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Apple Screen Reader?

Way back when the first Macs came out Apple was the leader in computers for the blind and visually impaired. Because the screens on the first Macs were so tiny, Apple had to develop software to enlarge things (was it called CloseView? Damn, I used the thing for years and I don't remember). As a visually impaired student I used to get computers on loan from a state agency, and they were always Macs. Unfortunately, by about 1995, Windows really caught up and Apple got pushed out of the accessibility market. It looks like Apple is really making a push to make OS X the best operating system for the blind and visually impaired and they are succeeding very well. I'm very glad Apple is doing this.

BTW - for anyone who lives in New England and is interested in assistive technology, there's a brand new thing called the NEAT Marketplace in Hartford which is a showroom for every type of assistive technology product available. It's really amazing what's available these days. I was there a couple of months ago and they had about 20 PC's and one eMac on loan from Apple.
 
*sigh*

Okay, tell me somehow we didn't do 'the slashdot affect' on MacSlash!


😱

I know they are a little slow site... but how many sites linked to them?

damnnn... we got them good.

😱 🙁

The news is good with those disabilities.
 
I designed recordkeeping software that is used by an organization that provides materials for the blind and visually impaired. Some of the users of the software are sighted and some are not. The manager, who is herself blind, came over one day to work with us and show us exactly where the software was awkard for her to use with screen-reader software. The software worked pretty well already, but those last quirks made a big difference.

I have read most of the details of the Section 508 requirements, and a few items surprised me, but made sense after I thought about them further. For example, in a web page design, you don't want to repeat all the headings above each row in a table, which sometimes makes a table easier to use when a sighted person scrolls. But when you repeat headings, you are putting too much information there, which just slows down someone who must listen to it rather than see it.
 
I posted it as being negative...

...because I'm a moron who gets off on being anti-anything. Seriously, I don't care what anyone has to say about computers having a long way to go to help with blind people. AT LEAST Apple is doing SOMETHING, and that is positive. Some people, when offered 100 bucks for free, will shake their heads and say "Bah! 100 dollars is nothing compared to what I need!". What buffoons.
 
Re: typo

Originally posted by zephc
Also, to the guy with the 'What if?' sig, the URL is quite misleading... ui-whatif.com? Sounded like a cool user interface design site, but it's just some weird Jesus site with lots of clip art of young models.
Click to expand...

To answer the question "What if this page loaded faster?"

What if you left the stupid music out? That would help. People don't appreciate loud soundtracks to websites they aren't warned of ahead of time. Especially if they are in a library or computing lab of some sort. I usually leave a site as soon as I encounter it.

Hey, maybe this site is about UI after all. Bad Website UI. 😀
 
Originally posted by plastree
Is there anyone out there besides me that turns on screen zooming in the universal access panel just for kicks? I think it's so cool, and it magnifies to a ridiculous resolution.
Click to expand...

I do. That monsterous cursor is frightening. And it's cool when the trash can is big enough to stick your hand in. 😀
 
Originally posted by m,tz206
While this is an interesting concept, it does nothing to solve the overall visual-bias of GUI operating systems. With text-based systems, like DOS, visually-challenged users could still function with little burden. Now, since all computer interfaces require the visual & spatial use of a mouse, graphical icons, etc, the blind are greatly disadvantaged.
Click to expand...

Just log into OSX as ">console", and you have the most text-based Mac ever! 😉

Mike.
 
Looking at other software engineering positions, I found the following:
Visionary Compiler Engineer - Back-End

They're hiring someone to develop highly optimized compilers for the G5, including auto-vectorisation. Interesting, especially since the emphasis seemed to be on C++ rather than Obj-C.

Mike.
 
Originally posted by whooley
Looking at other software engineering positions, I found the following:
Visionary Compiler Engineer - Back-End

They're hiring someone to develop highly optimized compilers for the G5, including auto-vectorisation. Interesting, especially since the emphasis seemed to be on C++ rather than Obj-C.
Click to expand...
Woo... that could be cool, not to mention big news.

Back on target, I'm hugely in favor of Apple's beefing up their accessability featuers; they already include a decent selection with the OS, but more is always better. And an integrated screen reader or braille support would be downright cool.

That said, I don't think it's exactly fair to give the GUI concept a hard time because it's hard to use for the blind. Last I checked, the number of blind people is in the vicinity of 0.2%, and partially sighted somewhere around 1%. Of those people, probably half are over 80, and aren't currently big computer users. Since the GUI is a huge efficiency enhancement for the sighted person, and makes learning a computer much easier for them, it's not really fair to take that away from 99% of the population for the sake of the 1%.

Fortunately, technology is getting to the point where it will provide new ways of using spatial organization of information on a computer. Automated readers are an easy one, but a tactile screen is even better--something where you could feel windows, icons, buttons, and text on a surface. Now THAT would be cool.

