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VICS Press Coverage

Galway Computer Seminar for the Visually Impaired

Connacht Tribune Friday November 17th, 2006.

The Visually Impaired Computer Society will hold a seminar and exhibition of technology that is designed or adapted for use by visually impaired people in Galway this weekend. 

The event will feature talks and hands-on demonstrations of cutting-edge technologies by exhibitors from Britain and Ireland. The event is free and all are welcome to attend.  It will take place in the Victoria Hotel, Eyre Square, Galway from 11am until 5pm tomorrow. 

The morning will consist of a conference where experienced users will demonstrate the latest equipment available for use by visually impaired people.  It starts at 11 to facilitate those who wish to drive to the event rather than stay in Galway overnight.  After lunch, the equipment demonstrated in the morning and much more will be available to users of all levels and experience to examine hands-on.  Experts will be available to support. Two large organisations from Britain, Dolphin and Humanware, and members of VICS will exhibit the equipment.

VICS Chairperson Tony Murray said:

“VICS is about visually impaired technology users supporting each other.  This Open Day will be a fantastic opportunity for those with all levels of knowledge and experience to find out and try new and exciting technologies. Users, parents, educators and potential employers will all find something there to interest and excite them.” 

The Visually Impaired Computer Society was formed in 1986 by a group of visually impaired technology users.  It has developed into a multi-faceted self-help group, with over 100 members north and south of the border.  VICS organises open days, training, a regular CD-based audio magazine and an email-based support list for its members.  VICS is a special interest group of the Irish Computer Society.

For details, contact either: Tony Murray, at 087-2211491 (tony.murray@vicsireland.org) or Brian Dalton, 087-2363282 (brian.dalton@vicsireland.org). 

Website is:  www.vicsireland.org

Launch of VICS White Paper on Accessibility

By Derbhile Dromey, NCBI.ie, June 2006

Computers have revolutionised the lives of visually impaired people, enabling them to participate in higher education and take up employment. The Visually Impaired Computer Society (VICS) was formed to respond to the needs of visually impaired computer users and promote accessible technology.

The enthusiasm of visually impaired computer users was reflected in the turnout at VICS' launch of its White Paper on Accessibility, held on May 12th at the Royal Dublin Hotel. The launch was jointly sponsored by Microsoft and AIB.

First exhibition

The evening was an auspicious one for VICS, as it was the organisation's 20th anniversary. Current VICS secretary Gerry Ellis has been involved since the early days, before the existence of Windows. He reminisced about VICS's first exhibition in 1987, and reflected on how far both technology and VICS had come since those days.

Another VICS founding member, Ronan McGuirk, compiled the White Paper on Accessibility. At present, visually impaired computer users can only access computers through programmes which are artificial and awkward to use.

He proposed a 'Design For All' approach to accessibility, maintaining that integrating accessibility features into existing programmes would benefit everyone. He also proposed that technology be available in various forms, such as audible and tactile as well as visual.

Brainwaves

Terry Landers, Head of Corporate Affairs with Microsoft Ireland, spoke about accessibility solutions for visually impaired users. He also highlighted the work of Brainwaves, Microsoft's research initiative in the area of assistive technology. Many of its features can be accessed through the keyboard, which offers short-cuts for users who find using a mouse difficult.

Brian Buckley, AIB's portal development team manager, stressed the importance of usability rather than accessibility. For a website to be effective, it should be easy for everyone to use, not just visually impaired users, and should be free of clutter.

Accessible to all

Joshue O'Connor, of the NCBI Centre for Inclusive Technology (CFIT), spoke about his work with designers, examining ways that accessibility can be incorporated into programme design. CFIT was established by the National Council for the Blind of Ireland in January 2005 to help work towards an information society that is accessible to all.

CFIT's objective is to ensure that ICT-based products and services in Ireland are designed to be accessible to the widest audience, including older people and people with disabilities.

The evening ended with the official launch of the VICS White Paper on Accessibility and its website. Perhaps these developments may herald a new age in accessibility for the visually impaired computer user.

