-------------------- Signs of progress grow --------------------

`Eye' programs for Windows open computers to blind users

By Lamont Wood Special to the Tribune

September 9, 2002

A computer's graphical interface is intuitive and user-friendly, if you
can see the screen.

But if you can't, there are many tools available to help visually
impaired computer users solve that problem.

"When I went to law school [before the advent of PCs] I had nothing but
live readers--my family members read to me until they could not talk any
more," said Roxanne Calibraro, director of the alternative dispute
resolution division of the Chicago Better Business Bureau. "Now I can lay
a book page on a flatbed scanner and my computer reads it to me."

Allen Maynard used to rely on paid readers to help him manage his
finances. "Now I pay bills online and use a scanner to read my mail,"
said the technology specialist at the Hadley School for the Blind in
Winnetka.

What has made the difference for people like Calibraro and Maynard has
been the advent of screen-reading software for Microsoft Windows, said
Dave Porter, head of Comp-unique Inc., a Chicago computer services firm.
Such software, speaking with a synthesized voice, can describe the
contents of the screen, allowing a blind person to use a Windows program.
If there is a picture, it can't tell you what it depicts, but it can at
least tell you that a picture is present, Porter said.

Another popular screen-reading program is JAWS for Windows from Freedom
Scientific Inc. of St. Petersburg, Fla. ( www.freedomscientific.com).
There's also Windows-Eyes by GW Micro Inc. of Ft. Wayne, Ind. (
www.gwmicro.com).

Having the screen described to you, instead of looking at it, results in
a very different approach to PC use, Porter said.

"You [a sighted person] see the screen and zoom in on what you see in
milliseconds," he noted. "We have to do the opposite--to absorb what's on
the screen we have to start at one point and build a mental picture of
what the screen is doing. But the process can be fast if you know what
you are looking for."

He praised Microsoft for including keyboard equivalents for almost all
mouse commands, and for pressuring third-party software developers to
include keyboard equivalents.

"The end result is that when a blind person learns it, they are often
faster on the computer than a sighted person, because they have had to
learn what works, plus how it works," he said.

Porter is also involved with the Visually Impaired Midwest Adaptive
Technology Exchange, a group that promotes adaptive computer technology.

That's not to say the learning process is easy. "Learning to use the
computer is a commitment. You really have to want to do it, and you have
to devote some time to it each day," Calibraro said.

And then there's the Internet.

"It's still difficult to navigate," Calibraro said. "I can fill out
forms, but I feel I am missing a lot with the pictures, since the pages
rarely describe them, and the ads are usually visual. "Still, I am doing
things that I could not imagine doing 10 years ago."


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