Assumes you have Windows 8 or later, which greatly improved the built-in accessibility features.
COLOUR
Turn on Windows Magnifier. Set it to 100% - that is, no magnification. But in Settings, check on "Turn on colour inversion". Your screen is now mainly white-on-black and less glaring.
Option: Instead, select one of the High Contrast themes. Not all applications will respect this, however (Chrome offers you a High Contrast extension, for example).
TEXT SIZE - GLOBAL
Reduce your screen resolution (not the text scaling, the actual number of pixels horizontally and vertically). This works fine in every application, where changing the text scaling doesn't work across every application. It's the simple fix I employ most often.
Option: also check out the Display > Change the text size only options, which give you bigger title bars and suchlike.
TEXT SIZE - PER APPLICATION
Yeah, this is the tricky one. You don't want to have to scroll left and right: as you say, "make things fit inside the screen".
Microsoft Office - zoom controls, bottom right of each application, combined with "Draft" or "Read" modes in recent versions to give you more text and less pretty whitespace on the screen.
Browsers - check for "Readability" functions, either built in or as extensions: page loads, you click on them, text all fills the screen, flowing and readable and sizable without left-right scrolling. "Reader View" is the one in Firefox, icon in the address box. "Reading View" in Edge, same effect. The Readability extension in Chrome.
Option: try using the mobile versions of websites, like mobile.facebook.com, which have simpler layouts assuming less horizontal space and therefore zoom better.
PDF - Adobe Reader - F4 to make PDFs reflow, normal zoom controls then zoom text without left/right scrolling.
NEXT STEPS
Your vision may degrade further as you age. Check out NVDA (open-source free screenreader) and WindowEyes (commercial but available for free for anyone with a copy of Microsoft Office).
I work in assistive technology and have developed the open-source WebbIE software for fourteen years for blind screenreader users: http://www.webbie.org.uk/
Fine motor control? So gross is okay, can move arms or legs in a big way, but not fine finger movement? The general term is "Assistive Technology".
Use built-in system adaptations: change mouse sensitivity, keyboard repeat rate, use the numeric keypad to move the mouse. See Control Panel > Ease of Access Center in Windows. "Make the mouse easier to use" and "Make the keyboard easier to use". http://www.microsoft.com/enabl...
Not use a keyboard? Probably up to using an "on-screen keyboard" and "switching". There's an OSK in Windows, 7 and later is OK, before then not so good. Many others, The Grid 2 is probably the best. http://sensorysoftware.com/gri.... You'll find at this point that everything is starting to look very "special needs" - the market usually addresses people with cognitive as well as physical problems, and starts to get called "AAC". But the technology is in there. You might also want to check out switching with an iPad/iPhone - recent iOS releases have fantastic switching capacity built in. Proloquo2Go is the most famous iOS app. It's expensive for an app, but it's dirt cheap compared to dedicated hardware solutions (like Stephen Hawking stuff)
In the USA? Try finding your state's Assistive Technology Resource Center. In the UK? ACE Centre is good, http://acecentre.org.uk/.
Key thing: usually people put off acquiring and learning to use the technology until it is too late, because it's too depressing. The medical channels for getting this stuff are often slow (at least in my country, the UK) so if your friend has a progressive, degenerative disease, you might be best going with something you can get right away and is not too off-putting - if you get an iPad and use that, you can get it right now and it doesn't have as much stigma as an obviously medical device. Many of these conditions have a very limited lifespan, so you need to get something soon if it's going to be useful.
It's also worth noting that switching is really slow and painful for someone who is used to normal usage, and that the role of the main carer/partner is essential in successful adoption of this kind of technology.
(Quick whirlwind notes from a technical rather than medical guy, excuse any slightly-off nomenclature. And your friend might just need to adjust her Windows settings, and I've leapt to much more "advanced" systems than she needs - but you don't think a trackball will cut it, and she's clearly been normal up to now, so I'm thinking the worst...)
We do a similar piece of software that tracks your face movement: it's free, and you can get it from http://www.facemouse.co.uk/
Install (Windows only), run, position your head facing ahead at the webcam, and then move the mouse around by turning and raising/lowering your head. There are two versions, one that click automatically when you stop moving your head and one that doesn't (so you can use another dwell program of your choice.)
evolution by definition increases the survivability of the species.