For more information about VICS, and about the White Paper on Accessibility, check out the VICS website on www.vicsireland.org

This news article can be found here

Change in ICT design for visually impaired urged

By Elaine Larkin, Silicone Republic.com, 4th May 2006

A lobby group for visually impaired users of IT has called for a new approach to the design and manufacture of computer products to enable accessibility to all citizens.

The Visually Impaired Computer Society (VICS), which is part of the Irish Computer Society, is to launch a paper on Friday May 12 in Dublin that claims the creation of an information society that is accessible to everyone regardless of their physical ability is a realistic achievable goal.

The paper, entitled An Information society for all — the non-visual way, outlines recommendations on how to achieve a fully accessible information society and is authored by IT professional Ronan McGuirk, founding member of VICS.

McGuirke explained:
“At present the vast majority of ICT products are completely unusable by those with vision problems except by means of expensive and inelegant bolt-on interfaces.”
According to VICS, accessibility means using any of three main categories of human computer interface: tactile, audio and large print. Electronic systems today use a screen to convey information to the user; this approach makes the system accessible to a sighted user but inaccessible to the vision-impaired user and actually disables this user from working with the electronic system.

VICS recommends that the principles of Design For All (DFA) — designing mainstream products and services to be accessible by as broad a range of users as possible — should be followed during the specification, design and manufacture of ICT products. Including accessibility at the design stage will benefit everyone, not just those with vision impairment, and will be a much more cost-effective approach than trying to add in accessibility later, it contends. VICS also suggests that a simple labelling scheme be introduced to identify products which are fully accessible.

“A new approach to design is required to ensure that the needs of all citizens are considered. We recognise that the problem lies with policy makers and financial decision makers who set marketing criteria for product designers. Therefore we recommend that DFA be adopted. This approach will assist decision makers to ‘disability-proof’ their decisions and thus ensure that criteria of accessibility are embedded in all product specifications,”
the paper explains.

Tony Murray, VICS chairperson and a software engineer in AIB, said that currently if a blind or a vision-impaired person wants to access Windows they have to buy additional software.
“VICS recognises that additional software has come a very, very long way and we work closely with manufacturers of additional software.”
He identified Apple as a company that has gone through the process of building a screen reader for its operating system, so if somebody buys a new Mac off the shelf they will have this available to them.
“The accessibility software is primitive enough as it stands but they are in the process of developing that,”

Murray added.

However, this type of initiative is in the minority at present. Before accessibility being built into mainstream products can become a reality for all, standards will have to be implemented. Murray said that VICS is currently drafting a paper on standards for accessibility.

This news article can be found here

 

Assistive Technology

By Derbhile Dromey, PC Live Magazine, February 2008

Technology has revolutionised the lives of people with disabilities. A new generation of tech-savvy people with disabilities has come to the fore, for whom technology is a natural part of daily life. Developments in the field of assistive technology, as technology for people with disabilities is known, has enabled this new generation to access the workplace and leisure activities. They have even made the home environment easier to navigate.

Overall access to PCs has been made possible through the creation of tailor-made software, which has been particularly beneficial for the visually impaired. JAWS is a screenreader which converts text on a screen into speech. A Braille display provides Braille output as an alternative to speech. Ubuntu is the accessibility package for Linux. People can also take notes using a talking PDA. Most of this software can be successfully installed on a standard PC with a good soundcard, using a disk.

For the partially sighted, there is a range of magnifiers such as ZoomText, produced by Ai Squared and Supernova, produced by Dolphin. These enlarge the screen and mouse and will also read screen content according to the needs of the users. “When trying to type something that’s quite long I can get it to announce the characters or words I’ve typed,” says Brian Geraghty, who uses Supernova. “I can proofread by getting it to read things back.”

People with physical disabilities have also been able to avail of a range of technologies. Those with dexterity problems can use joysticks, rollerballs or on-screen keyboards such as KeyStrokes which use word predictor, so that the user only needs to select half the letters they need. These people generally don’t have the dexterity to use a standard mouse, so they use HeadMouse, which enables them to control an on screen pointer through the movement of their heads. A wireless optical sensor uses infra-red waves to track the head movement through a target worn on the user’s forehead. This technology has evolved even further. Infra-red eye gaze technology allows users to track an on-screen pointer through eye movement.

