The following reports of blind people using adaptive technology to aid in
reading the computer screen is taken from the national publication of the
National Federation of the Blind's, May Braille Monitor which can be read
on the World Wide Web at
http://www.nfb.org/bm9805tc.htm
Past Braille Monitors may be read on the Web at
http://www.nfb.org/bralmons.htm
Jim.
Start of articles.





   [PHOTO/CAPTION: Tim Cranmer]

   [PHOTO/CAPTION: Deane Blazie]

   [PHOTO/CAPTION: Ted Henter]

                 Reporters Look at Technology for the Blind

   From the Editor: In recent weeks several prestigious newspapers and
   one distinguished magazine-format television news program have taken a
   considered look at various aspects of technology for the blind. The
   first to address the topic was the Louisville Courier Journal, which
   did a profile of long-time Federation leader Tim Cranmer in its
   Sunday, February 15, 1998, edition. Here is the story as it appeared:

   Visionary in a Sightless World
   Blind Inventor is Working on a Touchable Language
   by Bob Deitel

   Ideas and information literally whirred around Tim Cranmer as he sat
   in his small at-home office in Louisville.

   From a desktop scanner the pages of a book on physics were being
   methodically transferred to computer and then reprinted in Braille for
   Cranmer to read later. On the computer's screen flashed Cranmer's
   morning e-mail, the words being recited aloud by software that
   instantly converted the text into speech.

   Most ear-catching of all, however, were the thoughts Cranmer himself
   was offering.

   So much of science, he said, has involved turning the unseen into the
   visible. Microscopes and telescopes reveal incredible detail. Machines
   convert brain waves to drawings. All aim at uncovering new information
   by enhancing sight, he said.

   But what if science also could devise a way to represent images in a
   touchable, or tactile, way for people with impaired vision, Cranmer
   suggested. By starting with raised forms representing common objects,
   blind people might learn a new language to help them observe and
   understand the untouchable- from distant stars to tiny atoms.

   Like sight, touch is a unique window to the brain, Cranmer explained.
   What's needed are new tools to enhance that window.

   "I know what a dog, cat, rubber ball, and chair look like, but they
   aren't visual images-they are tactile images that I have acquired over
   the years. We have to find a way to invoke those memories that blind
   people have stored...and then go from there and begin to teach about
   other things," he said.

   "I think that's where we're going in the next millennium. I don't know
   that we'll be done by the end of it, but we're going to start. We are
   starting."

   And Tim Cranmer will rank high among the pioneers.

   He already has that distinction for many other innovations. Now
   seventy-three, Cranmer has spent much of his adult life thinking up or
   promoting technological advances, big and small, to help people
   who-like himself-are visually impaired.

   His earliest contributions date from 1952 to 1982, when he guided
   various Kentucky state services for the blind.

   Nearly forty years ago he devised the Cranmer Abacus, a variation on
   the ancient Oriental tool for using beads on wires to solve math
   problems. Cranmer's idea: add a felt backing to keep the beads from
   moving accidentally. Thousands are sold annually to blind people
   worldwide.

   In the early 1960's he came up with the Say When, a compact,
   battery-operated device that hangs over a drinking cup and signals
   when poured liquid nears the top.

   Around 1970 he devised a Braille display pad that could provide
   readings from electronic medical thermometers, timers, and
   calculators.

   In the mid-1970's Cranmer thought of modifying a computer to search a
   database of phone numbers and read out the numbers in sound and
   Braille. He had engineers work out the details, and the result was a
   talking telephone directory-first used by blind switchboard operators
   at the Universities of Louisville and Kentucky.

   Cranmer took the same tack to promote what eventually became the
   Cranmer Modified Perkins Braille Writer-the first electronic desktop
   Braille embosser. It did for blind readers what the dot-matrix
   computer printer did for the sighted.

   "My main interest has been in learning how things work and how we can
   change the way they are to make them serve a better purpose," said
   Cranmer, who shies away from being called an inventor. "I think the
   most important thing I do is to influence the work of others."

   And influence others he certainly has, said Marc Maurer, President of
   the National Federation of the Blind, the nation's largest advocacy
   group for the visually impaired.

   "Dr. Cranmer may be the best-known inventor dealing with blindness in
   the U.S.," Maurer said. "I think he is certainly the best-known blind
   inventor."

   His reputation may soon spread further. He was interviewed last month
   by the CBS News program "60 Minutes" for a planned segment about
   technology that helps people with disabilities.

   Although Cranmer officially retired sixteen years ago, he never has
   stopped working. He first persuaded the National Federation of the
   Blind to start a research department-which he then volunteered to
   head, at no pay.

   That in turn led to global conferences on technology for the blind. It
   also gave Cranmer a budget to pay for engineers to work on new ideas,
   including his own. One of Cranmer's early acts, Maurer recalled, was
   to convince the Federation that a talking computer could be developed
   for only $4,000. The ultimate cost neared $20,000, but the result was
   "the best technology for computers that existed anywhere," Maurer
   said.

   Cranmer's work duties today involve voluntarily heading the
   International Braille Research Center. Some travel to headquarters in
   Baltimore is necessary, but e-mail, phone, Internet, and fax let him
   handle most chores from his home.

   Married for forty-eight years, Cranmer and his wife Thelma live in a
   small house just outside St. Matthews. They raised one daughter Linda,
   now a school counselor in Scott County.

   Cranmer's talent for tinkering dates to his boyhood in Louisville's
   Portland neighborhood.

   He was the kind of kid who would dismantle clocks and locks to see how
   they worked. He would happily slice open a golf ball to learn how it
   bounced. At fourteen he sent away for books on chemistry after hearing
   that rust on an old pocket knife came from oxygen and iron.

   A combination of eye problems left him blind after he turned nine, and
   a lack of opportunity for blind people steered him away from his dream
   of being a scientist.

   Instead, he first made his living by playing piano for pay, making
   costume jewelry, and tuning and rebuilding pianos. He still plays
   piano and loves music, especially classical.

   His hair is white and wispy-thin, but his voice remains youthfully
   enthusiastic, and he flashes a wry and playful sense of humor.

   Educated at the Kentucky School for the Blind, Cranmer in 1979
   received an honorary doctorate in applied science from the University
   of Louisville. But of many honors through the years, he most cherishes
   two: when his name was attached to a National Federation of the Blind
   of Kentucky award given to people who enhance the lives of the blind
   and when he received the NFB of Kentucky's Susan B. Rarick Award for
   Service-an award named after one of Cranmer's first teachers.

   "I think recognition by blind people has meant more to me than
   anything else," he said.

   His lack of formal university training still astounds some of his
   friends, one of whom recalls having many a conversation with Cranmer
   about calculus before learning that Cranmer never took a calculus
   class.

   To encourage future blind scientists, Cranmer in recent years has
   helped lead an ongoing effort to standardize and consolidate the
   various Braille codes used in English-speaking countries. Different
   codes cover non-technical writing, computer notation, and math-science
   notation. Those Braille divisions create education limitations,
   Cranmer said.

   Which brings him back to his push for a new, touchable language to
   convey more knowledge and information.

   Much of what people learn is said to come from vision, Cranmer said,
   "but that's not true for blind people. So tactile image is an
   alternative. I think much of what is now passed on to sighted people,
   through sight, can be communicated through touch."

   It's a different way of looking at and making sense of the world, he
   said.

   Which is exactly how Tim Cranmer has pursued most of his seventy-three
   years.

   That was the Cranmer profile. Then, on March 26, the New York Times
   weighed in with its story about access to the World Wide Web for blind
   people. The reporter came to the National Federation of the Blind and
   spent a good bit of time in the International Braille and Technology
   Center at the National Center. She interviewed a number of people.
   Here is the story she wrote:

   Bringing the Visual World of the Web to the Blind
   by Debra Nussbaum

   Curtis Chong has been using the World Wide Web for three years to look
   up topics like music, fund-raising, and medical research. He also uses
   it as a way to teach and encourage other blind people to get on the
   Web.

   How does someone who cannot see the screen navigate the computer and
   Web, which is full of glitzy graphics and icons?

   Chong communicates all his commands through the keyboard. His printer
   prints in Braille. He uses the Internet Explorer 3.02 with a piece of
   software called a screen reader and a speech synthesizer to turn the
   written words on the screen into words spoken in a computer-generated
   voice.

   "We want to use the Web, and we want to use it like everybody else
   does," said Chong, director of technology for the National Federation
   of the Blind, based in Baltimore. "We don't believe the computer is
   the great equalizer for the blind, but it's one way to make our lives
   better."

   For the more than half-million blind people of working age in the
   United States, getting on the Web may not only mean being able to
   research topics of interest but may also be a necessary skill for
   staying employed.

   It certainly affects the jobs of thousands of blind people," said Gary
   Wunder, a blind man who is a senior computer programmer at the
   University of Missouri Hospitals and Clinics. He is required to use
   the Web in his job for project assignments and updates. "It isn't just
   optional anymore."

   While current statistics on the use of computers and the Web by blind
   and visually impaired people are hard to find, technology companies
   and advocacy organizations say the numbers are rapidly increasing.
   Tens of thousands of blind people are on computers, and every year
   more of them are learning to use the Web, Chong said.

   A 1991 study published by the American Foundation for the Blind in New
   York found that 43 percent of blind and severely visually impaired
   people were using the computer for writing, said Emilie Schmeidler,
   senior research associate for the foundation. Her impression is that
   more visually impaired people are using computers and the Web now, she
   said, and "more and more jobs require the computer."

   Being able to use the Web is critical to thousands of employed blind
   people.

   A screen reader or screen-access program like the one Chong uses is
   the translator that tells a speech synthesizer what to say when the
   visual icons are accompanied by a text description. "It's my white
   cane that helps me know what's on the screen," Chong said.

   Henter-Joyce, a company in St. Petersburg, Florida, that manufactures
   the popular screen reader called JAWS (Job Access With Speech) for
   Windows, has between 15,000 and 18,000 customers, said the company's
   president, Ted Henter. He said the customer base had increased four to
   five times since 1995.

   At least seven companies make the screen readers. Henter-Joyce's JAWS
   is one of the top sellers and costs about $795; the company's new
   version, to be released this spring, will include a speech
   synthesizer. The National Federation of the Blind Web site includes a
   computer-resource page that has information on how to get in contact
   with the companies that sell the readers.

   But getting the technology right is only one piece of the package. If
   Web pages do not have text that identifies graphics or if they have
   moving type, they will not be accessible. The World Wide Web
   Consortium, made up of universities, corporations, and research
   organizations and based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
   started a three-year project in 1997 called the Web Accessibility
   Initiative that is creating guidelines to make technology and Web
   pages more accessible to blind, deaf, and disabled users.

   The National Federation of the Blind has eight accessibility
   guidelines for Web pages that can be found on its Web site.

   The Center for Applied Special Technology, a nonprofit research and
   development organization in Peabody, Massachusetts, has a free service
   in which it analyzes Web sites and offers suggestions for their
   accessibility.

   The change from DOS, a text-based operating system, to Windows, a
   graphics-based operating system, was a setback for the blind.

   "The world enthusiastically embraced Windows, and we were left out,"
   said Wunder, who is also President of the Missouri chapter of the
   National Federation of the Blind. But in the last two and a half
   years, Microsoft "has shown concern and responsiveness" to the blind,
   Wunder said.

   Version 3.02 of Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer, includes a
   component called Microsoft Active Accessibility, a layer of codes that
   are compatible with accessibility aids like the screen reader. In
   addition to aiding blind users, these codes also hook into software
   that helps users who are deaf or have other disabilities.

   But a newer version, Internet Explorer 4.0, was released on October 1,
   1997, without the Active Accessibility component. Angry letters, phone
   calls, and e-mails let Luanne LaLonde, Microsoft's accessibility
   product manager, and others at Microsoft know that this was
   unacceptable.

   "We got a lot of e-mail," she said. In early November, about
   thirty-five days after the release of Explorer 4.0, Microsoft released
   Explorer 4.01, including Active Accessibility.

   Web page design, of course, is an element of accessibility. Vito
   DeSantis, manager of field operations for the southern regional office
   of the New Jersey Commission for the Blind, uses the Web to find
   research on the eye condition that has made it impossible for him to
   see the computer screen for the past three years. He also likes to
   read newspapers on the Web.

   For visually impaired Web users like DeSantis, the vertical columns on
   the Web present the biggest problem because screen readers pick up the
   information horizontally.

   "You have to really know how to navigate around the screen," DeSantis
   said. "I imagine quite a few people might get frustrated. Sometimes
   it's just not worth the effort."

   While screen readers help, Wunder said, "no screen reader has made the
   Web as easily accessible for the blind as for the sighted."

   Even with top-of-the-line screen readers, Web pages have to have text
   explanations for graphics and icons or the visually impaired computer
   user cannot move.

   "You get a screen, and it says, 'Image, image, image,'" Schmeidler
   said, quoting the sound her screen reader makes when the cursor hits
   an icon without accompanying text. "You have no idea how frustrating
   it is."

   In addition to the advice on making a Web page accessible from the
   National Federation of the Blind and the Center for Applied Special
   Technology, the World Wide Web Consortium has a group of volunteer
   computer experts who are leading the Web Accessibility Initiative. The
   group's goal is to write guidelines for Web page authors who want to
   make their pages accessible for all disabled users. A rough draft of
   the recommendations can be found on the consortium's Web site.

   "Everything is voluntary, and the documents are called
   recommendations," said Professor Gregg Vanderheiden, director of the
   Trace Research and Development Center at the University of Wisconsin
   at Madison and a member of the group. But for businesses and
   government agencies, making sites accessible may not be voluntary, he
   said.

   In a policy ruling in September, 1996, the Department of Justice said
   the Americans with Disabilities Act did cover access to Web pages.

   "A Web site is an electronic front door," Vanderheiden said. "But
   blind users often have to let individual Web page authors know that
   they can't understand their pages.

   "Sometimes people instantly go and fix it, and sometimes people don't
   care."

   Blind users say they want basic instruction on how to navigate the Web
   and get what they want. They do not need long descriptions that are
   intended to help them see pictures or other graphics.

   "Don't try to tell me how wonderful the Mona Lisa is," Wunder said.
   "You can't do that, but you can tell me how to get the picture and
   print it out for my daughter."

   Then on March 29 the CBS program, "60 Minutes," devoted a segment,
   narrated by program co-host Lesley Stahl, to technology innovations
   assisting the disabled. Parts of the story dealt with various new
   wheelchair designs developed by users, but the largest portion was
   devoted to technology for blind people. CBS is nothing if not
   thorough. The three minutes or so devoted to Tim Cranmer's work and
   life were culled from more than three and a half hours of tape, much
   of it recorded at the National Center for the Blind. Tim's rather acid
   comment about the experience was that, if he had realized they were
   going to filter out all references to the National Federation of the
   Blind and eliminate his clarifications of simple statements, he would
   never have agreed to submit to the interview. Here is the transcript
   of the relevant segment of the story:

   STAHL: (Voiceover) A blind person can't see when his coffee cup is
   filling up. But Tim Cranmer can, thanks to his own invention...

   TIM CRANMER: It's a Say When.

   (Footage of Cranmer with Stahl)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) ...the Say When.

   CRANMER: It lets you know when to stop pouring. So we put this over
   the thing.

   STAHL: Uh-huh.

   CRANMER: And then we pour. (Beeping sound) There you are.

   STAHL: Before you invented this...

   CRANMER: Yeah?

   STAHL: ...how would you know when you had gone to the top?

   CRANMER: You dip a pinky over the top, and you burn your finger.

   (Footage of Cranmer; Cranmer with Stahl; Braille 'n Speak;

   Cranmer using Braille 'n Speak)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) Tim Cranmer, blind from the age of nine, has come
   up with scores of inventions over the last forty years. Call him the
   Thomas Edison of devices for the blind. His crowning achievement is
   the Braille 'n Speak.

   CRANMER: Open a file.

   Computerized Voice: (From Braille 'n Speak) Option zero, one...

   STAHL: (Voiceover) It's a powerful-but very light,
   less-than-a-pound-portable computer with a Braille keyboard that blind
   people carry with them everywhere.

   STAHL: What have you stored in there? This is something you use. This
   is your own machine.

   CRANMER: I use this every day, yes. I have my database in here, all
   the telephone numbers and addresses since 1976. (Footage of Cranmer
   with Stahl; Cranmer using Braille 'n Speak)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) And his calendar, and a month's worth of reading.

   STAHL: You could store a whole book in there, for instance?

   CRANMER: Yes. I could store a novel. Right now I have the poetry of
   John Keats. That's just temporary. I'll erase that one of these days
   and replace it with War and Peace or something.

   STAHL: (Voiceover) Anything he puts into the Braille 'n Speak can be
   retrieved instantly, either in a computer-generated voice...

   CRANMER: I'll have it read that back.

   Computer Voice: (From Braille 'n Speak) My name is Lesley Stahl.

   STAHL: (Voiceover) ...or, with this advanced model, in Braille. These
   dots pop up and down on a display bar to form Braille letters.

   CRANMER: Now, you see, there is your name spelled, L-E-S-L-E-Y, right
   there.

   (Footage of Millicent Williams using Braille 'n Speak in class)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) From home, to the business world, to the classroom,
   the Braille 'n Speak is erasing a lot of the You-can't-do-thats for
   the blind. Without it Millicent Williams would have a hard time
   keeping up with her classmates at Georgia State University. With it
   she's probably taking better notes than anyone else.

   CRANMER: (Voiceover) They just type away in class.

   STAHL: What? And then they go back to their room...

   CRANMER: Uh-huh.

   STAHL: ...and play it back?

   CRANMER: They play it back. They search for things so that they can
   listen to specific items.

   STAHL: This has to have made a...

   CRANMER: That's-that's right.

   STAHL: ...an enormous difference...

   CRANMER: An enormous difference.

   STAHL: ...to people in-in holding information.

   CRANMER: I think it will be regarded as the most significant
   technology in the twentieth century for the blind. That's my feeling
   about it.

   (Footage of Cranmer; Ted Henter water-skiing)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) What Tim Cranmer has done with the Braille 'n Speak
   is helping blind people accomplish things society never expected of
   them. Ted Henter is another blind inventor who's demolishing
   stereotypes. Water-skiing is just his hobby, though he was world
   champion a few years back. His breakthrough invention is something
   called JAWS.

   TED HENTER: JAWS is software that makes the computer talk.

   (Footage of Henter with Stahl)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) Ted was blinded twenty years ago in an auto
   accident. What did you do before?

   HENTER: Before I was blinded?

   STAHL: Yes.

   HENTER: I was a motorcycle racer.

   (Vintage footage of Henter's racing motorcycle.)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) Clearly Ted Henter needed to find something else to
   do.

   HENTER: (Voiceover) I was a sighted kid; I grew up with dreams. But
   once I was blinded, I-none of those were relevant anymore. They-they
   weren't going to work for me. So I had to think up new dreams. So I
   had a few minutes of despair, but I-I got over it real quick. Ten
   minutes. And I realized...

   STAHL: Ten minutes? No.

   HENTER: Yes.

   STAHL: Really?

   HENTER: Ten minutes of despair. Because then I realized, well, there
   have been blind people around for centuries. And I knew that what
   happened to me was for my own good. I knew something good was gonna
   come out of it. (Footage of Henter using computer with Stahl watching)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) The good that came out of it was that Ted began
   studying computers. And before long he developed software that read
   computer text and turned it into speech.

   COMPUTER VOICE: (From JAWS program) I have several other questions.

   (Footage of man using computer)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) With JAWS reading the computer screen, suddenly
   blind people, with a 70 percent unemployment rate, could compete for
   all kinds of jobs that used to be unthinkable.

   HEATHER STUBBS: (On phone) FedEx. Heather Stubbs speaking, may I help
   you?

   (Footage of Heather Stubbs; Stubbs using JAWS program for customer
   service call at FedEx)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) If you call FedEx, you might get a blind customer
   service agent.

   STUBBS: (On phone) Is this on a shipment that you're about to make?

   STAHL: (Voiceover) You're in one ear of her headset asking her to
   track a package. The JAWS voice is in her other ear...

   COMPUTER VOICE: (From JAWS program) Nine-one-three...

   (Footage of computer screen)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) ...telling her what's on the computer screen.

   COMPUTER VOICE: (From JAWS program) T-R-A-C-E-apostrophe...

   (Footage of FedEx employees)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) FedEx has about a dozen blind employees working the
   phones using JAWS.

   HENTER: You don't have to be limited by your blindness. You can go out
   and do these things. You can go to college. You can get a Ph.D. You
   can get a job as a computer programmer, as a software designer, as an
   attorney.

   (Footage of computer screen using Windows)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) Ted's biggest challenge has been Windows with all
   those icons and graphics. It's made computers much easier for most
   people, but how in the world can a blind person point and click?

   HENTER: Windows was very, very difficult. When-when Windows came along
   and-and companies started switching to it, blind people were losing
   their jobs. And we were getting calls all the time that "Hey, if you
   don't come out with a Windows product soon, I'm gonna lose my job."
   And a lot of people did.

   STAHL: What you're saying is that-that when the computer does
   something to make it easier for me, it's a disaster for blind people.
   I mean, the very progress that helps me hurts you.

   HENTER: In many cases, yeah. And you have all these people that are
   creating vision-oriented systems, sight-oriented, then we have to come
   along and-and make it work for someone who can't see.

   (Footage of Henter; computer screen; man using computer)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) Ted figured out a way to make Windows work for
   blind people. Now he's making the Internet accessible. But every day
   he and his team of programmers have to overcome new obstacles the
   sighted computer world throws their way. How often do you have to
   change your software 'cause there's a new problem out there?

   HENTER: We-we change it weekly.

   STAHL: Weekly?

   HENTER: All-almost daily, depending on the week. So we're constantly
   working on it.

   (Footage of Henter's employees)

   STAHL: (Voiceover) The "we" includes twenty other blind employees.

   Unidentified Man #1: Open a start menu.

   STAHL: (Voiceover) So if you're a blind customer using JAWS and you
   have a question; you're likely to get a blind technical support guy to
   answer it.

   Unidentified Man #2: We just wanna really stay on fixing problems.

   STAHL: If you were to choose a word to describe what this does to help
   a blind person or what your goal is, what would it be?

   HENTER: I think "equality" is a good word.

   This broadcast created quite a bit of comment in cyberspace. The
   Blazie listserv fielded a good deal of traffic, including some inquiry
   about the precise origins of the Braille 'n Speak. Deane Blazie, who
   certainly should know what happened and when, wrote the following
   e-mail explanation, which we include with an eye toward history. Here
   it is:

   Monday, March 30, 1998

   Subject: Who Invented the Braille 'n Speak?

   I knew this would start a lot of discussion, and you'll probably hear
   a lot of replies from others about this.

   The Kentucky Pocket Braille device was developed in the Kentucky
   Department for the Blind by Fred Gissoni. Without putting words into
   Fred's mouth, it was intended to be a reasonably priced,
   VersaBraille-like device. Fred noticed that, if you removed the
   keyboard circuit board from this device, you would have a notetaker
   without any output device. He and I and Tim Cranmer discussed this
   while I was at Maryland Computer Services, and we all agreed that, if
   you just added speech output, you could have a really nifty notetaker.
   When Maryland Computer Services was sold in 1986, I left and did
   consulting work. But I really wanted to get back into this industry,
   and I began developing the Braille 'n Speak in my basement. I took the
   Kentucky PocketBraille documentation, added speech, and changed the
   processor and memory circuits, and in July of 1987 I introduced the
   Braille 'n Speak at the NFB convention. Before that I consulted a lot
   with Tim and Fred on what it should look like. The first model was
   wedge-shaped because us sighted guys thought that Braille keyboards
   should be sloped like typewriter keyboards-Dumb old sighted guys. So I
   fixed the case to be smaller and flat. I also sat with Fred and Tim,
   and we worked out the navigation chords so that they were mirror
   images. That was very significant, and it made the Braille 'n Speak a
   much better product.

   By the way, Phil Hall was also instrumental in helping with the
   Braille 'n Speak. He did some of the speech programming. Another
   fellow, Bill Ashcraft, did the reverse Braille translator.

   So you decide who invented the Braille 'n Speak. I certainly have no
   problem with Tim and Fred saying they invented it. Also don't forget
   that "60 Minutes" did more than four hours of interviews with Tim and
   only published about three minutes of it. I'm sure, if we heard the
   whole thing, it would be much clearer.

   I'm just glad we are all around to have done it.

   Deane

   The concluding media examination of technology for the blind in the
   current go-round was a story that appeared in the Washington Post on
   Saturday, April 4. The story was apparently supposed to be a look at
   the Blind Industries and Services of Maryland (BISM) Web site, which
   the reporter seems to have been told was the only accessible one on
   the Internet. The reporter, Paul Valentine, had previously done
   stories about the NFB, so he contacted us for background information
   and got several fairly substantive interviews and demonstrations.

   Despite the more balanced comments of Curtis Chong, director of the
   NFB Technology Department, and Richard Ring, director of the
   International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind, the notion
   that the BISM Web site is something special has been spread fairly
   widely, both by BISM PR and by the Post article. When asked for a
   clear and objective description of the BISM site, Mr. Chong provided
   the following statement to the Braille Monitor:

   I have looked at the BISM Web site, and I find it no better or worse
   than many others I have come across. I appreciate the description of
   pictures and the meaningful labels for hypertext links, and I think
   the text is formatted reasonably well. Web page designers would do
   well to adopt the BISM Web design approach.

   However, for BISM to portray its site as anything unique or
   extraordinary (implying that many other sites are not as accessible),
   is both misleading and irresponsible. It is unfortunate that the
   Washington Post article which appeared on Saturday, April 4,
   characterized the BISM site as a "rarity in the cyber world." In point
   of fact, sites such as BISM's are not as rare as the article would
   lead one to believe. I have always maintained that good Web design
   should incorporate graphics and text in a meaningful way to
   everyone-blind and sighted alike. BISM has simply followed good design
   principles in developing its Web site.

   With Mr. Chong's statement to provide perspective, here is the
   Washington Post story of April 4:

   Helping the Blind Handle Computers

   Technology Allows Greater Accessibility
   by Paul W. Valentine
   Washington Post Staff Writer

   Richard Ring sat at his computer, tapping at the keyboard. He nimbly
   logged onto the Internet. A few more keystrokes and a query box popped
   onto the screen. Ring typed in the words "coral snake." Moments later
   the screen announced 738 hits.

   Routine Net surfing? Hardly. Ring is blind, and his Internet voyage
   was accompanied by a voice synthesizer that talked him, keystroke by
   keystroke, through each step.

   Ring, forty-seven, chief of international Braille and technology for
   the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore, is one of a growing
   number of the estimated 535,000 blind people nationwide who regularly
   use computers for work, education, and pleasure.

   With technological breakthroughs occurring almost daily in
   text-to-voice scanners, Braille printers, and specially designed
   software to help overcome the barriers of icons and other graphics of
   the visually oriented World Wide Web, blind users are finding it
   increasingly easier to get on the information highway.

   "There are lots of bumps on the road, but we're getting there," said
   Curtis Chong, the Federation's director of technology. "There are a
   lot of things on the Internet we still can't use, but more are
   becoming available."

   Traditionally confined to books and other documents published in
   Braille or recorded on audiocassette tapes, the blind are being
   encouraged by the Federation and other organizations to develop
   computer skills, not only to enjoy the fruits of the Internet but also
   to enhance their employability in an increasingly computer-dependent
   work world.

   Despite training and work facilities designed specifically for the
   blind-such as Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, with
   manufacturing plants in Baltimore, Salisbury, and
   Cumberland-nationwide unemployment of the blind stands at 70 percent,
   according to Federation estimates.

   Making computers user-friendly for blind people involves several
   mechanical and electronic adjustments. Fundamental among them is
   elimination of the mouse and replacement of all mouse functions with
   keystrokes.

   The user then tabs up, down, and across the screen, using the
   directional arrow, enter, and other keys to manipulate the cursor. As
   the cursor moves, an electronic screen reader scans any text it
   encounters and sends signals to a synthesizer that converts the
   written words to voice. If the cursor is moving through a blank area
   of the screen, the voice synthesizer says "blank" with each keystroke
   until the cursor comes to a block of text, where it starts reading.

   When Ring called up "coral snake," he tabbed to a document called
   "Everglades Coral Snake," and the voice began, in a steady monotone:
   "A coral snake has a black head with alternating red, yellow, and
   black stripes . . . ."

   Ring and others say there are two major stumbling blocks in converting
   written language to voice on the computer screen: graphics and any
   text arranged in columns.

   The device cannot read a graphic, such as an icon or photograph, and
   simply calls it a graphic, or it reads a coded image file name
   assigned to the graphic by Web site designers that sounds like
   gibberish, such as "pic-dot-gif."

   To get around this, blind users can electronically label icons with
   brief descriptions that can be scanned by screen readers. With
   photographs and other more complex pictures Web sites must be
   specially designed with additional captions, or text descriptions,
   that translate image file names into simple terms such as "green globe
   of earth" or "Orioles logo." Few sites are designed with that feature.

   Similarly, text arranged in columns is a problem because readers scan
   horizontally from left to right across the entire screen, rather than
   down one column at a time before going to the next. However, a small
   but growing number of sites are being designed to permit
   column-reading. Others have reformatted columnar texts to read left to
   right.

   Still another feature helping the blind is a text-only button, which,
   when activated by the user, instructs the screen reader to skip
   graphics and send only text to the voice synthesizer.

   To encourage the spread of special sites, the World Wide Web
   Consortium, a network of academic and computer-industry specialists
   based in Boston, recently started forming guidelines for Web page
   designers to make sites more accessible not only for the blind but for
   deaf and other disabled users.

   Chong, of the National Federation of the Blind, hopes the word will
   spread. So many Web sites, especially commercial ones, he said, are
   cluttered with graphics that "make them look pretty and sell lots of
   products . . . but blind people can't use them."

   Blind Industries and Services of Maryland in Baltimore recently opened
   a fully accessible site including graphics-a rarity in the cyber
   world. It contains information for both blind and sighted people,
   ranging from job openings and vocational training for the blind to
   lists of products manufactured and sold by Blind Industries, such as
   paper notepads, tote bags, floor care chemicals, and washcloths.

   The site was specifically designed to include graphics, said Blind
   Industries spokeswoman Angela Hartley. "We didn't want just a plain
   boring screen because sighted people use the site as well," she said.

   Creating the graphics-friendly site required "a lot of major
   revisions" of conventional Internet design concepts, said Steven
   Crawford, chief executive of Columbia-based Shore Studios, which
   designed the site at no cost to Blind Industries.

   The Blind Industries site, though far outnumbered by more conventional
   ones, "helps to make a level playing field for everybody," said Daniel
   K. Woytowitz, head of Blind Industries' computer technology center.

   Jennifer Cocnavitch, twenty-six, a student undergoing an eight-month
   computer course at the center, spoke hopefully of becoming an English
   teacher as her fingers glided over a classroom keyboard.

   "Knowing how to use a computer and getting on the Internet are
   important" to getting a job, she said.

   Organizations with blind-related Web sites and their

   Internet addresses include the National Federation of the Blind,

   <www.nfb.org>; Blind Industries and Services of Maryland,

   <www.bism.com>; World Wide Web Consortium, <www.w3.org>; Trace

   Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, which does

   research in Internet accessibility for the disabled,

   <www.trace.wisc.edu>

   There you have a report on what the media have been saying in recent
   months. It hasn't always been accurate, but all in all, a lot of
   Americans know more today about the challenges facing blind computer
   users than they did at the start of the year, and that fact is bound
   to be constructive.
End of articles.