That's not correct. Biology is full of species that have evolved to fill particular niches, like the panda or flightless birds on islands. When the niche disappears the species becomes extinct. So evolution is perfectly capable of reducing survivability, depending on the timescale you're measuring and the area you're studying. Generalists survive, then specialise into the new, vacant niches in their local environment.
Looks great - to me, with good vision. But can't Slashdot seize the opportunity to improve the accessibility of the site for blind fellow geeks?
Looking at the HTML, here's two really simple things that would really help:
A skip links link at the very top of the page code: there are long, long stretches of forms and links to plough through if you can't see the main content in the center of the screen and have to go through it line by line.
Use the LABEL elements properly: they're not for layout as such, they're for indicating what bit of text is associated with with form element. They're used in some places - but they're broken! What's the point of getting rid of tables ("They're, like, confusing content and presentation!") and then using broken CSS (FIELDSET elements with blank LEGEND child elements and unattached LABEL elements used, erm, for presentation)?
I develop a free web browser for blind people called WebbIE) but I think these suggestions would help JAWS and WindowEyes screenreader users, IBM Homepage Reader users and everyone with non-visual browsers. How about it? Show everyone how it should be done!
Your examples are good ones, but there are "Joe Average" uses of CMYK. For example, I often prepare publicity material for local drama societies, but I can't do the final convert-to-CMYK-and-optimise with GIMP before I send the file off to the printer for programmes, fliers and posters, so I have to stick to a fairly limited palette. Any printing requires CMYK, and lots of people want to print. Still love GIMP though, and the user interface seems much friendlier since I tried to use Blender...
Not sure if they're selling it, but I have the HPLHS cast recording of A SHOGGOTH ON THE ROOF, the brilliant re-writing of A FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, orginally by Bock, Harnick and Stein. The rewrite is by He Who (For Legal Reasons) Must Not Be Named.
Henry Armitage, opening the show: "A Shoggoth on the Roof. Sounds crazy? No, certifiably insane!... It's not easy having a shapeless, malevolent monster hanging over your head like that, but there it is... A big monster like that, on such a pointy roof, you may how it stays up there? That I can tell you in one word: TENTACLES!" Chorus of Old Ones and Townfolk: "Tentacles, Tentacles! Tentacles, Tentacles!"
My favourite is "To Life, to life, I'll bring them! I'll bring all these bodies to life!" It's hilarious if you're into both FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and Cthulu, which is admittedly a select group...
If Mozilla and IE know what elem.innerHTML is and can render it, why can a screenreader not work like a real goddamned web browser?
Remember that a screen reader has to handle many other applications other than yours: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Windows Explorer, all with different Document Object Models, accessibility APIs, data and presentation models... And every new version of Windows changes how the screen reader has to operate. And every new funky application needs some new approach: sure, you can handle HTML, but now here comes Flash and it'll be four years before they address accessibility...
One alternative is to piggy-back on existing applications: I write a web browser for blind people (http://www.webbie.org.uk/) that uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer WebBrowser ActiveX component internally, so it does all the heavy lifting in terms of parsing, handling events and so on. Of course, I still can't do anything about websites that demand that onmouseover is the way to operate their pages! (There is a Mozilla equivalent (http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm) but it does not appear to support all the (proprietary?) DOM features I need to use to handle complex websites designed for sighted people.) Even with this component doing all the hard work it's still difficult to present a web page in a way that is usable, not just accessible.
If you're designing a website, remember: blind people will try to use your website and if you help them out you're doing the Right Thing, even if it takes more time and effort. You have printed and other alternatives to the Web: blind people often don't. Only 5% (RNIB UK figures) of print sources get produced in an accessible format. Compare that to billions of (potentially) accessible web pages and you can see how the web can be great for blind people. Please do your bit!
#2: British gas - privacy rules prevented it from helping an elderly couple who were found dead of hypothermia in their home last winter, weeks after their gas service was cut off due to nonpayment of a 140-pound ($255) bill.