Assistive technology has also improved access to the Internet, particularly for visually impaired people. More and more organisations, particularly Government bodies, are incorporating accessibility features into their Web sites, including large print and options for changing the resolutions and backgrounds. There is also a method of tagging images in html so that when blind people encounter one, they receive a textual description of it.

“It’s a matter of educating people,” says Tony Murray, Chairperson of the Visually Impaired Computer Society (VICS), an organisation affiliated with the Irish Computer Society which lobbies for more accessible technology for the visually impaired. “Because it’s so easy to set up a Web site, people don’t realise (accessibility) is an issue. But there is an intersection of methodologies you can use to design Web sites.”

Though Deaf people are less reliant on technology overall, both the Internet and mobile phones have widened the avenues of communication for them. Previously, Deaf people were reliant on fax and on Minicom, a network of linked computers which the person could dial and communicate with through typed messages. Now they can gain the maximum advantage from e-mail and SMS. They can also sign to each other using Webcam chat and videophones. “It’s too new to comment (on videophones) but the good thing is we can communicate in our preferred language – Irish sign language,” says Kevin Stanley, CEO of the Irish Deaf Society.”

The models for screenreading and magnification software has been transferred successfully to mobile phones. Talks, which is produced by Nuance and uses an OS called Symbian, announces mobile phone keys and commands in a similar system to JAWS, while Zooms offers magnification and speech similar to computer magnification software. However, different mobile phone manufacturers use different operating systems, which can lead to incompatibilities. “If possible, I would like mobile phone manufacturers to come together and develop one specific piece of software that would be available on one handset,” says Brian Geraghty.

People with physical disabilities can get mobile phones with big buttons which only have one function per button, produced by companies such as Silverphone and Kick2Phone. “The buttons are getting smaller with more functions on them and this proved a difficulty in the past,” says Bob Martin, a technical advisor with the Central Remedial Clinic which provides a range of facilities for those with physical disabilities. “But there have been a couple of innovations lately. As everything becomes computerised, even the controls on motorised wheelchairs, barriers will be lowered and give equality, provided people have access to the appropriate software.”

There are plenty of other recreational gadgets for people with disabilities to play with. People with physical disabilities can use standalone remote controls to operate home entertainment systems. They can also access the entertainment options on a laptop through the infra-red capability. With the press of a button, the technology will scan the computer’s menus and offer them options.

The Pure Sonus IXT Digital Radio uses iVOX voice technology, which is loaded onto the radio, to announce the names of stations and other menu options. In some cases, it announces the artist and the song being played. UK models announce channels as regular speech, but Irish models spell out the names of the channels. Its design incorporates a talking clock. Add-ons to satellite digiboxes are being introduced to convert digital television menus to the visually impaired. This will enhance the accessibility of digital television. ““Digital TV is a bit hit and miss for the visually impaired, as it relies on visual interactive on screen menus"” says Tony Murray.

Around the house, there is a range of gadgetry to make housework easier. For the Deaf, Bellman produces a range of flashing alarm clocks, amplified telephones and detectors for doorbells and baby alarms. Visually impaired people can avail of talking microwaves, irons and weighing scales and colour detectors for choosing their clothes. UK company Cobalt is a major producer of household goods for the visually impaired.

People with physical disabilities can use infra red technology to control lighting and the opening of windows, doors and curtains. “If people are using a big manual wheelchair, it is impossible to manipulate a normal door. Infra red technology helps people control their environment without leaving their wheelchair,” says Bob Martin.

On the surface, assistive technology, but it is in its infancy and there are a lot of barriers to be overcome. For example, users will buy a piece of software such as JAWS, ZoomText or Dragon Dictate, used by people with physical disabilities for voice input and output, only to discover that it is incompatible with the underlying operating system. Even if it is successfully installed, there are glitches, as Brian Geraghty has discovered.

