IBM software helps blind people better access their websites

IBM released a software on Tuesday to help blind and visually impaired people access their websites with the power of global Internet users.

Many blind and visually impaired people use screen-reading software to obtain content on webpages, but they often encounter problems. Screen reading software relies on text and descriptive tags on web pages to understand website content. However, many websites do not have complete descriptive tags that enhance accessibility.

This IBM software allows Visual Impaired visitors to report problems to a central database when they encounter problems, while other visually impaired visitors on the Internet are seeing these problems, will help provide some descriptive information, which is not saved to the original HTML of the webpageCodeBut saved to an additional file. When a visually impaired person visits the website again, he can obtain the additional file from the central database and understand the incomplete content.

IBM's Tokyo researcher chieko Asakawa said the idea came from her own experiences. Asakawa, who is also blind, leads a six-person group to develop the software. She is very clear about the problems that blind people encounter during Website access.

"As a user, I face many problems every day, but I cannot raise them. Every day, we see some images without descriptive text, but I cannot tell others that I want them. This is a simple motive. If we can ask the question, those visually normal visitors can provide us with this information.".

IBM started providing the beta version of the software on Tuesday. This software can be used in combination with IE and jaws read screen software, and can be used by normal visual users as Firefox plug-ins.

When demonstrating the software, Asakawa entered the address of the White House website, although the White House website was designed to consider accessibility issues, the three main topics on the top of the page do not provide additional information for the screen reading software to understand what they mean.

Asakawa pressed several keys to bring up a dialog box in which Asakawa entered the above question and hoped someone could help provide this information. When other visitors see this problem, they can quickly add the descriptive text. The next time they come back, they can see it.

Asakawa also hopes to extend this project to other physical disorders, such as those with impaired hearing.

 

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