So British Gas gets an "Invasive" award for not passing personal information to the state? But Margaret Hodge gets a "Worst Public Servant" awards for requiring the National Health Service to pass personal information to the state?
This is having your cake and eating it. The defence for greater integration of computer systems and greater sharing of private information is just these situations: if private companies or government agencies are allowed to share information, then problems such as old people not able to pay their bills can be resolved and they wouldn't be dead.
One of the key factors is motivation. As a sighted user, you will probably find a screen reader slow, frustrating and difficult to use. As a non-sighted user you will have the same problems but you won't have any other choice so you'll grit your teeth and learn to make the most of it. Of course, this is not quite true: your other choice is not to use the technology, which is sadly the fate of many funky projects and prototypes that require too much effort on the part of the user to be worthwhile to use. The Tyflos sounds like an interesting project, and I hope doesn't end up abandoned like so many others.
Blind people can already take advantage of print-to-speech "reading machines", such as VERA, but a portable one sounds great.
Anyone with Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP has a basic screen reader built into their operating system. Press Windows key and U and Windows Narrator will start up. Try closing your eyes, opening notepad and writing a letter... Hint: the Control key makes it shut up.
I can provide a supporting anecdote for the cycling. When we were camping with the Boy Scouts in Scotland some of our troop discovered that holding on to the electric fence produced a repetitive shock. Holding someone else's nose with the other hand passed the shock on through their nose...
In an unrelated incident in Denmark, camping with the Scouts again, I hung my damp towel on an electic fence to dry. Gave me some nasty moments picking it up.
In both cases the shocks were unpleasant, but not hugely disorienting or stunning.
Has any work been done to allow the Moz renderer to be embedded into other applications the same way that IE can be?
I've dropped this Mozilla ActiveX control into my Visual Basic project using WebBrowser, and it seemed to work just fine. I didn't do any major testing, though.
Indeed most US patent applications are published 18 months after the filing date, for precisely this purpose. You can see some examples on my web page [patents.com].
That's great, and it's unfair to use you as an example since you've been good enough to volunteer yourself - but "20030143358: Vehicle floor mats"? You've patented a floor mat pack which the customer can cut to size? Forgive me, but I don't see that as very innovative. Now I might be wrong and it might be the most novel invention ever, but can you hand-on-heart admit that if I (say) found a good prior art example and posted it to the Patent Office, the patent would be revoked? Or would it cost thousands of dollars of legal fees and a court time to make the same point? And how exactly does the world benefit from your monopoly on cut-to-size mats? Does it encourage your client to invest in research and development on floor mats, knowing their inventions will provide benefit? Or does it let them charge more for their product, protected from competition by law? I know these aren't mutually exclusive things, so let's put another way: what R&D expenditure lead to this breakthrough over and above that required for normal competition in the market, and how much expenditure would be cut if the patent was lost? Would "none" be a reasonable answer to both questions? And if so, again, what is the benefit to society of your artificial monopoly?
I write software to help blind people to access web pages. It does not take a great deal of effort to make a website usable for a blind person with the right technology: for example, the single biggest problem is missing ALT tags on images. You can't tell me that this is a big deal.
Most web technologies have accessibility features: Macromedia has just added them to Flash, Sun has a Java/applet program, good HTML is accessible from the start, and so on. What they need are you guys writing web pages to use them. A couple minutes here and there and you open up one more site to the millions of blind and visually impaired people. Doesn't your cool site deserve to be accessed by as many people as possible?
Finally, the vast majority of people with visual impairments (75% in the United Kingdom) are over sixty-five: blindness is the result of age-related conditions in the vast majority of cases. And we all get old. You - yes, you there, whinging about adding ALT tags to your images - are almost certainly going to suffer some kind of visual impairment, and those sexy tiny little graphic buttons aren't going to seem too cool then, are they?
But Shakespeare is often ambiguous or very difficult, and requires either very smart people or good actors to understand. That's no good for email or chat. Do you have to parse an entire play to depict a VR HAMLET?
Besides, Shakey used simple markup too: bad people are ugly, good people are cute.
PS "way FEWER words", and don't split your infinitives. Illiteracy is quite relative sometimes.
Slashdot Mirror
Assumes you have Windows 8 or later, which greatly improved the built-in accessibility features.