“Since Microsoft changed their Office suite, the toolbar is virtually inaccessible. The toolbar has been replaced with a ribbon bar, so (Supernova) won’t read that out successfully. Sometimes you think you’re going onto one screen and you find yourself on another one. It (Office) also can make text smaller, or bring up a different dialogue box. Even the shortcuts have changed. There is a conflict i keyboard shortcuts between both applications which need to be modified.

Tony Murray says that the source of this incompatibility lies in the bolt-on nature of the technology. Though Macs have built in accessibility features, PCs require third party software. “When something like Vista comes out, everyone’s excited but it takes a couple of months for developers to come out with software. They are always behind. If Microsoft incorporated speech as part of system they’d have it straight away. In an ideal world, a PC should be able to turn on and talk to you.”

On the Internet, accessibility features can be limited. Some sites do not enlarge text, even if the users selects the largest text resolution of 1024x768. Deaf people find that the pictures on Web cams are too poor to transmit sign language. The picture on videophones is also poor. “It’s (sign language) either dropped in many frames or too pixelated,” says Kevin Stanley, CEO of the Irish Deaf Society. “The Deaf Community have less choice on which technology they can use and they may feel as if they’re spending their lives communicating with a machine.”

Another major stumbling block is the sheer expense of the software. Many people with disabilities can avail of grants from various organisations such as National Council for the Blind, but they don’t completely offset the cost. Mobile phone handsets fitted with Talks cost €1-200; joysticks for computers cost €4-500. Whereas a standard Dell PDA costs a couple of hundred euro, an accessible PDA costs €4,000. JAWS costs around €1,000 and Supernova costs €1,500. Infra-red eye gaze technology can cost upwards of €18-20,000.

The need to purchase individual licenses, the specialist nature of the equipment and the small customer base are the factors that keep prices high. But Bob Martin believes investment in top of the range technology is worthwhile. “It’s not a huge cost relatively speaking. It’s what the rest of us goes out and spends it on a car and it gives as much independence as a car. Also, eye-gaze systems are quite new and will come down in price.”

For people with physical disabilities, simply accessing the technology is a barrier. Once they have acquired the technology, there is often no specialised staff available to provide technical support services, because these are niche products which require a high level of expertise. “They don’t use enough of it,” says Bob Martin. “They could be getting a lot more of it, but due to funding issues, they aren’t. When they’ve got it, they can’t find anyone to install it, which adds to their frustration.”

These barriers may seem difficult to surmount, but for people with disadvantages, the benefits of assistive technology far outweigh the disadvantages. Whole words have been opened up to them, educational, professional and social. Assistive technology means that people with disabilities can use basic equipment previously blocked to them..  For some, the role assistive technology plays is even more essential. “People who have good access to it and good support find that it would be impossible to live without it,” says Bob Martin.

Accessible gaming

The disabled gaming community has been growing quietly for some time. However, the mainstreaming of accessibility features has seen an explosion within the accessible games market. A company called Mindmaker has created Game Commander, a voice-recognition engines that can be integrated into games that have time requirements, such as flight simulators.  There has been a lot of interest in PC-based games, which make good use of a PC’s sound features. Older, text-based games are also quite popular; www.levelgames.net offers a range of accessible arcade games. Those with more sophisticated tastes can play Terraformers, a futuristic game which has all the regular 3D features, but has an advanced audio interface. Players must rely heavily on sound to secure victory. Terraformers’ unique design was recognised at the Independent Games Festival, where it won the Innovation in Audio Award.

Spotlight on Digital Radio

Brian Dalton, a member of VICS, recently purchased a SONUS-IXT Radio.

“It’s a nifty product. You get all the information a sighted person gets on a screen like the channel names. The biggest problem is that because it doesn’t have text speech, it takes a long time to spell out all the channel names. Also, it has no battery power, so if the back-up power goes, you’re gone. But it’s great to see them designing an adapted radio that has all the features available to sighted people, like a line in and out and a facility to plug in an extra speaker. It’s not just a case of, here you are, let’s give them a basic radio. It’s a technically advanced produce designed with visually impaired people in mind.”