I'm not trying to sound insulting to people with poor vision--my mother is legally blind without her contacts--but I also think it's worth being reasonable.

Just like with websites; I try to make mine accessable, but since it's a movie review site, I'm not entirely sure how many blind people are going to be interested.

[By the way, I'm with the group asking why anyone would rate a story about Apple working harder to help people with poor eyesight negatively?]
 
Acceptance or Complaining about it

Originally posted by m,tz206
While this is an interesting concept, it does nothing to solve the overall visual-bias of GUI operating systems. With text-based systems, like DOS, visually-challenged users could still function with little burden. Now, since all computer interfaces require the visual & spatial use of a mouse, graphical icons, etc, the blind are greatly disadvantaged.
Click to expand...

Well, your own point is invalidated by your very words. If you want to be recognized as "NOT another disabled person" who WE all have to make concessions for, you fit in and or get technology like this on the table or attend conferences & go to universities and ask/input into their development. Why complain? NO one can make a product that is already in such a niche market as Apple and suceed by going after 2%-5% of the population.

What are the figures for the population that is blind vs sighted. "Legally blind" is a very loose term so please dispense with any bogus statistics.😎

It is nice to see Apple develop this - for some reason though, I think it's for other purposes like GUI/type control without having to talk funny like you do in Viavoice.
 
Mac OS X already has a thing that will speak any text under your mouse. It's in the same Pref Pane as the magnification.

When I got my wireless keyboard and mouse I used magnification a little until the novelty wore off.
 
Re: Acceptance or Complaining about it

Originally posted by adzoox
Well, your own point is invalidated by your very words. If you want to be recognized as "NOT another disabled person" who WE all have to make concessions for, you fit in and or get technology like this on the table or attend conferences & go to universities and ask/input into their development. Why complain? NO one can make a product that is already in such a niche market as Apple and suceed by going after 2%-5% of the population.

What are the figures for the population that is blind vs sighted. "Legally blind" is a very loose term so please dispense with any bogus statistics.😎

It is nice to see Apple develop this - for some reason though, I think it's for other purposes like GUI/type control without having to talk funny like you do in Viavoice.
Click to expand...

Actually, legally blind is not a loose term at all. Blind can refer to several different things, people who have absolutely no vision, people who have only light perception, etc, legally blind is a standard. In Connecticut legally blind means visual acuity of less that 20/200 or a very small visual field, I forget the exact number. I'm not sure if the same standards apply everywhere.

Some statistics from American Federation for the Blind
There are 10 million legally blind or visually impaired (in CT thats 20/80 I think or below) people in the US. Of these 1.5 million have internet access. That seems a little low to me.

From a buisness standpoint targetting people with disabillities is a big deal for Apple. At first it may not seem like it, since there aren't THAT many blind people and they are often poor (IIRC more than 70% of blind people are unemployed) and elderly. However, some of the markets that Apple has been targetting recently, education, government, and even to a certain extent big business often require solutions for people with disabillities.

Having said all that, I think whats important is that its really tough being blind and helping people with disabillities use Macs is just a good thing to do. And, as some people have noted with Mac OS X's Zoom function, often technologies developed to help people with disabillities end up being useful to everybody.
 
This is great--it's available, but expensive, for Windows. It may be for Mac, I don't know, but having it from Apple--as part of the OS hopefully--will be great.

I build Web sites, and if I want to test them for the blind, I must use a screen reader at the library. So I'll benefit even though my vision is fine!

As for the MULTIPLE negative votes--I guess I won't even bother to look at those votes anymore: people must be clicking at random!
 
Originally posted by lolajl
Now this is wonderful, as a deaf woman who loves the Mac. Now, if someone could come up with software that could be used with a camcorder, for instance, iSight, and could translate what I sign into speech, that would be excellent.
Click to expand...

If you're talking about just signed English, well, that's an issue of understanding how to interpret gestures relative to an ideal gesture. If you're talking about ASL, then that's an even bigger problem - because in addition to the first problem named, there is also the actual human language translation problem. They're both pretty serious AI problems, in increasing complexity.
 
Originally posted by tny
Only negative I can think of is that I'm surprised this isn't already in OS X, it seems an awfully obvious feature.
Click to expand...

I think in true Apple style, this will end up more sophisticated and useful than we might expect. Programming an extention to the OS that can render the desktop (images & text) to a braille pad in a way that is easy to understand and actually useful will be a big challenge.

If all they wanted to do was send on screen text to the voice synth they would have implemented this long ago. But that doesn't really help a blind person USE the computer, does it?

But you're right in a way - ideally this would have been done long ago. It's a step in the right direction though. And BTW, probably a step that Microsoft will copy to a tee when they see how it works.
 