COLOUR
Turn on Windows Magnifier. Set it to 100% - that is, no magnification. But in Settings, check on "Turn on colour inversion". Your screen is now mainly white-on-black and less glaring.
Option: Instead, select one of the High Contrast themes. Not all applications will respect this, however (Chrome offers you a High Contrast extension, for example).
TEXT SIZE - GLOBAL
Reduce your screen resolution (not the text scaling, the actual number of pixels horizontally and vertically). This works fine in every application, where changing the text scaling doesn't work across every application. It's the simple fix I employ most often.
Option: also check out the Display > Change the text size only options, which give you bigger title bars and suchlike.
TEXT SIZE - PER APPLICATION
Yeah, this is the tricky one. You don't want to have to scroll left and right: as you say, "make things fit inside the screen".
Microsoft Office - zoom controls, bottom right of each application, combined with "Draft" or "Read" modes in recent versions to give you more text and less pretty whitespace on the screen.
Browsers - check for "Readability" functions, either built in or as extensions: page loads, you click on them, text all fills the screen, flowing and readable and sizable without left-right scrolling. "Reader View" is the one in Firefox, icon in the address box. "Reading View" in Edge, same effect. The Readability extension in Chrome.
Option: try using the mobile versions of websites, like mobile.facebook.com, which have simpler layouts assuming less horizontal space and therefore zoom better.
PDF - Adobe Reader - F4 to make PDFs reflow, normal zoom controls then zoom text without left/right scrolling.
NEXT STEPS
Your vision may degrade further as you age. Check out NVDA (open-source free screenreader) and WindowEyes (commercial but available for free for anyone with a copy of Microsoft Office).
I work in assistive technology and have developed the open-source WebbIE software for fourteen years for blind screenreader users: http://www.webbie.org.uk/
Fine motor control? So gross is okay, can move arms or legs in a big way, but not fine finger movement? The general term is "Assistive Technology".
Use built-in system adaptations: change mouse sensitivity, keyboard repeat rate, use the numeric keypad to move the mouse. See Control Panel > Ease of Access Center in Windows. "Make the mouse easier to use" and "Make the keyboard easier to use". http://www.microsoft.com/enabl...
Tremors? http://www.steadymouse.com/ to dampen mouse movement.
Move the mouse using a trackball, can't click? Dwell clicker. http://sensorysoftware.com/mor...
Could move a game controller or joystick, not the mouse? JoyToKey http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/2/...
Can move head? Cameramouse, http://cameramouse.org/
Not use a keyboard? Probably up to using an "on-screen keyboard" and "switching". There's an OSK in Windows, 7 and later is OK, before then not so good. Many others, The Grid 2 is probably the best. http://sensorysoftware.com/gri.... You'll find at this point that everything is starting to look very "special needs" - the market usually addresses people with cognitive as well as physical problems, and starts to get called "AAC". But the technology is in there. You might also want to check out switching with an iPad/iPhone - recent iOS releases have fantastic switching capacity built in. Proloquo2Go is the most famous iOS app. It's expensive for an app, but it's dirt cheap compared to dedicated hardware solutions (like Stephen Hawking stuff)
Operate one control only? http://www.webbie.org.uk/onesw...
In the USA? Try finding your state's Assistive Technology Resource Center. In the UK? ACE Centre is good, http://acecentre.org.uk/.
Key thing: usually people put off acquiring and learning to use the technology until it is too late, because it's too depressing. The medical channels for getting this stuff are often slow (at least in my country, the UK) so if your friend has a progressive, degenerative disease, you might be best going with something you can get right away and is not too off-putting - if you get an iPad and use that, you can get it right now and it doesn't have as much stigma as an obviously medical device. Many of these conditions have a very limited lifespan, so you need to get something soon if it's going to be useful.
It's also worth noting that switching is really slow and painful for someone who is used to normal usage, and that the role of the main carer/partner is essential in successful adoption of this kind of technology.
(Quick whirlwind notes from a technical rather than medical guy, excuse any slightly-off nomenclature. And your friend might just need to adjust her Windows settings, and I've leapt to much more "advanced" systems than she needs - but you don't think a trackball will cut it, and she's clearly been normal up to now, so I'm thinking the worst...)
