Getting familiar with JAWS and tactile reading
On the first day of snow, I met with Karen Gourgey at Computer Center for Visually Impaired People (CCVIP) at Baruch College. The weather probably discouraged others from coming to the Open House that day, so I was fortunate and got to sit with Karen and talk for a while.
Karen is the education director at the CCVIP where they offer several programs for blind and visually impaired people. They teach how to use different applications such as Excel and Word, in addition to software that enables text-to-speech and devices that translate text to Braille.
A lot of the students at CCVIP are sponsored by the New York State Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped. The unemployment rate of blind people in the US is estimated to be around 70% and people with visual impairments are having a hard time getting jobs that match their skill level.
Karen was fortunate and was taught Braille while she was young. Fewer and fewer blind people know Braille today, and software that translates text to speech is key to the Braille illiterate. Karen pointed out how much easier this operation used to be with DOS and speech synthesizing character for character. The ratio between visual output and audio was 1:1. When the pixel was introduced, this changed.
Today, there are rules for how websites should be laid out to function with screen readers such as JAWS. However, a lot of people don’t follow these rules, and the content creates conflicts when it is processed by the reader software. One of the issues may be sites that refreshes themselves when an image changes, and so the reader resets to the upper left corner. The web hierarchy becomes very important since the software makes a list of all the headings to ease the navigation. Coming from a program where design of websites and applications often is a part of the deliverables, all though not taught directly, I was surprised that this isn’t something we have discussed in school at all.
After showing me the basics of JAWS, Karen wanted to see what the SVA website was like. The site was recently redesigned and has a grid structure with student and alumni work displayed. Unfortunately, it turned out that the images had no alt text, and every image was read out loud with their directory and pixel size instead. This is another major issue browsing the web as a blind person.
I started to get a better understanding of what this experience is like, even if I could only make sense of half of what the voice was reading on the screen. Karen had to slow down the speed several times. Tracing what was being read and what I could see on the screen, also turned out to be challenging, depending on how the websites were laid out. Another really great thing about CCVIP is that they offer usability testing of websites.
A Talking Tactile Tablet that Karen had on her desk led us to discuss how tactile displays can help to build mental pictures. The machine is a touch sensitive screen where sheets with tactile print is laid on top and calibrated with the sensors in the tablet. The sheet she had on display corresponded to a textbook in statistics, but maps and games are also popular to use with this device. It is connected to a computer that reads where your finger touches and gives information according to that.
Tactile displays can be helpful to explain math models and metaphors, but Karen pointed out the difference between someone who is born blind and someone who lost their vision but still relies on some visual memory. If you are born blind you can’t just put your hand on something and understand what it is. Metaphors such as the spreadsheet, can be hard to grasp for someone who was born blind. It takes time to build that image.
Karen showed me her Braille keyboard that she uses every day, separately from her computer. As with the computer keyboard, her fingers ran across the six keys on the Braille board at an incredible speed. You can choose to either listen to what you type, or have it displayed in the metal Braille display. Karen told me how beautiful she found this particular Braille display. When I asked her how much it cost I was shocked to hear that it was twice as expensive as my MacBook Pro.
Before I left, Karen wanted to give me an index card with my name in Braille. She first showed me the “old school” stylus where you lock a piece of paper in a metal grid and punch holes through the paper with a needle-like device. She also showed me a retro looking green braille writer that works the same way as a type writer, except that the keyboard has six keys.
While I was sitting with Karen, I saw that the rain had turned into snow outside her window. Inside of me I was shouting “it’s snowing!!!”, but for some reason I didn’t say it out loud. I was afraid that the excitement of something only I could see would somehow seem disrespectful. But as I was putting my jacket on and headed out, Karen wished me good luck out there in the snow.
