Wired News

Web News Still Fails Blind Users
By
Kendra Mayfield

2:00 a.m. Sep. 27, 2001 PDT

Within hours of the World Trade Center attacks, Gregory Rosmaita was
online, dispensing vital up-to-the minute updates on where to donate
blood, how to
locate family members and where to find other emergency information to
those unable to watch the images unfold on television.

Rosmaita, a blind webmaster for the Visually Impaired Computer Users'
Group of New York City (
VICUG NYC),
provided a lifeline for many of New York City's visually impaired
residents.

See also:
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Who Said the Web Fell Apart?
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Conflict 2001:
Fresh Perspectives
Terra Lycos Special:
America v. Terrorism

Lycos'
America Rebuilds Resource Page

In addition to the
WTC Emergency Information Page,
Rosmaita posted updates on transit information, emergency assistance for
stranded disabled flyers and a text-to-speech
emergency e-mail network
on the VICUG
list.

Rosmaita's work was vital to his community because most major news sites
aren't accessible to the visually impaired.

"It's frustrating to use the Web for news reading," said Sherry Wells, a
visually impaired IBM technical analyst. "I think you can get information
faster
on TV or radio than you can on the Web. Websites are cluttered with links
and graphics. It's easier to sit down and listen to the news on TV or
radio."

Even though she can't see the images on television, Wells still prefers
listening to television reports to sifting through inaccessible websites.

"(Images are) not really necessary to learn what's going on," she said.

The demand for immediate, direct news on the Web during times of crisis
underscores the desire that the visually impaired and others with
disabilities have
for accessible websites.

People who can't see pictures on the Web rely upon two things that can be
coded into the design of a website: textual equivalents and textual
descriptions.
These textual elements can be displayed with Braille terminals or read
aloud by screen readers (programs that speak words) such as
Windows-Eyes
and
JAWS for Windows.

"Most websites, especially news sites, aren't designed for use by people
who can't see -- although they easily could be; they just aren't," said
Kynn Bartlett,
chief technologist for
Idyll Mountain Internet
and an online instructor in accessible Web design. "This means that
getting news directly can be difficult, especially when you're looking
for disaster
coordination news rather than just horrific repeats of airplanes crashing
into buildings.

"Without descriptions of the attacks, many Americans and others around
the world are shut out from understanding exactly what happened and how,
reducing
their ability to come to terms with the horror and the 'shared
experience' which was mostly visual for the vast majority of us,"
Bartlett continued.

Individuals from across the globe have set up accessible websites to
provide written descriptions of images from the attack, such as
WTC captioned photographs
from New Zealand and an unofficial collection of pictures for the
visually impaired
with detailed wording from Israel.

"Visual information is important to a blind person for the same reason
that it is important to anyone else," said David Poehlman, a consultant
in electronic
and information technology accessibility who has been blind since birth.

"They want to know what things look like, they want to know what is going
on," said Poehlman, who uses a screen-access software package with text
to speech
and Braille display support.

"Pictures for me are useless," Wells agreed. "(The descriptions on the
Web) were really great. I really got a sense of what the pictures are
saying."

While most major television news outlets or websites didn't provide
descriptive text following the attacks, some visually impaired
individuals were able
to access audio descriptions of certain events.

The recent television broadcast of "America: A Tribute to Heroes" was
made available to the nation's 31 million visually impaired through a
live telecast.

Retinitis Pigmentosa International (
RPI) provided a special description of the broadcast on Cable Radio
Network to over 10,000 radio stations. RPI described the onscreen
telecast using TheatreVisionTM,
an innovative process that incorporates a special descriptive soundtrack
that runs concurrently with the spoken portions of the program.

"The nation's blind have been calling by the thousands during the last
few days to RPI'S Woodland Hills headquarters," said Helen Harris,
president and
founder of RPI, in a statement. "They're outraged and want to help; they
want to be aware of the images on the television screen that have been so
much
a part of this awful week. Their only hope is audio description of their
entire world, or they're going to be left behind."

Experts agree that more needs to be done to ensure that people with
disabilities can access information online during times of crisis.

"There's definitely a need for more sites which can provide quick and
direct access to information which is accessible," Bartlett said. "People
with disabilities
of any kind need crisis information as much as anyone else."

Ideally, sites such as Rosmaita's WTC page may not be necessary, as
mainstream websites adopt techniques that allow everyone full access to
websites, including
descriptive text.

"But so far, that day has been slow in coming," Bartlett said.

Web developers can follow the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines
to find out what steps to take to guarantee a broad audience for their
websites.

(Editor's note: At this time, Wired News does not conform in full to the
Consortium's guidelines. Staff programmers are currently looking into
updating
publishing codes in order to make the site more accessible to the
visually impaired.)

"The major sites need to recognize that there is an audience there, which
may not necessarily have access to the newest and fastest technologies,
such as
streaming audio and video, animations, graphics and other multimedia,"
Bartlett said.

"All websites do themselves a disservice by closing themselves off from
communities on which they might thrive," Poehlman agreed. "Now that the
perception
has changed, look for initiatives that begin to fall that press for
broader accessibility."

"When I get on the Web for news, it's not just a special occasion," Wells
said. "I would probably get on the Web at home every day if it were more
accessible."


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