We do a similar piece of software that tracks your face movement: it's free, and you can get it from http://www.facemouse.co.uk/
Install (Windows only), run, position your head facing ahead at the webcam, and then move the mouse around by turning and raising/lowering your head. There are two versions, one that click automatically when you stop moving your head and one that doesn't (so you can use another dwell program of your choice.)
evolution by definition increases the survivability of the species.
That's not correct. Biology is full of species that have evolved to fill particular niches, like the panda or flightless birds on islands. When the niche disappears the species becomes extinct. So evolution is perfectly capable of reducing survivability, depending on the timescale you're measuring and the area you're studying. Generalists survive, then specialise into the new, vacant niches in their local environment.
Looks great - to me, with good vision. But can't Slashdot seize the opportunity to improve the accessibility of the site for blind fellow geeks?
Looking at the HTML, here's two really simple things that would really help:
I develop a free web browser for blind people called WebbIE) but I think these suggestions would help JAWS and WindowEyes screenreader users, IBM Homepage Reader users and everyone with non-visual browsers. How about it? Show everyone how it should be done!
Why are everybody so obsessed with CMYK?
Your examples are good ones, but there are "Joe Average" uses of CMYK. For example, I often prepare publicity material for local drama societies, but I can't do the final convert-to-CMYK-and-optimise with GIMP before I send the file off to the printer for programmes, fliers and posters, so I have to stick to a fairly limited palette. Any printing requires CMYK, and lots of people want to print. Still love GIMP though, and the user interface seems much friendlier since I tried to use Blender...
Not sure if they're selling it, but I have the HPLHS cast recording of A SHOGGOTH ON THE ROOF, the brilliant re-writing of A FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, orginally by Bock, Harnick and Stein. The rewrite is by He Who (For Legal Reasons) Must Not Be Named.
... It's not easy having a shapeless, malevolent monster hanging over your head like that, but there it is... A big monster like that, on such a pointy roof, you may how it stays up there? That I can tell you in one word: TENTACLES!"
Henry Armitage, opening the show:
"A Shoggoth on the Roof. Sounds crazy? No, certifiably insane!
Chorus of Old Ones and Townfolk:
"Tentacles, Tentacles! Tentacles, Tentacles!"
My favourite is "To Life, to life, I'll bring them! I'll bring all these bodies to life!" It's hilarious if you're into both FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and Cthulu, which is admittedly a select group...
It's possible that it also replaces outlandish words like "cookies" with more familiar terms like "biscuits".
Thank-you, that's the funniest thing I've ever read on Slashdot.
If Mozilla and IE know what elem.innerHTML is and can render it, why can a screenreader not work like a real goddamned web browser?
Remember that a screen reader has to handle many other applications other than yours: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, Windows Explorer, all with different Document Object Models, accessibility APIs, data and presentation models... And every new version of Windows changes how the screen reader has to operate. And every new funky application needs some new approach: sure, you can handle HTML, but now here comes Flash and it'll be four years before they address accessibility...
One alternative is to piggy-back on existing applications: I write a web browser for blind people (http://www.webbie.org.uk/) that uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer WebBrowser ActiveX component internally, so it does all the heavy lifting in terms of parsing, handling events and so on. Of course, I still can't do anything about websites that demand that onmouseover is the way to operate their pages! (There is a Mozilla equivalent (http://www.iol.ie/~locka/mozilla/mozilla.htm) but it does not appear to support all the (proprietary?) DOM features I need to use to handle complex websites designed for sighted people.) Even with this component doing all the hard work it's still difficult to present a web page in a way that is usable, not just accessible.
If you're designing a website, remember: blind people will try to use your website and if you help them out you're doing the Right Thing, even if it takes more time and effort. You have printed and other alternatives to the Web: blind people often don't. Only 5% (RNIB UK figures) of print sources get produced in an accessible format. Compare that to billions of (potentially) accessible web pages and you can see how the web can be great for blind people. Please do your bit!
#2: British gas - privacy rules prevented it from helping an elderly couple who were found dead of hypothermia in their home last winter, weeks after their gas service was cut off due to nonpayment of a 140-pound ($255) bill.
