Acrophobia and Accessible IT in Atlanta

Citation

Johnson, D. (2000), "Acrophobia and Accessible IT in Atlanta", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 17 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2000.23917iad.001

Acrophobia and Accessible IT in Atlanta

David Johnson, Column Editor

Acrophobia and Accessible IT in Atlanta

David Johnson

[Ed.: "EASI Access to Library Technology," a regular feature of Library Hi Tech News, examines new technology, information sources and services, and other news of interest to librarians concerned with providing quality services to their patrons with disabilities. EASI (Equal Access to Software and Information), in affiliation with the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE), is concerned with new and emerging technologies for computer users with disabilities.]

Settlement of NFB suit against AOL

In November 1999 the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) filed suit against America Online (AOL) for violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because its proprietary software is mostly unreadable by screen reading programs and therefore inaccessible to blind users. AOL screens lack appropriate ALT tags and usually do not allow keystrokes to take the place of clicking with a mouse. A large proportion of AOL's pages are simply unreadable because they use a non-standard language. The NFB argued that since other Internet service providers (ISPs) offer accessible service, AOL could do it too. At the same time, NFB argued that AOL's service includes unique features, such as instant messaging and chat rooms, which are desirable to some blind users, so that other ISPs are not an adequate substitute for AOL for blind people who wish to use AOL's unique services.

AOL replied that the suit was unnecessary because it was already working on making its service more accessible. NFB's response was that AOL had been saying this for a long time without ever making changes. The key issue of the lawsuit, however, was the applicability of the ADA. AOL and its supporters in the Internet industry argued that the ADA shouldn't apply to the Internet because it is not a "public accommodation" as defined by the ADA, a law written in 1989-1990, before the Internet became big. From this point of view, the NFB lawsuit had the potential to result in either a big victory or a big loss for disabled people in general. NFB tried to increase its chances by filing its suit in Boston, with the support of its Massachusetts chapter, rather than in its headquarters city of Baltimore, so that the suit would be heard in a more liberal judicial circuit.

I hesitated to mention the suit in this column because I write each column about three months before publication, and I thought the suit might be settled before any column I wrote might appear. As it happens, a settlement was reached on 26 July 2000. The text of the agreement is on the NFB Web site at www.nfb.org/agreement.htm In this agreement, AOL reaffirms that it "vigorously disputes and denies" that its Internet services are subject to the ADA, or that they are in violation of the ADA. AOL does not deny that its services are largely inaccessible to the blind (it could hardly deny this), but it promises that AOL 6.0, to be released later in 2000 (possibly by the time this column appears), will be compatible with screen reading software. To ensure compatibility, AOL promises to work with companies that produce screen readers. AOL also promises to make its existing services "largely" accessible, allowances being made for unforeseen "technological and/or commercial difficulties" and for certain features expected to pose "unusual technological difficulties". NFB agrees that it will drop its suit and not file any other suit against AOL before the one-year anniversary of the agreement.

The agreement also states that "it is acknowledged and agreed that no party to this action purports to be or is the prevailing party in this action ..." As an observer, I wonder. If AOL 6.0 turns out to be highly accessible, NFB can argue that its suit gave AOL the prod it needed to get this work done. Nonetheless, the key issue, the applicability of the ADA, was not settled, and the largest ISP in the world seems to be committed to the idea that the ADA does not apply to the Internet.

When Norman Coombs of EASI made a listserv posting of the AOL lawsuit in November 1999, he wrote that it should be "a wake-up call for libraries and colleges". So, is this settlement an invitation to press the snooze button? Probably not. The lawsuit constituted a wake-up call mainly because it was a reminder of the danger of being sued over Web site accessibility, and since most libraries and colleges are covered under different parts of the ADA (Title II on government services rather than Title III on public accommodations) or under other laws such as the Rehab Act and Section 508, that danger is still there.

NFB 2000 Convention, Atlanta, Georgia

Since I became visually impaired in 1995, certain blind friends of mine have urged me to visit the NFB's national convention. Among other things I was told I could expect many presentations and exhibits related to information technology and libraries. But for various reasons I never made it, until this year. The 2000 NFB convention was held 1-8 July at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta. Room rates, with tax, came to $64.98 a night, while the convention registration fee was only $10. The Marriott Marquis is a 47-story hotel with all rooms surrounding a lobby-to-roof atrium, a rather unpleasant arrangement for an acrophobe like me. In the 1980s I stayed at the same hotel for another convention, and had an awful time getting to and from my room on the 12th floor. This time I asked for the lowest possible floor and got a room on the 4th, which I found more tolerable. The Marriott Marquis' glass-sided elevators give a "spectacular" view of the atrium; unfortunately, most floors are served by only two elevators, which led to elevator traffic jams before and after many scheduled events.

