E-Access Bulletin Live

Voting with joysticks and 3-D printed accessible cases for tablet computers housing voting systems are among innovations presented in a new report on making elections more accessible for people with disabilities published this month by the US Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).

“Innovations for accessible elections” assesses several years of ITIF research and development projects.

US elections make use of a range of electronic voting systems including touch-screen devices and although US law requires accessible alternatives to be offered such as audio, and tactile keys, many voters with disabilities still experience problems using these systems and with voting in general, the report finds.

As many as 47 million US citizens (almost one in four of the voting age population) face barriers to voting in person due to inaccessible devices, it says. Problems include a lack of accessible information about polling place locations; poll workers who do not recognise the needs of people with disabilities; electronic voting systems not set up for audio ballots; and keypads with confusing or unusual layouts and keys that are hard to identify by feel.

Recent innovation projects by ITIF with partners including the US Election Assistance Commission and the social innovation collaboration platform OpenIDEO have led to a range of ideas and prototypes to try to solve these problems.

They include a ballot designed for use on any device, codenamed the “Anywhere Ballot”, presenting information in a clear reading order, at the place on the page or screen where the voter is already focused. Other work investigated use of a “smart joystick” as a universal voting control, after testing found the device can help individuals with a wide range of dexterity impairments.

Following these projects Los Angeles County, the most populous voting area in the US with almost 10 million residents, is using the Anywhere Ballot as the basis of its ballot redesign and is considering including a joystick as the tactile controller, the report says.

A voting system designed to be navigated using only two buttons with audio prompts, codenamed the “EZ Ballot”, was another winner in an OpenIDEO voting challenge; as was an iPad case with additional accessibility features designed to enhance voting applications, such as tactile switches and a built-in stand to adjust the angle of the screen. The design for the accessible iPad case is now available online (download here as compressed Zip file ) and can be built with a 3D printer, the report says.

Ideas such as these have shown promising results but with technology and election processes always changing, access work will always need to continue alongside, the report finds.

“While most elections are more accessible today than in years past, more progress is needed… [but] unfortunately, there is no simple solution”, it says. “Creating accessible elections will require sustained research and funding to continue designing new technologies and processes, evaluating them in the field, and training election officials to use them.”

The removal of barriers to voting and elections is among key principles of a new Canadians With Disabilities Act which a group of Canadian disability rights advocates is urging all the country’s main political parties to pledge to pass, E-Access Bulletin has learned.

The campaign is spearheaded by a group of five leading disability campaigners led by Donna Jodhan, who in 2012 won a six-year legal battle to force the Canadian government to make its websites more accessible (see E-Access Bulletin September 2013). Other members of the “Barrier-free Canada steering committee” are Steven Christianson, advocacy manager at baby health charity March of Dimes; David Lepofsky, a law professor at University of Toronto; Jutta Treviranus, director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at Ontario College of Art & Design; and Marc Workman of the Canadian national blindness charity CNIB.

The group is urging all parties to support the principles behind passing a new law ahead of national elections set for October next year. “We believe more work is needed to ensure the rights of Canadians with disabilities remain intact”, Jodhan told E-Access Bulletin this week. “Web accessibility is just one component of our landscape and if we hope to become an equal partner in society then other rights need to be respected and preserved. We need to have equity with the mainstream world.”

The group has drawn up a list of 14 principles for the new law, which would echo the US Americans with Disabilities Act.

These include that it “should require providers… to ensure that their goods, services and facilities are fully usable by persons with disabilities”; that the government of Canada should lead other sectors in achieving the aims of the new law; and that it should provide for a “prompt, independent and effective process for enforcement”.

The law should also require the government to review all current and future federal legislation and regulations to identify possible accessibility barriers that they may impose or permit, pass new legislation to address these barriers, the principles state. “As an immediate priority under these activities, the Government of Canada should get input from voters with disabilities on accessibility barriers in election campaigns and the voting process, and should develop reforms to remove and prevent such barriers.”

The final principle says: “The Canadians with Disabilities Act must be more than mere window dressing… It must have real force, effect and teeth.”

New technologies such as tablet computers and techniques such as online data analysis are heralding a new age of customised learning assistance for young people who are severely disabled, a practitioner has told E-Access Bulletin.

“We’re entering into a really interesting phase where technology is starting to make massive changes in the way we teach and assess children with the most complex difficulties, allowing us to give them independence and access that we haven’t seen before”, said Sandra Thistlethwaite, specialist speech and language therapist at Oldham-based firm Inclusive Technology.

“For example, we have seen some extremely interesting results using eye gaze technologies with children with complex difficulties, and in using iPads and tablets that people now have as a mainstream device.

“With a good scientific grounding – the right content, structure and theory behind what people are doing with those devices – technology opens up massive potential for health, therapy and learning.”