So British Gas gets an "Invasive" award for not passing personal information to the state? But Margaret Hodge gets a "Worst Public Servant" awards for requiring the National Health Service to pass personal information to the state?
This is having your cake and eating it. The defence for greater integration of computer systems and greater sharing of private information is just these situations: if private companies or government agencies are allowed to share information, then problems such as old people not able to pay their bills can be resolved and they wouldn't be dead.
Of course, this is not quite true: your other choice is not to use the technology, which is sadly the fate of many funky projects and prototypes that require too much effort on the part of the user to be worthwhile to use. The Tyflos sounds like an interesting project, and I hope doesn't end up abandoned like so many others.
Blind people can already take advantage of print-to-speech "reading machines", such as VERA, but a portable one sounds great.
Anyone with Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP has a basic screen reader built into their operating system. Press Windows key and U and Windows Narrator will start up. Try closing your eyes, opening notepad and writing a letter... Hint: the Control key makes it shut up.
I can provide a supporting anecdote for the cycling. When we were camping with the Boy Scouts in Scotland some of our troop discovered that holding on to the electric fence produced a repetitive shock. Holding someone else's nose with the other hand passed the shock on through their nose...
In an unrelated incident in Denmark, camping with the Scouts again, I hung my damp towel on an electic fence to dry. Gave me some nasty moments picking it up.
In both cases the shocks were unpleasant, but not hugely disorienting or stunning.
Good news: it's fixed in Office XP (Excel 2002 SP2). Selecting Sort highlights all the content in your table by default.
Has any work been done to allow the Moz renderer to be embedded into other applications the same way that IE can be?
I've dropped this Mozilla ActiveX control into my Visual Basic project using WebBrowser, and it seemed to work just fine. I didn't do any major testing, though.
Indeed most US patent applications are published 18 months after the filing date, for precisely this purpose. You can see some examples on my web page [patents.com].
That's great, and it's unfair to use you as an example since you've been good enough to volunteer yourself - but "20030143358: Vehicle floor mats"? You've patented a floor mat pack which the customer can cut to size? Forgive me, but I don't see that as very innovative. Now I might be wrong and it might be the most novel invention ever, but can you hand-on-heart admit that if I (say) found a good prior art example and posted it to the Patent Office, the patent would be revoked? Or would it cost thousands of dollars of legal fees and a court time to make the same point? And how exactly does the world benefit from your monopoly on cut-to-size mats? Does it encourage your client to invest in research and development on floor mats, knowing their inventions will provide benefit? Or does it let them charge more for their product, protected from competition by law? I know these aren't mutually exclusive things, so let's put another way: what R&D expenditure lead to this breakthrough over and above that required for normal competition in the market, and how much expenditure would be cut if the patent was lost? Would "none" be a reasonable answer to both questions? And if so, again, what is the benefit to society of your artificial monopoly?
I write software to help blind people to access web pages. It does not take a great deal of effort to make a website usable for a blind person with the right technology: for example, the single biggest problem is missing ALT tags on images. You can't tell me that this is a big deal.
Most web technologies have accessibility features: Macromedia has just added them to Flash, Sun has a Java/applet program, good HTML is accessible from the start, and so on. What they need are you guys writing web pages to use them. A couple minutes here and there and you open up one more site to the millions of blind and visually impaired people. Doesn't your cool site deserve to be accessed by as many people as possible?
Finally, the vast majority of people with visual impairments (75% in the United Kingdom) are over sixty-five: blindness is the result of age-related conditions in the vast majority of cases. And we all get old. You - yes, you there, whinging about adding ALT tags to your images - are almost certainly going to suffer some kind of visual impairment, and those sexy tiny little graphic buttons aren't going to seem too cool then, are they?
But Shakespeare is often ambiguous or very difficult, and requires either very smart people or good actors to understand. That's no good for email or chat. Do you have to parse an entire play to depict a VR HAMLET?
Besides, Shakey used simple markup too: bad people are ugly, good people are cute.
PS "way FEWER words", and don't split your infinitives. Illiteracy is quite relative sometimes.
Alasdair