Web Sites Improve Service for Blind People
From: Wall Street Journal - 07/20/2006 - P. D1
By: Jessica E. Vascellaro

Google, Yahoo, and other major Internet companies are working to make their
sites more compatible with screen-reading software to improve access for
blind users. The complex programming behind feature-heavy sites can be
difficult for many screen readers to translate. Screen readers generally read
a description of the site aloud and sometimes display descriptions in
Braille. To better meet the needs of its blind users, Google is rolling out
Accessible Search, a search application that bases its rankings on the
simplicity of the pages' layout, giving higher rankings to sites that have
numerous subject headings and other features that make them easier for screen
readers to understand. AOL is updating its Web mail to make it more
accessible to screen readers, and, in the same vein, Yahoo included a greater
number of subject headings when it redesigned its home page. Meanwhile,
Microsoft is developing tools that will make it easier for screen readers to
navigate feature-rich Web sites. Of the approximately 10 million blind or
visually impaired Americans, just around 200,000 who are completely without
sight have access to the Internet, according to the American Foundation for
the Blind. "The biggest frustrations are these sites with some 500 different
links and lots of graphics," said Dena Shumila, who is blind and runs a
consultancy in Minneapolis. When Web designers do not adequately label their
links and buttons, the screen reader translates them into generic commands
like "nav bar link one" and "nav bar link two." "Then you don't have a clue
what is going on," Shumila says. Online shopping is a constant challenge, as
graphics and videos are indecipherable to a screen reader unless they carry
alternative text. The redesign of many Internet companies' sites coincides
with a drive to revise federal standards for Web accessibility; currently,
there is no law requiring Web sites to be accessible to the disabled. 

Read the entire article at: (May require paid subscription)
http://www.wsj.com/

Links:
Google Accessible Search
http://labs.google.com/accessible/

Google for the blind
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/category?blogid=19&cat=450

Dena Shumila
http://www.utoronto.ca/atrc/reference/staff/shumila/shumila.html

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Google Launches Site Catering to Visually Impaired
From: CNET - 07/19/2006

A new service from Google Labs promises easier searching for users with
visual impairments. Web sites full of graphics and animations are fine for
sighted users, but screen readers and other technologies that assist the
blind or visually impaired have considerable difficulty rendering such sites
in a way that can easily be understood. The new service, called Google
Accessible Search site, will evaluate how easily assistive technologies are
likely to be able to parse and present the content of a Web page and moves
those sites higher in the listing of search results. According to T.V. Raman,
research scientist in charge of the service, the service is an "early-stage
experiment" that he hopes can be further developed and refined based on user
feedback. 

Read the entire article at:
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-6096169.html

---

Entire Wall Street Journal article:

Web Sites Improve Service for Blind People
Google, AOL, Yahoo Retool Pages, Boosting Compatibility With Screen-Reading
Aids 
From: Wall Street Journal - 07/20/2006 - P. D1
By: Jessica E. Vascellaro - jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com


Major Internet companies are moving to better meet the needs of the hundreds
of thousands of blind people who regularly browse the Web. 

Blind Internet users generally use software that reads a description of a
site's features aloud, sometimes in conjunction with some hardware that
displays portions of the site in Braille. But navigating increasingly
feature-heavy Web sites, whose messy and complex programming can be difficult
for the software to translate, poses problems. Aiming to increase use of
their popular products even more widely, Internet companies are now launching
new -- and tidying up old -- services for easier use by the blind. 

Google Inc. will today launch Google Accessible Search, a search tool that
ranks results based on the simplicity of the site's page layout. Pages with a
large number of headings and that lack extraneous images and text -- factors
that make the page easier to read with a screen reader -- will rank higher,
saving blind Internet users the time of navigating to results they won't be
able to comprehend. The search tool is at <http://labs.google.com/accessible>
labs.google.com/accessible. 

AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., will soon update AOL Web mail to make it
more screen-reader friendly. The revisions, which will be under way by the
end of the year, will eliminate the need for users with screen readers to
switch to a separate text-only page. While designing its new homepage, Yahoo
Inc. considered ways to make it more accessible to blind users. For example,
carving the site into a greater number of headings like "Entertainment" and
"Sports" makes it easier for a visually impaired browser to navigate the site
because the headings serve as built-in hooks. 

