Windows 95, both the SoundSentry (previously called ShowSounds) and the true ShowSounds feature will be supported in a major operating system. However, access to information presented via sound is in the same category as access to graphic information: that is, the only way to provide access is if the people who are generating the sound files accompany them with text. If it is a recording of speech, it may be accompanied by a text file. If it is an auditory track as part of an audiovisual presentation, some type of captioning or presentation of other sounds would be needed. Although captioning facilities could be built into the operating system or base platform, the captions themselves would have to come along with the source material.

As with graphic information, information which is sonic in nature (e.g., a tape of just the ocean, a waterfall, or sounds in the woods) would not generally be easily rendered accessible, nor would sound which is art (a symphony, or abstract music). However, when speech or other sound being used to communicate information that is needed to understand a document, a videotape, or a program, it is usually possible to provide some type of text description or other visual presentation which convey the information.

As with graphic information, it is possible that speech recognition could be used to automatically translate some spoken information into text (the parallel in a graphic environment would be optical character recognition). However, this cannot always be relied on, since it may be difficult to pick the speech out from the background noise.

As with graphic information, therefore, the problem faced within the microcomputer area is essentially identical to that which will be faced within the information systems area. Furthermore, the solutions will also be quite similar, and will involve including an alternate, usually text-based, presentation of the auditory information combined with tools in the operating system or base platform which would allow the user to request that this alternate form of information be displayed.

Again, the best strategies to facilitate this would be tools to make it easy, an emphasis on the benefits for searching and/or displaying this information in environments which are too noisy to hear or too quiet to play sounds (a library or in bed after your spouse goes to sleep). Access regulations will also play a large role here.


5) Screen enlargement

For people with low vision, the ability to enlarge the screen or a portion of it can be of tremendous benefit. Some companies, such as Apple, have bundled a screen enlarger (CloseView) with their operating system for some time. Although screen enlargers are available for other platforms, the availability of and support by the operating system manufacturers has been spotty. When it has been available, it has been used by individuals both with and without disabilities. Here again, lack of consistent specifications for exactly how a screen enlarger should function, combined with mixed messages as to whether operating system companies should be including screen enlargement capability as a standard part of their operating systems has slowed development in this area.


Implications for Information Systems

As we move into public and fixed-function information systems, the need to build the screen enlargement capability in will increase. Along with it will come a need to define what basic screen enlargement capabilities would be. In addition, the role of such strategies as the talking fingertip to allow individuals with low vision to access information systems without enlarging the display need to be explored. In all cases, the low vision strategies must be closely coordinated with blindness strategies, since the two are parts of a continuum and many people switch back and forth between operating in low vision mode and operating in blindness mode, depending on the activity. If properly implemented, the blindness and low vision strategies are often used together by anyone with residual sight. Finally, it must be remembered that many individuals with visual impairments also have physical impairments, so these must strategies must work together as well.


Overall Themes and Lessons

More About the Internet

The Internet is the name given to a large network of places which are connected by high-speed information or data lines. The Internet is actually a combination of a number of other networks that were set up by different groups but which have all been connected.

The Internet itself is composed of many types of data links, including phone lines, high-speed phone lines, dedicated data lines, fiber-optic cables, microwave links, or satellite links. When you make a connection from one point to another point on the Internet, you actually have no idea what different types of channels are used to connect the two points -- nor do you usually need to know. About the only real difference between the various links is speed or bandwidth (see "Speed or Bandwidth on the Internet," below).

The internet is not just the wires. When people speak about the Internet, they don't just mean the "wiring" or connections between all of the people and places on the Internet. They are also referring to the different services or things you can do on the Internet. Some of the popular activities that can be carried out on the Internet are discussed below.

E-mail

E-mail or electronic mail can be sent between any two points in the world that are connected electronically. This could be two computers sitting in a room with a wire running between them, or all of the computers at your office if they are on a local network. All you need in order to send and receive electronic mail is an electronic mailbox. Once you have an electronic mailbox, you can send and receive electronic mail from anyone else on the Internet who also has such a mailbox. A mailbox can be obtained from an Internet provider who may also provide the necessary DOS, Windows, or Macintosh software for sending and receiving mail; copying, moving, and deleting messages; and effectively organizing large numbers of e-mail messages in ways which make them easier to manage. Read more about Internet providers later in this document.

