The January 2006 issue of the ACM SIGACCESS newsletter is now available
on-line at: 

        http://www.acm.org/sigaccess/newsletter/ 

This is the third on-line issue of the newsletter. If you have any comments
on the newsletter, or suggestions of topics for special issues, please e-mail
me at editors_SIGACCESS@acm.org.  

About this issue :

The first paper in this issue is "A Personal Information Management approach
for people with low vision or blindness" by Silas Brown and Peter Robinson.
In this paper, the authors discuss a new conceptual approach to organising
information, supporting the simultaneous management of multiple information
excerpts.  

Wayne Dick's paper, "Using cascading style sheets to accommodate websites for
individuals with low vision" is the second of the two papers addressing the
needs of low vision users. He examines how such users can customise their
browsers to make web pages easier to read.  

Moving on to the papers from the ASSETS 2005 Doctoral Consortium, Julie Jacko
(the chair of the Consortium) provides an introduction to the Consortium and
papers in her "ASSETS 2005 Doctoral Consortium Overview".  

Miguel Alonso describes an advanced method of compensating for specific
vision impairments in his paper, "A method for enhancing digital information
displayed to computer users with visual refractive errors via spatial and
spectral based processing".  

In her paper, "Accessibility and usability guidelines for mobile devices in
home health monitoring", Rita Hubert addresses the issue that mobile devices
have a significant role to play in telemedicine, but also present usability
and accessibility challenges for older adults.  

The paper by Kanav Kahol and Sethuraman Panchanathan, "Distal object
perception through haptic user interfaces for individuals who are blind"
investigates the challenges surrounding the remote exploration of an unknown
space through a haptic interface.  

Peter Parente’s paper, "Clique: A conversant, task-based audio display for
GUI applications" looks at converting graphical applications into auditory
ones by providing auditory descriptions of the underlying task, rather than a
simple auditory rendering of the graphical elements.  

The paper, "Using functional assessment to improve information systems
research, design and technology matching", by Kathleen Price examines the
role of user capability profiles in the development and provision of
technology.  

"Storytelling with a virtual peer as an intervention for children with
autism", written by Andrea Tartaro, looks at the development of Sam, a
virtual character, who is designed to help develop communication skills in
children with autism.  

Ted Wattenberg's paper, "Accessibility heuristics utilizing learnability
characteristics of synthesized speech applications", investigates
screen-readers and methods for improving their learnability. 

Wrapping up the Doctoral Consortium papers, Jacob Wobbrock writes about the
development of the EdgeWrite input system in "A robust design for accessible
text entry".  

Contributed by Simeon Keates 
Editor - SIGACCESS newsletter "Accessibility and Computing"