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Thread: Announcement: UA-Chess - An accessible Web-based chess game

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From: Dimitris Grammenos
Date: Tue, Feb 15 2005 7:48AM
Subject: Announcement: UA-Chess - An accessible Web-based chess game
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The Centre for Universal Access & Assistive Technologies of
ICS-FORTH (http://www.ics.forth.gr/hci/cuaat.html) has developed an accessible
chess game (UA-Chess, www.ics.forth.gr/uachess) that is freely available on the
Web.

 

UA-Chess is a fully-functional 2-player chess game that can be played through
a standard Web browser. Its distinctive characteristic is that it is designed
to be Universally Accessible, i.e., it can be concurrently played by people
with different abilities and preferences, including people with disabilities
(e.g., low-vision, blind and hand-motor impaired).

 

This is achieved by supporting alternative input and output modalities and
interaction techniques that can co-exist and co-operate in the game's user interface,
combined with fully customizable player profiles. Every aspect of the game's
functionality is accessible through the mouse, the keyboard (or any type of
switches emulating keystrokes) and speech recognition. UA-Chess has
self-voicing capabilities, since it includes a built-in screen reader that
offers full auditory access to every part of it. Additionally, the game can be
sized according to user preference and zoomed in and out at different levels.
Finally, several alternative interaction techniques (the parameters of which
can be customized) are supported for each device. For example, the keyboard can
be used for direct positional input (e.g., to select the square A7 by typing
'A7'), for 'tabbing' though all the alternative interaction elements, or in
combination with different types of scanning. The interaction capabilities of
UA-Chess allow it to provide access to people with combinations of
disabilities, as for example blind hand-motor impaired persons.

 

UA-Chess allows for two-player games over the Internet, as well as
games with two opponents sharing the same computer, where the game's user interface
(input and output) is adapted to the active player's profile. The game follows
the official Laws of Chess, as these are set by the World Chess Federation.

 

UA-Chess was developed using Macromedia Flash MX Professional 7. Speech
recognition and synthesis is supported through the use of Speech Application Language
Tags (SALT) technology.

 

UA-Chess can be found on-line at: www.ics.forth.gr/uachess

 

On-line is also available a detailed user manual in different formats
(html,pdf, txt).

 

 

Any comments, opinions or suggestions are
welcome!