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Re: Google funds new research to help blind web surfers, PhysOrg.com, March 30, 2010

for

From: Geof Collis
Date: Apr 4, 2010 7:09PM

Hi All

Is this going to be possible without a site being
WCAG compliant? Is it a pipe dream?

cheers

Geof




At 07:54 PM 4/4/2010, you wrote:
>Google funds new research to help blind web surfers
>
>March 30, 2010
>
>(PhysOrg.com) -- New research by University of Manchester scientists that
>could help blind people find their way around the World Wide Web has been
>given a boost with a £50,000 grant from Google.
>
>Drs Andy Brown, Caroline Jay and Simon Harper who are based at the
>University's School of Computer Science, have already developed a prototype
>screen reader that has been successfully tested on blind web surfers in an
>independent evaluation.
>
>The team used specialist eye tracking techniques to find out how sighted
>people interact with complex Web pages so they could translate the pages
>into audio.
>
>Now they are working with Google to make their technology, which is not yet
>suitable for general use, freely available to people with visual
>impairments.
>
>They aim to provide a way of modifying Web pages so blind people can easily
>access them without having to wait for commercial screen reading technology
>- which reads web pages aloud - to catch up with the latest research
>developments.
>
>Dr Jay said: "The growth of Web 2.0 technologies is fundamentally changing
>the way that people interact with the Web.
>
>"A short time ago, navigating the Web was simply a matter of clicking links,
>moving from one static page to another.
>
>"Now it's possible to spend a considerable amount of time interacting with a
>single page through its "dynamic micro content" that updates independently,
>without changing the URL."
>
>She added: "Unfortunately, blind people are excluded from many of these
>exciting developments and our research aims to change all that.
>
>"They can have real problems accessing web applications - such as calendars,
>tickers and suggestion lists - found on travel, entertainment and social
>networking sites.
>
>"This is because the screen reading technology which converts the visual
>page to audio doesn't say when a web page changes, making much of Web 2.0 is
>inaccessible to people with visual impairments."
>
>More information: The detailed technical reports describing background,
>implementation and all the underlying research for the SASWAT project are
>available in the team's open-access data repository: http://hcw-
>prints.cs.man.ac.uk/view/subjects/saswat.html
>
>Provided by University of Manchester news: web www.manchester.ac.uk)
>
>
>www.physorg.com/news189181904.html
>
>
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