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Amazon Commits to Kindle Accessibility
Amazon has openly discussed supporting additional accessibility features for low vision users of the Kindle. Some of my requests include:
- Provide low light support – provide a white background for higher contrast.
- Allow for larger font size selections.
- Support font enlargement for lists and menu items.
- Provide text-to-speech support for menu items.
- Ensure that the Author’s Guild does not impact any of the existing text-to-speech features.
I encourage any and all who feel strongly about keeping the text-to-speech feature in Kindle to contact the Author’s Guild via email, or use the below contact information.
The Authors Guild
31 East 32nd Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Phone: (212) 563-5904
Fax: (212) 564-5363
The Mythical Apple iPad
There have been many blog posts in the last few days suggesting that Applie is working on a new mobile device. CNET had a very good summary article of these posts this morning. Some of the articles even have mocked up art work suggesting what the device looks like. This mid-sized mobile device is reported to be bigger than an iPhone, but smaller than a Mac Book. Some have named the device, the iPad, a device that’s more portable than notebooks and lacks a keyboard.
It would be great if someone could produce a mobile device that could replace a collection of devices we typically use now. Such a device could be very helpful to low vision users: It would be great if the iPad had these features:
- A higher resolution and larger touch screen to better display images and videos.
- Enhanced touch screen gestures that to eliminate visual buttons, icons and user interface controls.
- Enhanced screen technology to work in both low light and bright light environments.
- Enhanced on-screen keyboard support for application specific situations.
- Superior speech-to-text and text-to-speech application interfaces.
- Higher function zoom application support for all applications.
- A pedestrian and vehicle mode real time GPS application
- Support for Mac OS and the App Store for new applications.
- Support for both Sony and Kindle book reader applications.
- Additional Safari browser shortcuts for low vision users, (such as pop-up tags to jump to primary focus areas of the page).
- Support for assistive technologies for WCAG 2.0.
This would be a really neat device and could reduce the load in our computer bags. Being a gadget nerd, I would buy it if the price were below $500. Apple would really have a hot item. The support for low vision users would benefit all users. Let’s hope the rumors are true.
Screen Reader Easier Than Magnifiers
I had the pleasure of sitting with Rebecca Stallings of the Asheville Services for the Blind to gain her perspective of JAWS with Web 2.0 sites. Rebecca gave me a tour of JAWS and we visited a few sites. What I found interesting was her amazing proficiency with JAWS. I wondered aloud, “How could this be? How could she be more proficient with JAWS than I am with a screen magnifier?”. She gave me some great observations.
- Screen readers keep everything within context. Magnifiers lose context. JAWS can provide the user with immediate lists of links, images, form fields and other web artifacts. She can get that information instantly. The screen magnifier user cannot.
- Jaws uses keyboard shortcuts for every access of the web page. Magnifier users have to move the focus and hunt for things within a new context.
- Magnifier users often are not aware they are missing information because they are only viewing a small part of the screen. JAWS users can know all artifacts across a web page, (provided its is accessible).
There is the rub. Not everyone values accessibility. Rebecca and I depend upon it. It would be great if others could design and implement web pages for accessibility.