Electronic mail travels very fast, even to other locations around the world. Once you receive e-mail, you can read it on screen or print it out on paper (or in braille, etc.).

In addition to sending mail between two individuals, e-mail permits a variety of additional information exchanges. You can subscribe to special topic "Listservs" along with thousands of other people each of whom can send or reply to a message which can be read by all subscribers. You can also send a message that includes specific instructions which will prompt a person or a computer to mail you the specific items you asked for: documents on a particular subject, a list of items relating to the search criteria you specified in your message, and more. There are even services which allow e-mail to automatically be forwarded to you as a fax (although at present fax to e-mail services are still experimental).

Accessibility

Gopher

The gopher servers were originated at the University of Minnesota (the "gopher state"). The name is actually a pun, since the system allows you to "go-for" information from distant points. Looking for information on a gopher server is very similar to looking for information on your hard disk, except that it is much friendlier. When you connect to a gopher server, it presents you with a directory tree which contains a list of folders or directories, each of which has a long descriptive name. You can open any of these directories and find additional directories or documents inside. If you select the document, the software will open it and display it on the screen for you to read, print out, or save to your disk. The gopher servers also have a number of other capabilities that allow you to download large documents to your disk and carry out searches for information.

Accessibility

FTP

FTP stands for file transfer protocol. This is a capability that allows you to download files from remote locations. This can be any type of file, including text, graphics, data, programs, etc. The service can also be used to place files from your computer onto an ftp server at a remote location. As the name implies, ftp provides a mechanism for transferring files in either direction between you and any remote locations on the Internet to which you have access. When using FTP, files cannot be read while on-line; It is necessary to down load them and read them with a text reader or a word processing program.

Accessibility

The World-Wide-Web

"World-Wide-Web" is a term used to describe a large collection of different compatible information servers throughout the world. This includes gopher servers, ftp servers, and HTTP servers (also commonly known as WWW servers).

HTTP stands for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP servers are similar to gopher servers in that they provide a user-friendly means for browsing information servers in remote locations and downloading information. HTTP servers, however, provide even more capabilities and flexibility than do gopher servers. A sampling of some of these capabilities include:

Hypertext documents:

Graphics:

Sounds and Movies:

World-Wide-Web Browsers

Mosaic is the name of an Internet browser designed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illionois-Urbana. Mosaic was designed specifically to allow people to access gopher, ftp, and WWW servers simultaneously. It is a graphic user interfaced browser which ties together the various servers and multimedia players. It also allows people to create their own special applications which can be launched from within the servers. The Mosaic program opened a whole new generation of graphic and multimedia access to the Web.

NetScape is a Mosaic-like program that was created by a start-up company which hired many of the original Mosaic and Lynx team members, and brought them together to create a commercial version of the program. Functionally, the program is essentially the same as Mosaic, but differs in some respects and is more tightly optimized for speed.

Lynx and DOSLynx are two text-based browsers for the World-Wide- Web. Both Lynx (for UNIX) and DOSLynx (for DOS) were developed at the University of Kansas. The programs provide the same basic browsing functionality as Mosaic and Netscape, except that they are entirely text-based in nature. Also, since there is no real funding base for these efforts, the team has not been able to support all of the ever-increasing capabilities and services of the Web servers. Servers which follow the guidelines for accessibility / universal design of HTML documents, however, should work well with the Lynx programs. It should also be noted that the Alt Text strategy for providing access to graphics in text mode was developed by the Lynx team. Read more about Alt Text later in this document.

Minuet is a new text-based browser from the University of Minnesota. In addition to offering access to the Web, it also allows access to Gopher, FTP, and TELNET.

Accessibility

Speed or Bandwidth on the Internet

These two terms are both used to talk about the amount of information that can be sent over a particular type of connection per second. If you have a low speed or low bandwidth connection, it will take you longer to send and receive large amounts of information than if you are on a high speed or high bandwidth connection. For example, if you want to send pictures, movies, or large data files, you will be able to send them faster if you are on a higher speed or higher bandwidth connection than if you are on a low speed or low bandwidth connection.