My estimate is that about a third of the presentations, panel discussions, and exhibits concerned IT and/or libraries. Sunday (2 July) started with a training seminar on NFB NET, a Q&A session with David Andrews, the NFB NET systems operator. NFB NET (www.nfbnet.org) contains blindness-related listservs and FTP (file transfer protocol) files, and David Andrews explained how to download FTPs and how to sign on to one of NFB NET's listservs. Among the NFB NET listservs are one on computer science (NFBCS) and one for programmers concerned with graphical user interfaces (GUI Talk).

Sunday afternoon featured a similar seminar on accessing the Internet, with Curtis Chong, NFB's technology director, and several others answering questions.

On Monday evening the Committee on Library Services met. When attendees introduced themselves it appeared that about half were from libraries for the blind and half from libraries serving the general public. Technology was hardly mentioned at this year's meeting. The topic that got the most attention was getting libraries to accept donations of a new art history book written for blind people, containing, in addition to raised-line graphics, verbal descriptions of art works intended to make their significance apparent to blind readers.

Tuesday afternoon featured a meeting of an NFB special-interest section, NFB in Computer Science. Gregg Vandenheiden of the Trace R&D Center demonstrated a set of voice-operated appliances as part of a talk on embedded computers and linkage of appliances through the Internet. Peter Wong of Microsoft provided CD-ROM's of www.microsoft.com/enable Microsoft's accessibility Web pages, and discussed the guidelines for software and Web site designers contained on the pages. Peter Korn of Sun Microsystems explained the Java Accessibility API (application programming interface), part of the current version of the Java platform, which makes Java applications and applets compatible with screen reading programs. Finally, David Rosen of Complete Media Group (www.enableyoursite.com) described his company's services. Complete Media Group's business is making business web sites accessible; to attract customers it offers free educational materials on its own Web site, including an accessibility test that owners of Web sites can use to test their sites' accessibility (www.enableyoursite.com/accessible.asp).

General sessions began on Wednesday. There were two talks in the afternoon that dealt with technology. David Pillischer, the president of Sighted Electronics (a vendor of AT for the blind), spoke on "Engineering new products for the blind". He argued that it is better to have products that work with mainstream technology rather than ones that "enslave" users to a specialized manufacturer. On the other hand, large companies often neglect R&D for new products and give up too quickly on products that just need time to get debugged and build a market. Pillischer also remarked that, compared to Americans, Europeans seem less inclined to believe that speech-based technologies will replace Braille.

Gerald Kass of the Jewish Braille Institute of America (JBI) followed Pillischer. Kass's comments covered a number of matters, but especially focussed on the JBI's activities in eastern Europe, where, he said, technology is not among people's top needs. But in the USA, according to Kass, JBI has begun to include promotion of accessible Web sites as part of its educational efforts.

The next morning (Thursday), Kurt Cyllke, director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), spoke about the current status of NLS's planned conversion to digital talking books. Cyllke reaffirmed NLS's timetable for conversion, with all titles being digitally mastered by 2003, and digital playback devices in use by 2008. In what he apologetically called "mind-numbing detail," Cyllke explained the difficulty of choosing a particular playback system because of the many factors that go into estimating life cycle costs for each alternative system.

After the general session, Cyllke took questions along with Lloyd Rasmussen, an NLS engineer, and Judy Dixon, an NLS community relations specialist. I asked whether the text of NLS digital talking books would be searchable (a great possible advantage of digital talking books in comparison to analog recordings). The answer was that it is likely most NLS books will be non-searchable, since searchability costs more, and NLS assumes most of its readers are not students or researchers. I also asked about what is being done in the way of international cooperation to allow sharing of resources between libraries for the blind in different countries. Cyllke replied that international cooperation is a shibboleth, but actually books can be and are borrowed between countries now. If a borrower in another country doesn't have the right playback system, players can be lent internationally along with recordings.

Glen Cavanaugh of Telex Communications, Inc., spoke in the general session right after Kurt Cyllke (before the NLS Q&A session), offering statistics on Telex's production of talking book players.

Friday morning included a session on accessibility to electronic information, with representatives from Microsoft (Janis Hertz, Director of Products and Technology, Accessibility and Disabilities Group) and IBM (Chuck King, Product Manager, IBM Accessibility Center, Austin, Texas). Hertz talked about Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), and highlighted a number of products in which Microsoft has incorporated accessibility features from initial release. Chuck King talked about IBM's involvement in the development of the Java Accessibility API; about plans to make IBM's Home Page Reader (IBM's talking Web browser) easier for non-computer-literate persons to use; about the retirement of Dr James Thatcher from IBM Special Needs Systems; and about steps IBM has taken to promote accessibility, such as giving employees a $1,000 bonus for patents related to accessibility, and requiring in its procurement policy that software be accessible.