Originally posted by mim
It's a step in the right direction though. And BTW, probably a step that Microsoft will copy to a tee when they see how it works.
Click to expand...
If Apple ups the state of the art, I'll be glad to see Microsoft implement the same thing.

lolajl's comment about translating sign into speech has got me thinking. Having software to translate all forms of presentation (graphical, text, large-type, speech, video, sign language, tactile feedback, etc.) to all other forms is not likely to happen due to the number of combinations involved. But we'd get there more easily if we used the "standard intermediate format" approach. If there was software to translate each of these forms to/from a certain standard format, for example XML with a certain schema or PDF with certain conventions, then the end user could put the building blocks together as needed. In the same way that XML web pages are translated into HTML at presentation time and then handled by a specific web browser that might render as either text or speech, you could plug your video signal into your sign-language-to-standard module and from there into your standard-to-voice module, each of these with user-settable parameters.

And while we're at it, make it all open source so everyone can adopt it.
 
Already in Jaguar - sort of

I forgot that jaguar already HAS this to a limited extent. Look under Speech > Spoken User Interface. (There's a box to check in Universal Access too.)

You have to have some vision to use it, but when you hover the mouse over a control, the voice speaks it. This doesn't work for text in web pages, etc. but it does work for the URL in Safari, for tooltips, for dialog buttons, for Finder and Dock icons, for menus/popups, for Open/Save lists, for Prefs icons, for SOME toolbar icons (Safari yes, Finder no)--and even for form buttons in web pages.

I notice that it speaks the window widgets too--but for Metal windows, it just says "Button"! For white windows, it's more helpful.

You can also specify a key that will speak selected text. (Hover alone doesn't do it.)

Anyway, worth noting this if you have some degree of vision.
 
Actually, Mac OS X does most of this already; it's just not designed to be a "primary use" interface.

As others have pointed out, one can both speak and "have spoken" the user interface that's composed of standard controls. In addition to "speaking text under the mouse", Mac OS X can read almost any text aloud. Just highlight it, and choose "Start Speaking Text" from the Speech submenu of the Services menu.

So, in a manner of speaking, this is already built into Mac OS X. It needs a more composed interface, expanded functionality, and better integration, but one can essentially have most of the UI (and user text) spoken, and not only that, but can speak to control the interface as well.
 
like i said...

Originally posted by cheesy
Mac OS X already has a thing that will speak any text under your mouse. It's in the same Pref Pane as the magnification.

When I got my wireless keyboard and mouse I used magnification a little until the novelty wore off.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Apple Screen Reader?

Originally posted by Macrumors
The planned Screen Reader application "will convert all on-screen data (text, objects and controls) to speech or braille enabling a blind or partially signed user to use a Mac."
Click to expand...

I hope this means that Apple is getting a new Text-to-Speech synthesizer.

The current Mac OS X TTS synthesizer is not very good compared to some other systems, like AT&T Natural Voices.

Some of the open source TTS synthesizers are approaching Mac OS X quality.
 
screen reader

A few things on this thread. Firstly, we have been working on developing a screen reader for OSX for a short while now, and it slowly getting there. Also, the speak text under mouse is useless for blind users they do not use the mouse. (obviously) The task is not all that simple, the main concern is trapping events and keyboard binding. The accessibility framework makes things a little easier but the event/keyboard binding is still a problem.
Lots of programs exist for M$ windows (expensive!!!) and linux is making progress (Gnopernicus project) but there is nothing for OSX. Outspoken was just OK (just) for OS9 but does not work in OSX or classic. The binding problem also exists for the zoom function (less in Panther though). It does not always zoom - change focus- when events occur. For example a dialog box appears in the top left while the user is zoomed into the bottom right, they have no way of knowing that the box has appeared.
For the hard of hearing, we have just completed a "proof of concept" project for translating Auslan (australian sign language) to text. Details are at www.ece.curtin.edu.au/~iain/accessibility
in the next few days.
 
Re: screen reader

Originally posted by iainmurray
A few things on this thread. Firstly, we have been working on developing a screen reader for OSX for a short while now, and it slowly getting there.
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting this info. It's nice to hear details like this from a developer. Do you find that Mac OS X has the right design/hooks/framework/API for what you are doing, or do you wish you could have Apple's ear for a few minutes and have them tweak the way Mac OS works so your work would be easier?
 
The accessibility API is pretty good. It allows us to extract the info we need from any compliant application. I don't think it equires many major enhancements. Having apple ear would definatley help, not so much from the API point of view but more from other applications that make life difficult for people with disabilities. Things like the drag to install, or anything that requires mouse input and has no equivilent keybord shortcut.
 
Apple have long catered for those with visual impairments.

I'm sure that some of my older Macs used to have parts of the manual in large print, explaining how partially sighted users could use special features.

An effective screen reader needn't solely be of benefit to those with sight limitations.

If you wanted to make a device ultra compact, you might find it advantageous to do away with a visual display and use a verbal input/output system instead.

Similarly, for applications such as navigating while driving, a GPS interface linked to a Mac would be able to give spoken instructions and all but eliminate any need to look at the screen.
 
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