Thistlethwaite was speaking after one of Inclusive’s software packages, ChooseIt! Maker 3, won the ICT Special Educational Needs Solutions category at last week’s 16th Bett Awards for education resources and companies.

The software allows teachers or parents to help students create and play personalised learning materials. It uses photographs and sounds – including those taken or recorded by the user – with symbols and text to build activities, helping learners who respond best to familiar sights and sounds including those with autism spectrum disorders, communication difficulties, language impairment, developmental disabilities, Down’s Syndrome, Aphasia and traumatic brain injury.

Desktop computers, tablets, touch screens, interactive classroom displays, switches and eye gaze devices can be used with the software, and materials created can be played online or downloaded to mobile, playable offline.

Because the system automatically records learners’ progression, and online activities can be shared between users, a new world of analysable data is being built up that could help not only to improve future products but to determine which interventions work for which children, for the good of all, Thistlethwaite said.

“We are looking at undertaking data analytics over a range of products. We are still at very early stages of looking at how teachers and children are using our software, and it will also give a chance to see how children are learning, what they are looking at, what access methods are used.

“Eventually we plan to have data research tools that would inform education, communication and health, as well as real feedback and real data to inform our practice and improve future products.”

The Bett awards are co-hosted by education suppliers’ association BESA with the organisers of education technology event Bett.

The EPUB electronic book format is the most accessible digital document format, according to a new paper designed to open a debate on accessibility of all mainstream document formats by people with disabilities.

The debate – intended to lead to a further paper to be published in the summer – has been launched by One Voice for Accessible ICT Coalition, an umbrella group for organisations supporting access to digital technology by people with disabilities.

“At present digital documents are sent out in a variety of formats including doc, docx, pdf, EPUB, daisy, MP3 and MP4 and it is not clear what the accessibility pros and cons of these different formats are and if one should be the preferred option”, Peter Abrahams, accessibility leader at Bloor Research and author of the paper, said this week.

According to the paper, EPUB documents can be accessed by most people including users of special access technology, with the exception of sign language readers who will need video files. EPUB documents can also be easily converted into other formats, it says. However, “The present issue is that not everyone has ePub readers installed on their device. Also not everyone has an ePub creator tool”, the paper says.

“There are a wealth of document formats: so this is an opportunity to review those and recommend what the most accessible format is, to try and increase accessibility in document publication”, Nigel Lewis, chair of One Voice, told E-Access Bulletin this week.

“The initial recommendation of the EPUB format is perhaps a surprise, since most people might consider pdf or .doc as the most accessible default formats”, Lewis said. “But we wanted a controversy – to stir a debate among our membership”.

EPUB is an open electronic book standard developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), an international publishing industry body whose UK members include Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Open University and RNIB.

As well as looking at the overall accessibility of each format, the One Voice debate would examine the best ways of structuring documents in all major formats, Lewis said. “Most people still don’t structure common documents in an accessible way,” he said.

Alongside the new work, One Voice is launching a membership drive to expand its network of partners collaborating to improve digital accessibility, Lewis said. Membership of the group currently stands at about 50 organisations and individuals including E-Access Bulletin publisher Headstar. Full members must pay an annual fee to join, and new members include Barclays banking group.

In a deal described as “a huge step forward” for blind computer users, the developer of one of the world’s most sophisticated text-to-speech screenreaders has announced it is now giving away for free its previously chargeable software.

US-based software firm GW Micro has revealed it has reached a deal with Microsoft – on unspecified terms – to provide people who are blind, visually impaired or print disabled with a free licence to use its Window-Eyes screen reader.

Window-Eyes is a highly-regarded screen reader first released in 1995, enabling people with sight problems or other print disabilities to access computers running Microsoft Windows by reading text on the screen as synthesised speech. The software is also designed to help people access major programmes that run on Windows such as Microsoft Office, with versions available in more than 15 languages.

Until this month, users had to pay hefty licence fees to use the software – in the UK, for example, a single licence had cost about £600. Under the new “partner” deal, however, Windows users who own a licensed version of Microsoft Office 2010 or later can download Window-Eyes for free.

Disability organisations in the UK and US have welcomed the move, while raising questions about its detail.

Steve Griffiths, digital accessibility development officer at Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), told E-Access Bulletin the move could help level the playing field between Windows and Apple computers in terms of accessibility. Until now the fact that Apple machines speak to the user “out of the box” through the built-in VoiceOver screenreader have led to many blind people favouring them over Windows devices, but this could now change, Griffiths said.

“It is a big step forwards in terms of Microsoft Office – people tout Apple as accessible but only way they did this was to drastically simplify [the Apple office software suite] iWork so it works better with VoiceOver. Because it was simplified however, it is no longer comparable with Microsoft Office.

“Maybe Apple will now start building more accessible functionality back in [to iWork] but to my mind, Microsoft has now jumped ahead. It’s a huge step forward.”

