Washington Researchers Seek High-Tech Ways to Help Blind Students
From: Associated Press - 02/13/2005
By Donna Gordon Blankinship

Researchers on the University of Washington's Tactile Graphics Project note
that the visually impaired are often shut out of technical professions, given
the difficulty in translating technical texts, diagrams, and graphics into
formats understandable to the blind. The project aims to design better
tactile interfaces and translation with input from visually impaired students
at the university as well as local high schools. Elaine Akagi, who
coordinates teachers of the blind for the Seattle School District, reports
that high-school math students often have the most pressing need for tactile
graphics, but the difficulty of representing colors and 3D objects in such a
way is a major hindrance. Melody Ivory-Ndiaye of the University of
Washington's Information School says tactile printers see little use because
their software is obsolete and has a steep learning curve; the
interdisciplinary Tactile Graphics Project seeks to automate the field using
a National Science Foundation grant of $749,188. Principal project
investigator and computer science and engineering professor Richard Ladner
explains that making printed and online illustrations readable for the
visually impaired is gaining momentum as children's textbook publishers
integrate text and graphics to make the material more engaging. Ladner
expects the project team to concentrate on developing a simple computer
software interface as well as training to ease transcribers' transition into
tactile graphics. He also says the wants to devise a scheme that allows
schools throughout the country to exchange tactile graphics online, an
achievement thus far thwarted by a lack of industry standards, among other
things 

Read the entire article at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Graphics%20for%20the%20Blind&searchdiff=1&searchpagefrom=1

Links:
Tactile Graphics Project
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/ladner/tactile.html

Improving Access to Graphical Images for the Blind
http://tactilegraphics.ischool.washington.edu/

University of Washington's Information School
http://www.ischool.washington.edu/

Melody Y. Ivory-Ndiaye
http://www.ischool.washington.edu/myivory/

Richard E. Ladner
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/ladner/

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UW Project Works to Make Graphics More Accessible
From: Associated Press - 02/14/2005

Researchers at the University of Washington are looking for ways to make
graphics accessible to blind or visually impaired students. Funded in part by
a grant from the National Science Foundation, the Tactile Graphics Project
aims to open up science and engineering to students with visual disabilities,
who have traditionally been largely left out of such fields due in part to
the difficulty of "seeing" graphics with their hands. Researchers in the
project are working with blind students from the university and local high
schools to develop new and effective means of representing graphics and
figures in a way that the blind can understand clearly. Such representations
must be sufficiently detailed to be useful but not so complex as to be
confusing. Tactile printers, or embossers, is one technology that already
exists, but because the software is outdated and difficult to learn, the
printers are not extensively used, according to Melody Ivory-Ndiaye, an
assistant professor at the university's Information School. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/02/14/b3.wa.research.0214.html