Apple unveils Spoken Interface for blind OS X users
By Peter Cohen
[log in to unmask]
March 17, 2004 8:00 am ET

Apple has introduced a new accessibility solution for visually impaired
users that it will integrate with the next major release of Mac OS X. The
company
took the wraps off of the new technology today: It's called
Spoken Interface for Mac OS X.
To find out more, MacCentral recently spoke with Mike Shebanek, Apple
product manager for Mac OS X.

Spoken Interface provides a combination of speech, audible cues and keyboard
navigation to help blind users navigate Mac OS X with the same ease of use
as sighted users have. Users can manage access to the Dock, menu items, tool
bars, palettes and other on-screen objects, pressing buttons, activating
sliders
and checkboxes, selecting radio buttons, and using all the other interface
elements of Mac OS X and its applications.

Long history of accessibility support

"Apple has a long history of working on solutions for accessibility straight
back through the Apple II," Shebanek told MacCentral.

Evidence of that is apparent today with the "Universal Access" system
preferences pane built into Mac OS X, which enables users with sight,
hearing and
motor problems to more easily and effectively use the Mac.

Third-party applications have also long been available to assist Mac users,
as well. There's a category of software applications called screen readers
that
attempt to "speak" what's going on on the screen, handy for people who
functionally blind -- but those applications have, by and large, not
migrated to
Mac OS X.

Apple's solution to the problem is Spoken Interface, which Apple says is a
more effective solution than a third-party application.

"Those apps have been after-the-fact solutions," Shebanek said. "They've
always been bolted on to the operating system by third parties and have had
to
play catchup when changes are made. Apple is building this into the
operating system instead."

Preview release

Spoken Interface is being released now as a preview version -- by filling
out a form on the Spoken Interface Web site, users can gain access to a
preview
release build, Shebanek said. When Apple releases its next major revision to
Mac OS X, Spoken Interface will be included.

The preview release will also feature applications that have been enhanced
for Spoken Interface accessibility, including Safari, Mail, TextEdit and
system
preferences. Shebanek told MacCentral that third-party support for Spoken
Interface is a relatively simple proposition, as well.

"If [developers] have been using the Cocoa frameworks to develop their
applications, they're about 90 percent of the way there already," Shebanek
said.

Apple has been working on a special accessibility application programming
interface (API) that was introduced with the Panther introduction at WWDC
2003.
Shebanek said that Apple has been telling developers to use the technology
since then.

Ease of use

Because Spoken Interface is built in to the operating system, it won't
require users to install anything separately when it's released in its final
form.
And it provides a single set of key-commands to use to provide a unified,
consistent user interface.

Shebanek said that Spoken Interface utilizes the F1 through F4 keys on the
keyboard as "orientation keys." Pressing them will describe to the user
where
in the interface they are and what they're doing. An integrated help system
and a contextual menu system provide further access and information.

Spoken Interface also integrates with Mac OS X's existing Universal Access
capabilities, so users who are already dependent on those functions don't
need
to relearn how they work.

Spoken Interface uses Mac OS X's built-in text-to-speech capabilities to
describe much of what's going on. Visually impaired users can often listen
to speech
at a much faster rate than normally sighted users, so Apple has retuned the
voices in its text-to-speech technology to be more clear at a faster rate.

"Apple has listened to its customers with Spoken Interface for Mac OS X,"
said Shebanek. "We knew we could do a great job on this, and develop
something
that our customers would expect for the Mac platform."

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