The new products and heightened awareness already appear to be making a
difference. Eric Brinkman, 19 years old, says he used to have to reformat
nearly every page he arrived at so that it could work with his screen reader.
Now, he finds that extra step unnecessary, and has also uncovered new tricks
and shortcut keys for navigating around sites like Wikipedia.org, Google.com
and Amazon.com, where he likes to shop for CDs. "I have become very dependent
on computers," says Mr. Brinkman of Niantic, Conn., who spends several hours
a day online and has been legally blind since birth. 

New tools for developers also are likely to drive further improvements across
a broad range of sites. Microsoft Corp. has recently released UI Automation,
new developer technologies that will make it easier for screen readers to
translate robust Web applications. The technologies will be officially
released with the company's Vista operating system, and will allow screen
readers to convey information to users such as how many new messages are in
their in-boxes without reading off each message individually and to find all
the links on the page quickly and alert the browser to which ones they have
already visited. 

There are roughly 10 million blind or visually impaired Americans, according
to the American Foundation for the Blind, a New-York based advocacy group.
The group estimates that roughly 1.5 million people who have difficulty
seeing print even with glasses have access to the Internet but only about
200,000 who cannot see print at all have access. The numbers are expected to
grow as technology improves and Internet companies offer new services. 

Those with mild vision impairments can often be helped by simply magnifying
their screen display. Blind Web users have descriptions of what appears on
the screen read back to them aloud and move from heading to heading with
keyboard shortcut keys and arrows. A blind person who visited Yahoo.com, for
example, would hear the different headings like "News" or "Movies" spoken and
could transition to the next heading by hitting the "H" key. Such assistive
technology can be pricey. A popular variety, Freedom Scientific Inc.'s JAWS
for Windows, costs around $1,000. Another tool, a refreshable Braille display
that translates a description of what is on the screen into Braille on a
device that resembles a keyboard, can run from $1,400 to $7,000. 

"The biggest frustrations are these sites with some 500 different links and
lots of graphics," says Dena Shumila, 32 years old, who is blind and runs her
own consulting firm in Minneapolis. She says that when people don't properly
label their links and buttons, she is stuck listening to generic commands
like "nav bar link one" and "nav bar link two." "Then you don't have a clue
what is going on," she says. 

Unless accompanied by alternative text, code embedded beneath a graphic,
photos and video are incomprehensible to a screen reader and its user. Kathy
Brack, a 55-year-old blind Internet user, was recently shopping online at
LLBean.com for a bathrobe and slippers but got stuck when she couldn't get
any verbal information on the products. To ensure that she had landed on the
style and color she wanted, Ms. Brack, of Raleigh, N.C., had to ask someone
to describe them. "Online shopping sites are terribly inaccessible," she
says. "I often have no idea what the product looks like."  

The new Web services coincide with a push to revise federal Web accessibility
standards and renewed legal efforts to get accessibility guidelines more
widely adopted. 

Currently, no federal law requires all Web sites to be accessible to the
blind or to those with other physical disabilities. The guidelines that apply
to technology procured by a federal agency including Web sites under Section
508 of the Rehabilitation Act are about to undergo revision by a federal
advisory committee. The committee is likely to look into issues like
establishing new guidelines for Internet-based phone applications, multimedia
and Webcasts. Many states have also adopted these guidelines. 

To date, advocacy groups have hit roadblocks in pressing accessibility
guidelines on the private sector. In 2002, Access Now Inc., a Florida-based
advocacy group for the disabled, sued Southwest Airlines in U.S. District
Court for the Southern District of Florida on the grounds that a blind person
could not purchase a ticket on the site. The plaintiffs alleged that the
airline therefore violated Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act,
which states that disabled individuals must enjoy equal access to goods and
services in places of public accommodation. The judge ruled that the case
against Southwest be dismissed, deciding that Southwest.com was not a place
of public accommodation because Web sites aren't covered in the statute's 12
public accommodations categories. 

Meanwhile, Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind is suing Target
Corp. over the inaccessibility of its Web site to blind Internet users. The
suit, originally filed in Northern California's Alameda County Superior
Court, argues that Target's Web site is a service of Target's stores, which
are public accommodations and therefore that the Americans with Disabilities
Act, as well as two other California state laws, apply. The company says the
lawsuit is "without merit" and that the company's Web site complies with all
applicable laws. 

A hearing on two motions -- the defendant is moving to dismiss the case and
the plaintiffs are moving for a preliminary injunction -- will take place in
the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