Also on Friday morning, Deane Blazie and Ted Henter shared the platform to talk about the merger of their companies, Blazie Engineering and Henter-Joyce, into Freedom Scientific. (A third company, Arkenstone, which produces reading machine systems, became part of Freedom Scientific in June.) The main reason for the merger, according to Blazie and Henter, was that both are more interested in product development than in management and finance, so they wanted to turn their companies over to a suitable professional manager.

Finally on Friday morning, Jack Gorman of Speech Link, Inc., talked about the SpeechLink system for using the Internet via telephone without a computer (www.speechlink.com). He urged the whole audience to come and try out the SpeechLink system in the exhibit hall. Unfortunately, when I went to try it, the telephone connection was down. SpeechLink will not actually make the whole Internet available over the telephone, but rather only those Web sites that sign up with SpeechLink to make their sites available in this format. The value of SpeechLink, therefore, will depend on how successful it is in including a wide range of material. From the viewpoint of a public library, SpeechLink would make a difference only if it became so successful as to reduce the demand from patrons for Internet access in the library ­ which, I think, is pretty unlikely.

The last IT-related talks at the convention came Friday afternoon, when the presidents of Plextalk (Motoaki Kaneko) and VisuAide (Gilles Pepin) spoke (separately) about their rival digital book players, Plextalk and Victor. I had talked with a representative from VisuAide earlier in the exhibition hall, and examined the two players at the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) exhibit. RFB&D has already begun making textbooks available in digital form on CD-ROM. Both players are quite expensive, but allow RFB&D patrons to do things with RFB&D books that cannot be done with cassette players, such as search the text for a particular passage or particular words. The RFB&D service is largely used by students, who can benefit greatly from this kind of feature.

Exhibits

Of 90 exhibitors, I counted over 30 manufacturers and distributors of information technology products, including American, Canadian, and European companies offering Braille displays, Braille embossers, tactile graphic printers, Braille translation software, CCTV's, reading machines/software, screen readers, and screen magnifiers. Several competing brands could be seen for each type of product.

One product I would like to mention is Screen Rover, from Betacom Corporation (www.betacom.com), a mouse-based screen reader. Instead of being moved freely over a mousepad, the Screen Rover mouse is attached to a rigid rod which connects it to a box containing a motor that moves the mouse so it points to the active part of the screen. The blind user, feeling the mouse move, gets an idea of the layout of the screen. Other tactile sensations, or pull-push effects, indicate whether the mouse is pointing to an icon, a control, or text. At the same time the screen reader feature describes what the mouse is pointing to. The user can also move the mouse independently, for example, when going down a menu.

I found Screen Rover a bit clumsy for me, but probably this is because I am used to directing a mouse visually. (I use a screen enlargement program, which provides me with an extra-large bright red arrow on-screen.) When I tried Screen Rover, there was no screen enlargement and I was forced to navigate entirely by feel and sound. But a friend of mine who is totally blind and who uses a screen reader at work tried Screen Rover, and quickly learned to navigate with it.

According to Betacom, because it is based on the mouse rather than on adaptation to particular versions of software, Screen Rover can access many functions and programs that can't be reached through standard screen readers. Standard screen readers have to be adapted and revised when new versions of software come out, but Screen Rover will still work, according to Betacom. I was not able to give these claims an adequate tryout, but I like the concept. I would not recommend that an institution serving the public get this system until and unless it catches on with the blind, but it is worth watching out for future developments.

Another exhibitor I would like to mention is FutureForms, which will produce accessible electronic forms for organizations for rates beginning at $500, or make existing electronic forms accessible for a somewhat lower charge. FutureForms (www.futureforms.com) offers to make forms accessible to users who are blind, learning disabled, or physically unable to use a keyboard, so it was one of the few exhibitors offering a product or service for people with other disabilities besides blindness.

Conclusion

If you have a limited convention-going budget and want to find out about technology for the full range of disabilities, you will probably want to go to CSUN, Closing the Gap, or the conference of the Assistive Technology Industry Association. (The second annual ATIA conference will be held 24-27 January 2001 in Orlando; for information, see http://www.atia.org) But meetings of consumer organizations like the NFB can also be good places to hear presentations and see exhibits of new products. And the $10 registration fee was a bargain. Next year's NFB convention will be held June 27-July 3 in Detroit, and the 2002 convention will be held in Louisville, Kentucky.

David Johnson is an Abstractor/ Information Specialist at the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC). Readers with questions, comments, or suggestions may e-mail him at DJohnson@kra.com