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If the integrated the BAT Chording Keyboard and the mouse, you could have convenient one-handed computer use.

The only problems I see are the mouse would be the size of your outstretched hand, and the mouse button would either have to be one of the chording keys (limiting your chording options or making them more complex) or the whole mouse (like Apple's Pro Mouse) which means you would probably have to exert a good bit of force to click the mouse.

My client is literally blind in that all he can see are vague shapes. He is also a hard-core smoker and his voice is fairly inconsistant.

He uses JAWS which is a program that reads information on the screen. I find it terribly annoying but he likes it's functionality.

He wanted voice input... and I called a number of vendors including IBM's voice project etc... but all of them said NO GOOD for nearly blind users as the training sessions are very long and involved and the user has to READ the screen (impossible).

He received a few weeks ago a flyer about the QPOINTER software product. This product is fairly new and not much is out there. I contacted the company and they said training was fairly short (15 minutes or so). I inquired if I could print out the training sessions and they (very nicely I might add) had their programmers send me the training sessions as text files. I printed them out in 2-inch high Arial Black letters on paper (29 pages worth) and brought them over and said "can you read these" and he said "nope". Great... but we installed the software anyway. The training system allowed me to pause so I would pause it, read a couple words to him and then un-pause and he would repeat them. We trained for about 3 hours and indeed it would open up the browser for him, etc. One problem was that he couln't read the visual cues that QPOINTER pops up - but by placing things in a KNOWN order I was able to get him around that.

However, when it came time to entering URL's etc... we were only able to get about 10% accuracy from the program - mainly due to the fact that his voice, after years of smoking, is terribly inconsistant. We retrained for a couple of hours on another day but to no improvement. Thus - we scrapped the voice input idea since he would have no idea if it recognized words and letters correctly or not.

At this point, frustrated, I realized that since I can type totally with MY eyes closed, he should be able to as well. Unfortunatly, he doesn't know how to type - but his wife used to be a typing instructor so... I went out and purchased him the ergonomic MS keyboard (the one with the huge split down the middle). I did this because that keyboard makes finding the proper keys easier due to the split (you don't need to hunt for the raised bump). His wife is currently going to try to teach him to type, and once he gets that down I'm going to go over the special key functions and try to make it work for him.

This is an area ripe for development. As us geeks get older we will encounter the same problems and we WILL demand a solution. Voice recognition is great, but it doesn't work except as a productivity enhancement (e.g., you still need to be able to read). A bigger screen would not help because no matter how big the letters are, he can't read them. Same for a head-up display. And voice input on a system that is ALSO doing voice output provides it's own set of problems (solved currently by using a headset mic).

Good luck - and let us know if you will, how this went for you!!

Aloha

Ah, I get your point. And, that is pretty cool. Assuming, of course, that you can set it on a folder level, and not necessarily on a per-file basis (which I think would have too much overhead associated with it, and might be annoying when I no longer want to use gimp for x.jpg, but forgot to change the metadata or whatever to set it back to a simple viewer).

Unfortunately, this was controlled on a per file basis. I think there might have been programs that would batch-process files, but the only one I ever used to mess with type and creator codes was resedit, which did other things, too...

I love this sort of discussion, BTW, and I think the major weakness of GUI's is that they're often not tweaked or refined enough to be as efficient (and consistent) as they can be. They seem to be either dumbed-down for the lowest-common-denominator, or hyper-complex for the power-user and requiring lots of setup or learning to be efficient.

I agree and this is a problem with computing in general. Of course in the GUI interface problems are easier to see because of the nature of the interface. Hopefully we will learn. I think the idea of having levels ("basic" and "advanced" with "basic" as default) is a good way to go and has been tried in MacOS, Windows to some extent, and Mozilla to name a few... But the idea coudl be expanded, maybe even a "newbie bit" that could be set globally for all apps run from a user or that could be set by default and unset by the user.

On older macs I've used, I found the GUI very efficient (but always lamented the single mouse button limitation -- seemes like it would have been 2x better with another button, and 2.5x better with a 3rd button. No scroller is annoying too). I think these things are available now (I've seen 2-button, 3-button, and scroller mac mice, but I'm not sure how well they integrate into the OS or apps, or how configurable they are). But OS X seems to be a bit of a regression -- it's prettier, but less efficient to me. And not for the same reasons that the spatial finder guy lists. It simply seems less consistent than the pre-OS X GUIs. And slower. A lot slower. I want BeOS responsiveness, even if it is an illusion, or sucks my RAM dry on boot (RAM's cheap).

I agree with you on the mouse problem (unfortunately for mac users, Steve Jobs does not agree). But it is entirely possible to have mice with many buttons and have them work in MacOS, Windows, and even Linux. I have seen mice that had about 5-7 buttons being used on Macs, and they came with driver software that let you configure the buttons. One of the first things I did after having to muck with my girlfriend's iBook awhile (helping her get it set up right) was to take my favorite (of all time) Logitech USB trackball and install the drivers on her iBook, configureing the right button for ctrl-click and the middle button for Command-V so that middle button pastes and right click brings up a context menu.

In an aside, I am still pissed off at Logitech for discontinuing this kick-butt mouse. It is hard for me to find a good mouse, and this one was the best. The one I am talking about is the marble trackball with wheel, and the current version has lost the space provided by the third button and is therefore far too small for me to use comfortably. The old one was spaced out enough I could just drop my hand on it and generally expect the buttons to be near the right fingers, whereas the new one requires far more precision. Oh well, back to the used computer parts stores for me :(.

Statistics are statistics, and are made specifically to represent what the proponent wishes, but:

50 Million disabled Americans? Assume (generously) that there are 300 million people in the U.S. - does this mean that one in six people could benefit from accessibility technology?

