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Developing PC's for the Legally Blind?
Jon asks: "My father is legally blind, to the point of not being able to see more then just a vague
shadow, if even that. His one hope has always been to use a computer. I've decided to
build him a PC that would allow him to send and receive email as well as read the weather
to him, yet not require any voice recognition. Input would be done by showing him where
certain function keys are and possible putting special marks he can learn on the rest of
the keys. Has any of the slashdot readers tackeled a project like this before? I've seen several projects, yet none that seem like a good solution, or are not complete. Any insight you have would be greatly appreciated."
probably because Voice recognition isn't all that reliable. Guy gets a headcold or answers the phone and suddenly things don't work all that well.
I'm kinda thinking if there would be some way to make a brail "Screen" of some sort. A large array of pixels that could be raised and lowered to form brail markings and possibly other shaped (like boxes to outline function buttons and prompts).
Not really in the realm of do-it-yourself projects... at least not easily or cheaply... but should be possible somehow!
=Smidge=
I have worked on a computer that had screen readers installed for a user that was legally blind. It would read everything on the screen. "Mozilla. Title Bar. Slashdot. File Menu. File. Edit.." etc. Seemed like it would take a lot of concentration.
XP has some sort of narrator program built in, I believe.
Actually, before reading this article, I hadn't even thought about applying this type of technology to myself. Thanks for the eye opener MrIcee. But it is true. As we get older, this type of technology is going to become all to personal. I should really have considered it before, since I'm near sighted with over 13 points of loss so far. (If my glasses weren't this new carbon stuff, my glasses would be a little short of a 1/2 inch thick on the edges.)
Anyway, the first thing that came to mind was a vision of Sneakers, a movie from 1992, that included David Strathairn as Whistler, who was visually impaired. He read Playboy in Braille, and had a great box that let him read what was on the computer screen. It's not quite the same but I found something that can do the same thing. http://www.deafblind.com/display.html Unfortunately, these refreshable Braille displays are EXTREMELY expensive. I've been finding prices of about $5,000 to $12,000. They are also prone to breaking down.
By the way, does anyone know how hard it is to learn Braille? I've never tried. Is it something I should do now, while younger, or is it easy enough that I shouldn't worry until I go blind?
I also found a couple of solutions.. There is a company that sells both large print keyboards, http://hooleon.com/prod-vis.htm and Braile keyboards http://hooleon.com/prod-braille.htm. (Or you can get them both.)
I also found a couple of software packages that seem to be pretty common for reading text out loud off computer screens.
IBM Home Page Reader http://www-3.ibm.com/able/hpr.htmls .asp
pwWebSpeak http://www.soundlinks.com/pwgen.htm
Jaws http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_downloads/jaw
And last, but not least, since I am a bibliophile, I had to find some Braille e-books for download. http://library.utah.gov/web-braille.html But you have to be blind to sign up for the service.
I work at a computer lab at my school that is geared toward the disabled. We have a few blind students who use the systems. Mostly they use a program called JAWS, that is a screen reader. Using key combinations they are able to navigate the screen with pretty good results. As far as marking the keys goes, we have braille stickers over the keys. I beleive there is a GNU/Linux solution out there... BrailleSpeake I believe. It is a distro for the blind, you would probably have to set it up. It comes with a screen reader and built in support for touch devices. I hope this helps
My inner self is ineffable, so don't eff with me.