How much speed do I need? The amount of speed that you need is a function of what you want to do. Everyone would find it convenient to have a very high speed connection. Everything you do would then run faster. However, if all you are doing is sending moderate amounts of e-mail and browsing the network in text mode, a standard phone line and a 14.4KBS modem would do you well. Slower modems will also work; the system will just be slower.

If you are doing a lot of browsing which involves downloading pictures, you will find the 14.4KBS to function between slow and agonizingly slow, depending upon the size, number of colors, and resolution (crispness) of the picture.

Speed and the information superhighway. Today, the speed problem mostly comes into play because of the need to connect the existing phone lines. In the future, as the information superhighway comes into being, there will be faster and wider main data highways (fewer data traffic jams) and higher and higher speed connections to businesses, schools, libraries, and homes. As this occurs, all interactions will go faster, and you will be able to download larger and larger blocks of information.

About Kiosks

Electronic kiosks are devices which can be found in public spaces, from which you can get information, purchase things, or carry out other transactions. They are a rapidly growing phenomenon, and are being increasingly used by government agencies, public services, and private industry as a quick and convenient way to make services available in multiple locations around the clock.

Probably the most familiar kiosk at the present time would be the Automated Teller Machines. These machines, which are maintained by various banking entities, allow people to walk up and make deposits, withdraw money, pay bills, check account balances, transfer money between accounts, etc.

How are kiosks being used?

Other kiosks are being used today in all of the following ways:

By government agencies:

By airports, hotels, etc.:

By vending companies:

As building directories:

By universities to allow students:

What do they look like?

Kiosks can take a wide variety of forms. Some of them look like desks you sit down at; others are built directly into the wall. Most kiosks today, however, consist of a touchscreen display which looks much like a television screen. The display may be sitting on a counter or mounted in a cabinet about 3' x 3' x 5-6' tall. If the kiosk accepts payments for goods, fines, etc., there is typically a credit card reader. There is also sometimes a printer to allow you to take a printout of the information away with you.

Touchscreens are used for a number of reasons. Among them are:

  1. To get people to use the kiosks, the information is presented in very user-friendly fashion. Pictures and talking heads usually appear to explain what is available and help the user to use the kiosk.

  2. To minimize the learning and cognitive demands, very simple screens with just the number of choices needed are presented. If there are only two choices at any point, then two large buttons would be provided. If it's necessary to enter some numbers, then a keypad would appear on screen. If you need to enter your name, an entire keyboard might appear.

  3. The touchscreen provides flexibility. By using a touchscreen, it is possible to have any number of keys, buttons, controls, etc., as necessary. Also, as new programs are created, the new buttons, keys, and other controls can be added without having to change the hardware. In fact, entirely new programs can be downloads over phone lines to the kiosks without having to touch the kiosks at all.

Access issues around kiosks

Kiosks pose a number of issues for to people with disabilities. They must be positioned such that people who are using wheelchair or people who are shorter can access them. Although touchscreens used to be a barrier for people with disabilities, it is now possible to create touchscreens which are usable (see Talking Fingertip in the Reference Collection). However, most kiosks do not incorporate this strategy, and are currently not usable by people with low vision or blindness. The use of talking heads makes the kiosks easier to use for people with cognitive impairments, but can create problems for people with hearing impairments or deafness if not implemented with text alternates to the speech output. Similarly, use of graphics onscreen and systems which require fine motor control can cause problems if there are not alternate access strategies provided.

For information on work being done on access to kiosks, see Designing Universal/Accessible Kiosks

Interactive Television and Set-Top Boxes

Another emerging area is the use of interactive television. With regular television, a single signal is broadcast which everybody sees on the television set. Also, there is no way for individual viewers to send any information back to the source that is sending the information.

With interactive television, the user is able to send information back to the source as well as to receive information from it.

In the simplest form, the information being sent to the user does not change; however, the user can respond back to the source with information such as a desire to purchase a particular item.

With true interactive television, however, the image that the individual sees on their television set is a function of what they do. The user is able to interact with the television in somewhat the same way that an individual would interact with a computer.

The uses of interactive television

What does it look like?

Access issues