The move could also have significant repercussions in the wider market for screenreaders, which split roughly into two types: more expensive tools such as SuperNova from UK-based Dolphin Computer Access and JAWS from US firm Freedom Scientific (and formerly, Window-Eyes itself), alongside already existing free screenreaders which have tended to be less sophisticated such as NVDA from Australian firm NV Access and Thunder from UK-based Screenreader.net, he said.

“It will be really interesting to see how it affects other commercial products like SuperNova and JAWS and other low cost or free ones, but how it will pan out depends on how many people do actually put in the work and learn how to use Window-Eyes, because it is a bit different from other products,” Griffiths said.

Although GW Micro are offering free installation support by email or phone, and the software manuals and tutorials are available online, all other technical support must now be purchased. Another small potential extra cost may come from the third-party voice synthesiser programmes that have often been packaged with Window-Eyes: the free version comes with the open source synthesiser eSpeak or Windows’ own default text-to-speech voices, but many users will prefer to use alternatives, Griffiths says.

“Most people in my experience don’t like eSpeak as it is quite robotic, while most other ones now are easy on the ear.” Some people will be happy to put up with eSpeak for free, though it does not cost much to buy a better voice separately, he says – users can pay typically between £25 and £50 for synthesisers such as Eloquence, Vocalizer or IVONA.

As to why GW Micro has struck the new partnership deal with Microsoft to give away its flagship software, and on what terms, Griffiths said no details have emerged from the US. However he said observers have speculated that either sales of Window-Eyes have been so poor recently that GW Micro are trying a new business model based on selling support and training; or that Microsoft has paid a sum of money for the benefits the deal brings to Windows.

Roger Wilson-Hinds, founder of Screenreader.net which developed the first free screen-reader Thunder which is still available but is no longer being renewed, said the Window-Eyes announcement was “brilliant news.”

“Our business is getting free PC software to blind people worldwide. We have played a part and this is a huge step forward alongside NVDA and the Apple Mac story” Wilson-Hinds said. “Over the past seven years, we have had more than 400,000 downloads of Thunder, and Window-Eyes is superior to Thunder.

“So it is all good news, so long as GW Micro continue to invest in and update their offering to keep abreast with Windows advances. If the money from Microsoft tempts them away from their mission and vision and they stop changing and innovating, that would be sad.”

The announcement has also been welcomed by the National Federation of the Blind in the US, whose president Marc Maurer described it as “revolutionary”.

“For the first time, users of Microsoft Office 2010 or later will not have to pay hundreds of dollars… to obtain an accessibility solution,” Maurer said. However, he said the battle for computer access by screenreaders was far from over, as every other software developer must ensure their own packages are compatible with access technologies.

“The usefulness of any screen reader product, of course, is limited by the degree to which other products are compatible with it,” he said. “Developers of mainstream technology, as well as the businesses, institutions, and governmental entities that use it, must continue to do their part by making sure that screen reader users have full access to what they produce, procure, and deploy.”

The impact of the 2012 Paralympic Games on public attitudes towards disabled people has been positive but some campaign groups have sought to “misuse” it for political ends, a leading activist told this year’s eAccess conference.

And disability consultant and campaigner Simon Stevens told delegates that while the London Games had raised the profile of disability issues, it would take some time before we could judge whether the effect will be lasting.

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Many people who work with older people and disabled people in care homes lack digital skills and are poorly placed to help residents use the internet and other vital tools, eAccess 13 delegates heard.

“We often find that the people who work with those in care are not particularly confident or skilled in their use of digital,” said Miles Maier, ICT champion at LASA, an organisation which helps charities and voluntary groups use technology.

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People working on technical standards for mainstream products and services must be more aware of the needs of older and disabled people, delegates at eAccess 13 heard in a closing session in speakers raised key points for the future of accessibility.

Gill Whitney, head of the Design for All Research Group at Middlesex University, said that in a recent survey of committee members by the British Standards Institution, only one third answered ‘yes’ to the question: “Do any of your standardisation activities involve the standardisation of products or services where the accessibility for older and disabled people needs to be considered?”

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Most British companies and government departments are ignoring new ways of offering video links to British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters because they misunderstand the value of this to deaf customers, a leading practitioner has told E-Access Bulletin.

Jeff McWhinney, chair of social enterprise SignVideo ( www.signvideo.co.uk ), was speaking following the launch of a trial service by the broadcaster Sky, allowing deaf customers to contact the company’s customer services team using SignVideo interpreters based in London and Edinburgh.

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Access to the internet in homes for the elderly and developing inclusive services on smartphones and tablet computers are among topics on the agenda at e-Access 13, the UK’s leading event on access to technology by people with disabilities.

Delegates will hear about the Connecting Care project, looking at how care homes for older people can make the most of new technology to support their organisation, carers and service users. The project is run by Lasa, a technology support group for charities and public sector bodies, with funding from the Department of Health.

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