Touchpad Mapper: Examining Information Consumption From 2D Digital Content Using Touchpads by Screen-Reader Users

This article critically examines the promise of Internet-based digital technology to open up the world to people with disabilities, and the parallel danger that the social construction of disability in the digital environment will simply come to mirror pre-existing analogue discrimination. This paper explores how technologies and innovations designed to improve access by the disabled actually enhance access for all users. The first part of the paper focuses on ‘Web 2.0’ and digital access for people with disability, particularly those with vision impairment. The online software that drives the iPod and iPhone and exclusively delivers content to these devices is iTunes. While iTunes seems on the surface to provide enormous opportunity for the vision impaired to access a broad selection of audio content, its design actually works to inhibit access to the platform for this group. Apple promotes the use of iTunes in educational settings through the iTunes U channel, and this potentially excludes those who have difficulty with access to the technology. Critically, it is these excluded people who, potentially, could benefit the most from the new technology. We consider the difficulty experienced by users of screen readers and braille tablets in relation to iTunes and highlight the potential problems for universities who seek to utilise iTunes U. In the second part of the paper we reframe disability accessibility as a principle of universal access and design and outline how changes made to assist users with disability can enhance the learning experience of all students using the Lectopia lecture recording and distribution system as an example. The third section of the paper situates these digital developments within the continuum of disability theory deploying Finkelstein’s three stages of disability development. The focus then shifts to the potential of online virtual worlds such as Second Life to act as a place where the promise of technology to mediate for disability might be realised. Goggin and Newell suggest that the Internet will not be fully accessible until disability is considered a cultural identity in the same way that class, gender and sexuality are. This article argues that accessibility must be addressed through the context of design and shared open standards for digital platforms.

Screen reader software is a vital assistive technology (AT) that enables computer access for people who are blind or have low vision, but we know little about its use in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to learn about computer screen reader use among a group of legally blind workers, including type and number of screen readers used, factors associated with multiple screen reader use, and how multiple screen reader users select one for different tasks. Participants were 274 employed people in the U.S. who completed online or phone surveys and used screen readers on the job. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test, and logistic regression were used to analyze quantitative data, and content analysis was utilized with qualitative data. We found that JAWS was the predominant screen reader used, and most people utilized multiple screen readers. People who used multiple screen readers were less likely to report a challenge with working efficiently compared to sighted peers. Experiencing a problem while using a screen reader was the most common reason for deciding to use a different screen reader, followed by deciding based on knowledge that one screen reader works better than others for specific tasks. Several factors, in addition to having an AT or accessibility-related job, were associated with multiple screen reader use. Our findings suggest that using multiple screen readers can benefit workers in terms of efficiency and ability to troubleshoot problems experienced when using a screen reader, such as the inaccessibility or poor usability of digital content.

Blind people rely on screen readers to interact with the Web. Since screen readers narrate the digital content serially, blind users can only form a one-dimensional mental model of the web page and, hence, cannot enjoy the benefits inherently offered by the 2-D layout; e.g., understanding the spatial relations between objects in a webpage or their locations on the screen helps navigate webpages. Haptic interfaces could provide blind people with a tactile feel for the 2-D layout and help them navigate web pages more efficiently. Haptic Displays, capable of high resolution tactile feedback, could render any webpage in a tactile form enabling blind people to exploit the aforementioned spatial relations and focus screen reading on specific parts of the webpage. In this paper, I report on the preliminary work toward the development of FeelX -- a haptic gloves system that will enable tactile web browsing. FeelX will be used alongside regular screen readers, and will provide blind screen-reader users with the ability explore web pages by touch and audio.