Slashdot Mirror
Zip Up: New Linux Distribution Speaks To Users
LinuxNews.com Editor writes, "A new talking distribution makes Linux easy for visually impaired users to install." An amazing hybrid of a compact Slackware distro and a Linux speech synthesizer, this is an effort that deserves kudos not only because it helps blind and visually impaired users, but because it sounds like it could teach the big boys a few things about appropriate user interfaces. As a bonus, it's small and can run on relatively low-end hardware (though it requires a compatible speech synthesizer), and doesn't even require repartioning.
From what I understand, it's that the concept of having an ``area'' .. your desktop area where things are arranged in different places... isn't the most native way to interface with things for the blind. Having a stream of sound, and then sending input, and getting more audio feedback is much more natural. It's the way that they interface with most other things in real life.
A lot of clunky windows solutions exist for reading different parts of the screen. For the most part, they're horrible. Because they have to try to figure out how to deal with areas. I mean, I'm looking at this posting window right now, and if I was a program trying to read the screen, I'd have to figure out the difference between the stuff in the boxes on the left frame and the stuff on the right. Not to mention I'd have to figure out that the left hand parts of the main table were labels for the text boxes on the right hand part. Things like that. It's much easier when it's a stream of text.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
You may find the following more useful... http://linuxmall.com/news/feature s/000322zipspeak
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
Idea: AN 80x25 array of 2 by 3 bobbles connected to the serial port of the computer like a wyse terminal. Each bobble can rise or fall depending on a signal (e.g., when 'A' gets sent to the terminal, it forms the braille 'A' shape in the bobbles.) That way, you can have a braille view on a text terminal... Maybe the device could be pressure sensitive as well - press down on a braille character is like mouse clicking on that character in a terminal.
You're absolutely right..
/bin/sh derivitive or replacement ;-))? A GUI as a complete, and only, computer interface is the equivalent of reducing your vocabulary to pointing and grunting (with one grunt for Mac users, two for Windows users, and 3 for X11 :)). This also places the onus on the user for doing a simple action to multiple files. Sure, it might be easy to drag a selection of files from one folder to another, but it is very hard if your regexp for the move includes anything other than files of one type (cp a*d[ea]d*.txt /text/sorted/a cannot be done easily in a GUI).
I've never understood why people argued for removing the creative expresitivity possible via a CLI. What other place can you speak in english (older Sierra games), or even abreviated english (your favourite
Anyone who argues against a richer, fuller user interface (once past the initial, and short, time as a newbie -- I only spent a few months learning Linux related things, but I have spent years using those skills effectively) for one that is 100% GUI is obviously not thinking in terms of the big picture..
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I have a blind friend using Emacspeak who absolutely loves it. I have heard it myself. It is not merely a screen-reader. And it doesn't require special hardware. She has an ordinary sound card. I think it's great that the free software community is giving attention to blind users. I can't say that I'm surprised. Free software as a development model is clearly superior in serving smaller niche markets.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
> This is one area that the microsoft windows
> crowd have an advantage in - from my research
> the partially sighted find it easier to use a
> split screen to use the computer, the top half
> shows a normal view, which is good enough for
> seeing if something is flashing or a new window
> has popped up and the bottom half shows a
> magnified view area taken from the top.
This could be a good application of multi-head technology, such as XFree86's new "xinerama": "Overview" desktop on the left, "magnified" desktop on the right.
Slightly more expensive than splitting a single monitor, but possibly more comfortable?
Sounds good to me, anyway!
-Andy
http://www.gimbo.org.uk/
I'm a WinDoze (no flames please) engineer and I work on reading software for the blind and learning disabled (the Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 products offered by Lernout & Hauspie). One of the nice parts of writing such software for Windows is that the off-screen model is fully documented and available for your use. A couple years ago Microsoft added a set of API's called Active Accessibility which at first were so-so, but which have improved over the last two revisions. Windows may not be the greatest OS, but it does offer the programmer some very nice accessibility features. I know many blind people that have grown to really like Windows because of the products available to them. In my experience, the blind computer users I've run into tend to be very technical and understand the issues surrounding their use of a computer. Most choose Windows because of the effort that has gone into making it accessible.
Please note I'm not trying to pump up Windows. I use both Linux and Windows at home and both are useful for different purposes. I did send this article on to a few blind people I know. Hopefully one or more will try this distro out and let me know how well it works.
Since you made the assertion that it's difficult to use, I assume you've tried it...?
In the past, I've created books-on-tape for a blind acquaintance. This person has a tape playback mechanism which speeds the playback up to something like 8x the original speed, and they can still understand what's being said. Once someone is used to something like that, they can easily comprehend a long error message in no time. If non-blind people can read it with no problem, then, in my experience, blind people can hear it with no problem.
There's even a significant precendent for blind developers. Even Microsoft Visual Studio has an "Optimize menus for screen readers" option (or something like that).
Herbie J.
I am amazed by this thread. First, there are blind hackers out there. They are the primary force behind the distribution. Second, M$ is not the blind person's friend. Microslop revealed their true color with Internet Explorer 4. The product broke almost every screen reader on the market. I know of only one company claiming to not have suffered. They didn't suffer because they don't use the "off screen model." M$ will break the thing again when it is expediant. Also, many items are NOT accessible to blind users. There are numerous programs that sort of are accessible. I live with a blind person. There are buttons in a large number of programs that are not accessible, and or don't read. And some of them are needed to make setting changes. Third, for those who don't know, blind people are making use of XWindows programs even without having access to X. But most things use X only as a front end to a program that can otherwise work. This fact makes it a better platform. Lastly, at least in Linux one can access the code. If something doesn't work, then the people doing development can go in and find why and work on that. Speech in Linux is going into the kernel. That has never happened in the M$ world. 1Tree
Besides, whats so cryptic about usind "rm" instead of "remove" and "*" instead of "all". The Linux version is way more flexible about the "all" part (not that my example does not delete all files, just JPEG images!), and no-one prevents you from setting up "remove" as a alias for "rm" (which is used merely because it's quicker to type).
When a Windows program wants to offer the functionality of complicated (and yes, cryptic) Unix commands like "grep", it needs a screenful of menus, checkboxes and radiobuttons which is totally unusable for a blind person and still not as powerful as the Linux command.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
RyanS
No. For them, Linux is a much better operating system than Windows or Mac OS for one simple reason: under Linux, everything can be done through a text interface. How do you expect a blind person to use a graphical user interface? If it's text, it can simply be displayed on a Braille terminal.
I mean, it's a really cool tool for hackers and nerds, but for normal use
That's the keyword: normal. A blind person can simply not use a computer the same way everyone else can.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger