The complete article with related links may be read on the web at,
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/0002/dg000210.htm.

DIGITAL MANAGER
By John M. Williams
FEBRUARY 10, 2000


Electronic forms and talking Web sites help as much as ramps and wide doors


RELATED ITEMS

Time to Enlist the Disabled in the Entrepreneurial Revolution
See John Williams' weekly Assistive Technology column on Business Week
Online
Join Our Assistive Technology Forum
Digital Manager Archive

It is very well to say that computers make it possible for many more
disabled people to work for themselves or others. Yet the conventional
Internet and
computer technologies most people take for granted are useless if you can't
see or control your hands well enough to use a keyboard. Sad to say,
something
as basic as an inability to fill out forms makes it pretty tough to launch a
business - or even take an ordinary job at a company, small or large. U.S.
government figures show that 74% of persons with severe disabilities between
the ages of 21 and 64 don't work.

This dismal statistic may not resonate with nondisabled small-business
owners - until they consider the tight job market. Just making internal
forms electronic
and accessible may enable them to hire a much-needed, skilled worker - who
happens to be disabled. Another consideration - accessible materials on Web
sites make their services available to more clients.

FutureForms
has been in the forefront of adapting business forms to work with assistive
technologies, such as screen readers (which read out loud the contents of a
computer screen) and software that converts speech to text. "We believe
everyone has the right to participate in the information-technology
revolution,
and we intend to see that blind, visually impaired, and people who can not
use keyboards participate in the benefits of information technology," says
Bill
Sahlberg, director of marketing at FutureForms, a unit of Pummill Business
Forms of Grand Rapids.

The company's interest in making accessible forms grew out of work it did
for a blind attorney, says Sahlberg. That made the company aware there was a
large
potential market in tools for disabled staff that weren't billed as
"accommodations" - a term that scares employers with its connotations of
inordinate
expense and lawsuits. FutureForms' says its goal is to create universal
documents that can be plugged into assistive software, so that no one needs
to
request special forms to do his or her job, participate in employee
programs, or order a company's products.

Companies or government agencies generally contract with FutureForms to
create electronic versions of their paperwork, Sahlberg explains. The
company will
provide the tools for customers to create their own material, but most find
it far easier to let FutureForms do the work. FutureForms' uses several
formats.
Companies can have software-filler programs installed on each employee's PC.
Open the program first, call up a directory of forms within that screen,
select
one, and fill away. More popular - and more useful - are forms that open up
within a browser on a Web or intranet site.

The forms can be configured to work with any of the major screen readers -
WindowEyes, JAWS (Job Accommodation with Speech), or Microsoft Speech, all
for
Windows - as well as such speech-recognition products as Dragon Dictate, a
product of
Dragon Systems,
based in Newton, Mass., and various keyboard switches. (The latter are
modified keyboards for people with limited use of their hands.)

FutureForms recently released a product called Verbal-Eyes that works with
its forms and those of other designers, who can use it under license.
Verbal-Eyes
acts as a bridge between the forms and the assistive technology. When a user
opens a form created with Verbal-Eyes, the software automatically determines
whether any of the three major screen readers listed above are in use. If it
locates an active screen reader, Verbal-Eyes tells it to read the form. If
there's no screen reader, the user just completes the form normally. The
software is simple to install, says Sahlberg, requiring no special skill.

How much does it cost for a business to make its forms electronic and
accessible? FutureForms' fees start at $500 and can run up to a couple of
thousand
per form, depending on how complicated and long the documents are. In some
cases, state rehabilitation agencies will share the cost of making forms
accessible
with the company that hires a client. For companies that want to use
Verbal-Eyes with existing forms, licensing fees range from around $50 a form
for 2
forms to $2.00 a form for 1,000 forms.

Another technology helps those who have severe visual impairments or can't
use a keyboard tap the Web.
Everypath,
a Santa Clara (Calif.)-based company will, for a monthly fee, convert the
information on a company's Web site so it can be delivered by voice over an
ordinary
telephone. The company's fees range from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on the
amount of traffic and the number of pages. This is essentially the same
technology
that delivers Web information to mobile devices with tiny screens. To access
a site that has been "Everypathed," the user dials a phone number and asks
for the URL. The software calls up the site and responds: "What do you
want?" The user specifies the information he or she needs, and a female
voice "reads"
it.

By making Web-site information accessible over ordinary telephones, a
company's services can reach millions of disabled people - potential
clients, entrepreneurs,
and employees. And the technology isn't only useful for the disabled. Voice
capability also extends a site's reach to those who don't have PCs or don't
have access to one at a given moment.

Williams writes a weekly column for Business Week Online on assistive
technology. For information on assistive technology, write to him at
[log in to unmask]
You can also discuss these issues on BW Online's
Assistive Tech Forum

  Columns Archive

  News Archive


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html