No, it means that almost everyone will find some benefit from Assistive Technology, whether they realize it or not. One of the most common misconceptions of AT is that it will only benefit the disabled. The point of AT is to provide a STANDARD BASELINE, as well as EQUAL ACCESS. It's not meant to be necessarily the lowest commmon denominator, but it can be.

Think about lowered curbs at corners. Initially, they were created for people in wheel chairs in mind. Alas, everyone found them handy - people with stroller, bikers, pedestrians, everyone. In the end, it ended up benefitting everyone.

Assistive Technology will benefit everyone.

Currently, the only advanced and (semi) well-supported AT is for the Windows platform.

Screen readers,

screen magnifiers,

Braille boards,

haptic mice,

headset mice,

Braille boards,

Voice recognition,
and so forth. None of these are real options for Linux currently. Since alot of these products are pricey, I would urge open-source h4X0rZ w/big hearts to contact the hardware manufacturers if they can obtain some development-type hardware/software, so that they may be able to port some of these to Linux. GNOME is working hard, and have contacted them personally about contributing to the project. If you were lucky enough to have been blessed with good sight/mobility, and have the l33t skills, I urge you to contribute.

Because in the end, it's not about which OS you prefer, but which OS can you *use*.

bob alvarez
assistive technologies consultant
www.bobalvarez.net

3D Ring Mouse-
$99
Just wear it on a finger and it's clickable. http://www.worklink.net/ringmouse.html http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~vr-systems/pics/vr/ring. htm

about one year ago. i set two limitations to the design of my "lan party computer"

1. it must use standard components (to make it easier to find parts to buy)
2. it must be cheap (at least cheaper than a comparable laptop)

this is a list of components that i used to build the system.
i updated parts of the list to reflect what components i would buy if i was going to build it today.

case mini tower $60
monitor 14" lcd $600
motherboard micro atx $100
processor P3 800Mhz 100FSB $160
ram 256MBpc100SDRAM $100
video Geforce2GTS64MB $195
keyboard mini-keyboard $40
mouse cordless optical $70
hard drive 40GB ide $100
cd-rom drive Plextor16/10/40A $250
floppy 1.44MB Generic $10
sound card SB Live Value $40
network card netgear FA310TX $20
cat5 cable 14 feet $20
headphones koss td61 $20
carry strap GearGrip Pro $35

other stuff:
cable bag a small, strong bag to attach to the side of the case to hold all the cables
power cable with 3 outlets that have 3 prongs each to accommodate the power cables for your system and monitor

i attached the lcd monitor to one side of the case and the cable bag to the other side. i put all the cables attached to the computer inside the bag to get them out of the way. then, when i went to a lan party i would only have to take one power cable, one network cable, the mini-keyboard, cordless mouse, and headphones out of the cable bag. everything was already connected at the back of the computer so there was no onsite setup involved.

i also screwed a piece of plexiglass onto the lcd monitor to protect the screen. (yes it was stupid to drill holes into a monitor that i just spent $900 on at that time, but it worked)

i had a lot of fun with that computer. i even dropped it down a flight of stairs once and the case was bent and all the pci cards popped out of their sockets. i put it back together and it worked fine.
the only downside to building this system was that it weighed about 30lbs. although if you spent more money on a lunchbox case with integrated lcd it would still weigh a lot.

unfortunately i never took any pictures of it for posterity and i ended up dismantling it for parts about 6 months ago, but i'm sure you get the idea.

-stan

I looked at a ringMouse page that said : "Increases Productivity: Most efficient way to execute mouse commands. Hands and eyes never have to leave the keyboard or screen." So I'm wondering, how, if your ring mouse is a 3D spacial pointer, do you use it without moving your hands (to which the ringmouse is attacted) away from your home key position?
-Daniel

Check out Headmaster Plus. I work in adaptive technology and this kind of stuff has been going on for a few years now.

Took a few days to get used to a trackball vs. a mouse, but worth it!

Here's a writeup on it from an ADA point of view. Paid $50ish at Office Depot.

There is a company, Bilbo Innvoations that makes foot controllers similar to those used for an organ or sewing machine. They mainly are used as meta keys (shift, alt, control), but I am sure they could be mapped to other things inside of a game. Links and pictures here . If you are looking for a directional syste, then Infogrips No-Hands Mouse may be a better choice. Info and pics here . I am not sure how this would work in a game though. I know that the Hacker's Dictionary mentions that the original 'space cadet' keyboard at MIT was supposed to have foot pedals, but in the end it was opted out. I think that was a bad decision, made prior to the GUI revolution, and that the mouse was a poor choice. Picking your hand up from the keyboard is a waste of time. Future interface devices need to include a mixture of hand, feet, maybe some sort of head mounted directional stuff (like the things in airplanes that monitor where your are looking for targetting) and perhaps a little bit of voice recognition.

I agree that the proposition is completely backwards: we should be replacing phone numbers with urls, and not the ohter way around...

how about
"phone://voice.company.com/department/person.tel "

ok. har har.

Apparently they were thinking about portable phones and w@p services. Their point was that it is easier to tap numbers on a phone than words. which is true. but i think phones will evolve a bit in the next few microseconds to make such an idea unnecessary.

IMHO, if you have screen realestate big enough to comfortably browse for information, there is a way to fit some kind of intelligent input system that would make it easy to type, at least an URL.

T9 software is already pretty neat, and things will get better.

if you are interested in typing efficiently in small spaces:

T9

FITALY

BAT

FAQ

so, i don't think alternative URL systems are necessary. rethinking cellphone input is, however.

adrien cater
boring.ch