Google: The Blind Leading the Blind
New Accessible Search For User-Friendly Websites
From: Ability Magazine - - page 16
By: Dahvi Fischer

With a mission to organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful, former Stanford computer science students Larry Page
and Sergey Brin are the proud founders of Google, the world's largest
Internet search engine. A play on the word googol, the mathematical term for
1 followed by 100 zeroes, Google's name reflects the immensity of the task of
wading through a seemingly infinite amount of Web data. 

Initiated as a graduate school collaboration called BackRub (because of its
unique process for analyzing back links to websites), Google got its big
break in the year 2000 when the company partnered with the Internet service
provider Yahoo!, solidifying its standing as a provider of great technology
that by year's end would answer 100 million user queries each day. Similarly,
in 2002 AOL chose the company to provide search and advertising to its 34
million members and tens of millions of other visitors. 

In the years since, Google has expanded and refined its services, from Web
searches to advertising to email, digital maps and blogging. The company has
continued to look for ways to include ever-growing populations of computer
users, including people with disabilities. For example, in 2005 it launched
Google Video, a project that captures the closed-caption information on TV
programming and makes it searchable. Consumers can participate with Google
researchers in trying out new innovations by visiting Google Labs, Google's
test bed for new products. 

Recently, Google has developed an additional tool assisting users who are
blind or have low vision. Google's Accessible Search, developed by research
scientist T.V. Raman, PhD, allows users to prioritize search results in order
of sites that can be easily navigated using standard screen readers. Raman,
who is blind, explains his interest in refining Google Search technology for
users with low vision: "When I search the Web, I want to find relevant
information with a minimal amount of distraction. But because I can't see and
I use a device that converts Web text to speech, I'm even more in tune with
the distractions that can sometimes get in the way of finding the right
results. If the information I'm after is on a visually busy page, I have to
sort through that page to find the text I want Ä an extra step that can
sometimes be very time-consuming."  

Accessible Search looks at the HTML code behind the webpages and "tends to
favor pages that degrade gracefullyÄthat is, pages with few visual
distractions, and pages that are likely to render well with images turned
off," Raman explains. This refinement holds considerable promise to improve
the Internet search process for the estimated 45 million people worldwide who
are blind and additional 135 million who have low vision. 

So far, the response Raman has received from users who are blind is extremely
positive, although many already find Google's main search engine fairly easy
to use. He comments, "I've been using Google since 2000 as my primary search
engine. I've noticed since 2001 or 2002 when Google started putting up ads
that it's actually one of the most accessible sources of ads for someone who
cannot see."  

Raman says he began designing Accessible Search by playing around with a
search platform called Google Co-op, created by the company to facilitate the
development of search engines that optimize results based on specific
interests or uses. Raman explains, "If you did not have something like Google
Co-op as a platform, if you wanted to build specialized searches you would
pretty much have to build your own search engine each time. For each
particular community of users with a special set of needs, you would end up
with a separate search engine. With Co-op, you do not have to build a whole
new search tool from scratch. So you get the best of both worlds Ä you get
the big search engine coverage, as well as the specialization you want."  

Raman acknowledges that people who cannot see are not the only ones who may
need a specialized search. Web surfers with hearing, mobility or cognitive
disabilities may have navigation priorities as well. "For now, Accessible
Search concentrates on the needs of users who are blind, primarily because
I'm one of them," Raman says. "Given what I needed myself, and what I knew
best, I did it from my perspective. But the idea isn't to limit it to users
who are blind." As it turns out, many of the sites prioritized by Accessible
Search will also be more easily navigable by users with other disabilities,
like mobility difficulties. In the long run, Raman hopes other accessible
search programs will be developed specifically for other user groups: "The
objective is to develop technologies that drive the future of the Web toward
ubiquitous information access."  

Accessible Search can be accessed currently on the Google Labs site, but the
goal is to incorporate it eventually as an option on the main Google search
page. Says one of Raman's associates, "Long-term, we would like Accessible
Search to be part of Google.com and that's where we're headed. Currently on
Google.com, you have certain options you can choose as qualifiers for your
search. For example. you can choose safe search, which eliminates all
pornographic sites from your search results. I envision that someday we'll
have a similar choice for accessible searches directly on the main Google.com
webpage. Right now we're putting it out there for the users to discover and
try out, which is why it's part of Google Labs. If the number of users
reaches a critical mass and people find it useful, then it will move out of
the lab and we'll take the next step."  

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