Battling to Give Web Access to Visually Impaired Users
From: Nikkei Weekly - 12/05/2005 - Vol. 43, No. 2212, P. 16
By: Atsunobu Takeshita

IBM Japan computer specialist Chieko Asakawa continues to work toward making
the Web more accessible for visually-impaired people. Asakawa, who works at
the Tokyo Research Laboratory, scored a breakthrough when her Home Page
Reader Web browser, which reads Web site text for Web surfers, was completed
in 1997. However, the emergence of sophisticated graphics and videos is
making it more difficult for the visually-impaired to use the Web because the
talking browser has become overwhelmed by the enormous amount of extra
information on pages. For example, the talking browser has problems working
with the Flash application because it is unable to convert to voice
information the data Flash hides in a Web page. Asakawa, who lost her sight
when she was 14, hopes to develop software that solves the problem by the end
of the year. She recently developed and published the "a-Designer" software
to help Web authors determine whether their Web site is user-friendly for the
visually-impaired. Asakawa is also considering ranking sites based on their
accessibility, and believes Japan should have Web accessibility regulations
similar to American and British laws. "My goal is a society where people can
equally enjoy the benefits of technology and information," says Asakawa. 

Links:
Chieko Asakawa
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/rscd.homepageReader.html
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/witexhibit/wit_hall_asakawa.html
http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/2003/casawaka.php

Chieko Asakawa Publications
http://www.tiresias.org/research/publications/asakawa.htm

aDesigner
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/adesigner

What does the Web look like if you're blind?
http://www.fastcompany.com/fast50_05/profile/index.html?asakawa541

Web designers no longer blind to needs of visually impaired
http://www.ibm.com/news/us/2004/09/2004_09_20.html