Subject: [Wash-at] FW: Making The Web A Sight For Sore Eyes
From: Ginette Perkins (gperkins@wa.easterseals.com)
Date: Thu Jan 27 2005 - 08:25:58 PST
http://www.internetweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=57704096
Making The Web A Sight For Sore Eyes
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By Howard Wen
<http://www.internetweek.com/> InternetWeek
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Everybody has encountered a badly designed web page -- one with small fonts,
conflicting color schemes, or a lousy layout. While these problems can be
difficult for people with perfect eyesight, they're worse for the elderly
and others with weakened vision.
A survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals less than a third
of senior citizens, those over the age of 65, have ever gone online. Those
numbers, however, could increase, if websites became friendlier to people
with poor vision, the American Association of Retired Persons says. AARP
notes that two-thirds of seniors have a disability that often includes weak
eyesight.
On the economic side, websites that are more accessible to the disabled
could be more successful in tapping the $225 billion in disposable income
among the nation's 54 million disabled people, the National Organization on
Disabilities says.
To help reach this potential market, IBM's Accessibility Center, one of the
company's research divisions, created Home Page Reader, a Web browser for
Windows that automatically enhances websites to make them easier to use by
seniors and others with less-than-ideal eyesight. Originally sold in an
earlier, less advanced form a few years ago, a more refined version was
released this month for the retail price of $142.
"Home Page Reader is a striking example of what a mainstream company can do
when it chooses to develop a product that is useful to persons with
disabilities," says Don Barrett, assistive technology specialist for the
U.S. Department of Education.
The program has a zoom feature to enlarge everything seen on a web page.
Other than functioning as a web browser, the program can enhance Windows by
providing easier-to-see elements on the operating system's desktop, and
better keyboard navigation. But its showcase technology is a digital speech
synthesizer that actually speaks the text written on a website.
The newest Home Page Reader talks out the embedded text descriptions that a
web designer typically assigns to images, such as photos, graphs and charts
that appear throughout a page's layout. The browser can also re-interpret on
the fly often-used multimedia formats, including Flash, so the visually
impaired can glean relevant information via audio. Adobe PDF documents can
also be read aloud by Home Page Reader.
This browser is even fluent in several languages. Separate versions are
available in which Home Page Reader speaks English, Spanish, French, German,
Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Thai.
Besides helping seniors, improving access to the Internet and computers is
also expected to help the nation's aging workforce. Workers between the ages
55 and 64 are increasing in population by about 2 percent per year. Among
those with disabilities, half of them work full or part-time on a computer,
according to figures from the NOD and the Center for Retirement Research at
Boston College.
The recent U.S. Census estimates 25 percent of the country's population will
be age 55 or older by 2008.
For website designers, Home Page Reader can be used to test the
accessibility and usability of their web pages. The program includes guides
describing how the browser handles HTML, JavaScript, PDF and Flash, with
tips for improving a page's accessibility.
"Home Page Reader is designed not only to help companies and organizations
meet government requirements for accessibility, but to dramatically boost
the productivity of their employees as well," Frances West, director of
IBM's Worldwide Accessibility Center, said. "Opening up the information
resources of the web is good for business, individuals and for society as a
whole."
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