Boston Globe article on blind and web (fwd)

[F. Pennell]

Here is a nice summary article on web access issues for people who are
blind or visually impaired that I thought some of you might find to be of
interest.

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Frances E. Pennell
Policy & Funding Specialist
Washington Assistive Technology Alliance

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Internet working on accessibility to disabled:
More Web sites finding wayt to prevent blind PC users from being locked out

BY HIAWATHA BRAY GLOBE STAFF, 12/08/96 


Most people who design sites on the Internet's World Wide 
Web never stop to think they might receive a visit from someone 
like Al Gayzagian. Perhaps if they did, they would make him 
feel more welcome. 

Gayzagian is nothing like the stereotyped image of a twentysomething 
hipster hunched over a computer monitor. For one thing, he's 
70 years old, a retired insurance company worker living in 
Watertown. For another, he's blind.  

Despite his disability, Gayzagian is an avid Web surfer. Using 
software that reads text aloud from the computer screen, he 
makes his way across the Internet, swapping electronic mail 
and listening to on-line news reports. Still, Gayzagian realizes 
that large portions of the Internet remain closed to him. 

``You know you're m issing something,'' he said. ``You just 
don't know what you're missing.'' 

That's because many Internet sites are designed in ways that 
make them difficult for blind people to use. The Boston Globe's 
own Web site has been found guilty of this offense - one it 
is in the process of correcting. But with the growing popularity 
of the Internet has come new pressure from disability-rights 
advocates to make the Internet a more accessible place.  

It's a problem that most people never consider. We applaud 
modern computers for their ``easy-to-use'' graphics, but we 
forget that the mouse and point-and-click icons are useless 
for blind people.  

Corporations and government agencies must begin thinking about 
this issue, however. There are an estimated 7 million blind 
Americans, and millions more with visual impairments. At a 
time when computers and the Internet have become vital business 
tools, businesses could face legal challenges under the Americans 
with Disabilities Act unless they make their inter nal networks 
accessible to disabled workers. And World Wide Web sites that 
target the general public must ensure that they're not locking 
out many potential customers.  

Blind people at first benefited dramatically from the invention 
of personal computers. The early machines, such as the Apple 
II and the original IBM PC, were controlled by typing various 
code words.  The computer responded by displaying text on 
the monitor.  Blind people could learn to type with relative 
ease, and programs were developed that could read the computer's 
responses aloud. So blind people could use PCs almost as easily 
as sighted people.  

Then came the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating 
systems.  These programs use a graphical user interface, or 
GUI. To control the computer, a user aims a pointer at buttons 
and menus on the screen. This was a major advance for most 
people.  But the old screen reader programs didn't work with 
the new GUI software.  Blind computer users had to stick with 
outdated operating  systems like MS-DOS until Macintosh- and 
Windows-compatible screen readers came along.  

The same cycle has occurred on the Internet. Early users relied 
on text-only software, so screen readers could be used.  But 
Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser, changed everything. 
Today, almost all Web pages are designed to take advantage 
of the graphic capabilities of browsers.  Once again, blind 
computer users have had problems using the new system.  

Gayzagian relies on Lynx, an early Internet browser that renders 
only the text on a page. He also uses pwWebSpeak, a browser 
specially designed for people with vision problems.  The software 
reads text aloud and displays in extra-large letters on the 
monitor. Even so, many Web pages are still closed to Gayzagian. 

The reason is that many Web sites use flashy images to convey 
information to users who can see.  But screen readers can't 
understand pretty pictures.  Unless a piece of descriptive 
text is also included, a blind Web surfer soon becomes lost. 
Web designers can easily include these text tags on their 
sites, but many don't take the trouble.  

Even when information is made available as text, it can sometimes 
be difficult to find. The Globe site, Boston.com, contains 
a section with no pictures, only text. This text-only section 
was a favorite haunt of Tom Wlodkowski, a blind man who works 
at the National Center for Accessible Media in Boston. But 
the Globe's site designers recently removed the direct link 
to the text-only section. That forced Wlodkowski to travel 
through the section that contains pictures, making it harder 
for him to find particular stories.  

``Now what I do is weave through it and get frustrated,'' 
he said.  

Scott Kirsner, lead content developer at Boston.com, vows 
these flaws will be mended in a major redesign of the site 
that is now under way. ``Boston.com wants to be accessible 
to everyone,'' Kirsner said.  

Web pages also allow special formats screen readers can't 
handle. For instance, dividing t he screen into multiple sections 
or ``frames'' can be visually appealing, but also causes screen 
readers to malfunction.  

These problems could be avoided if sites were designed for 
easy use by blind people - for instance, by including text 
tags with all pictures, or text-only versions of the site. 
The Trace Research and Development Center at the University 
of Wisconsin has published guidelines for accessible Web-site 
design. The National Center for Accessible Media, where Wlodkowski 
works, has launched a campaign to persuade site designers 
to comply with the Trace standards.  ``Most people don't argue 
with them at all once they know,'' said center director Larry 
Goldberg.  ``They say, `Gee, I never thought of that.''' 

Site designers who want to check the accessibility of their 
work can pay a visit to a Web site called Bobby. The site 
features an automatic Web page accessibility test.  Just type 
in the address of a page, and Bobby will display the page,
highlighting features that would be diffi cult or impossible 
for a disabled person to use.  

Meanwhile, some people are working to ensure that accessibility 
is built into the very fabric of the Internet.  Michael Paciello,
a former software engineer at Digital Equipment Corp., now 
serves as director of the Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation,
an organization that works on Internet accessibility issues. 
He's also a volunteer member of the World Wide Web Consortium,
the Cambridge-based organization that oversees all Web design 
standards.  

Paciello is working to get accessibility features built directly 
into HTML, the software language used to design Web pages. 
These new features would ensure that designers of screen reader 
software could easily cope with almost any kind of information 
displayed on a Web page.  

In addition, Goldberg, Wlodkowski and others want to make 
sure future Internet developments don't shut out people with 
disabilities. In the future, deaf people may have problems 
using full-motion video transmission over the In ternet.  
So Goldberg wants to make sure video standards will include 
a way to put text captions on the screen along with the images. 

It could be years before full-motion video becomes common 
on the Internet.  But Goldberg figures it makes sense to start 
planning for it now, to ensure that millions of handicapped 
people won't be locked out.  

The Boston Globe Web site can be found at http://www.boston.com. 
The Trace Center site is located at http://www.trace.wisc.edu. 
The National Center for Accessible Media is at http://www.wgbh.org. 
The Bobby Web page test site is at http://www.cast.org/bobby/
..  The Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation site is at http://
www.yuri.org.  


This story ran on page e1 of the Boston Globe on 12/08/96.