All About Access

Do you remember the DECtalk Express, the only decent external speech synthesizer we had available to us before the advent of software speech synthesis? Sure, getting a DECtalk Express required coming up with 1000 bucks, but the quality of the speech justified the expense. I have two of them in my possession, and they still work! Well, that’s not entirely accurate. One works as long as I sit very, very still because I managed to snap off a piece that is (was) on one end of the serial cable. Thus the synthesizer keeps getting disconnected. The other works using the damaged cable, but its own cable went AWOL long ago. So I have $2000 worth of equipment, $1000 of which is currently serving as an amusing paperweight, and $1000 of which is flakey at best.

If you don’t remember the DECtalk Express, you’re probably wondering why I don’t just run out to my local computer store and pick up some replacement serial cables. The thing is, I can’t. You see, Digital Equipment Corporation, in its infinite wisdom, created its own special serial cable for use with this synthesizer: On one end there’s a standard 9-pin female connector, but on the other end there is an RJ12. Only it’s not an RJ12. As I learned recently, it’s an “RJ12 MMJ”—a special creation brought to us by Digital Equipment Corporation. I would order replacement cables from Digital were it not for the fact that they went bankrupt a number of years ago. So what does one do??

I tried looking around for serial cable wiring diagrams—and found plenty— but so far haven’t come up with anything for DB9 to RJ12. And even if I find the appropriate diagram, I would still need to track down and order the proprietary RJ12 MMJ connector.

I did find a company that sells an adapter that sounded like what I need, but the product arrived today and is only part of the puzzle. I called to inquire. After reminding me that I was dealing with 20-year-old technology made by a defunct company, and then listening to my plea for assistance, the gentleman on the other end of the phone took pity on me and said they would make me the missing piece (bless him!).

Regardless, this is taking far too much of my time, energy, and money—and none of it would be necessary if Digital had simply gone with a standard serial cable rather than this proprietary nonsense….

So why am I telling you all of this? Admittedly in large part because I feel the need to vent. But also because it is yet another reminder of why proprietary anything is bad—be it a cable or a file format. When we depend upon a single entity for access to our items in perpetuity, we’re asking for trouble: One never knows what that entity might do down the road, or if that entity will even continue to exist. Relying upon standards that are not just open, but created and supported by multiple entities, is the only way to go.

Technorati Tags: DECtalk Express, proprietary formats, ODF, Open XML

I just found out about the OATS project.

OATSoft is dedicated to improving Assistive Technology and computer accessibility through the power of Open Source development techniques. OATSoft makes the best Open Source Assistive Technology Software or OATS easy to find and install. Users and developers are meeting at OATSoft to create better OATS.

It is wonderful to see yet another instance of the assistive technology and open source communities coming together. Through such collaborative efforts, universal design stops being a mere ideal and starts becoming a reality. I definitely want to get involved with the OATS project!

I learned about OATS via Henrik Omma, dubbed Ubuntu’s “Mr. Accessibility,” who blogged about yesterday’s project launch in London. He gives a good overview of where things seem to be and links to some comments and advice he gave the project: all quite good and worth reading. But there’s one thing Henrik said that especially struck me:

As an Open Source enthusiast I’m happy that this project has chosen open source as the vehicle by which to achieve (“better computer access”). But at the same time I acknowledge the fact that for most disabled computer users (and other computer users) the open-sourceness of their tools is not the key factor. I think we should keep in mind that the quality of the result is more important than the license used for those who end up using it.

I agree 100% that the quality of the result is most important and that the license, in and of itself, is irrelevant in the minds of most users. However, while the open-sourceness of the tools is not the key factor today, I do think that will change.

Open source solutions facilitate a move away from the medical model of assistive technology service provision—a model which for so very many reasons is unsatisfactory. Thanks to open source solutions, the user can finally cease being a passive recipient of AT, instead taking on the far more empowering roles of true consumer and active participant. As more and more users with disabilities see all that open source has to offer—far more than mere products!—the open-sourceness of the tools will indeed be a key factor if not the key factor.

The license still won’t matter though.

Technorati Tags: open source, OATS, FOSS, FLOSS, assistive technology

By now, Accessible Search is old news —news that I initially had no intention of blogging about. But ever since the launch was brought to my attention, a couple of things have been bothering me. And I’ve come to the realization that they will continue to do so until I get them off my chest.

While I am delighted to see that Google is now taking accessibility seriously, I’m not so sure they’re going about it in the right way. Before investing the time and energy to create an alternative search engine which analyzes the content and structure of external pages, wouldn’t it have made sense to examine their own site for usability? If they had done that—and perhaps compared what they have to offer with the far more accessible Yahoo equivalents—they might have discovered things like:

• Formatting the list of search results as a true list makes it possible for the screen reader user to jump directly to the results rather than have to take the time to work his/her way down. It would also make it possible for the user to navigate quickly from item to item without having to Tab repeatedly through instances of “Cached” and “Similar pages”.


• The proper use of headings can give the user who is blind a good understanding of a page’s structure. And like lists—and for that matter other elements—headings can be quickly navigated among using screen reader commands.

But Google didn’t do that. Instead they left those access problems in place and created a specialized search engine just for blind users— an engine which, as Mark pointed out the other day, shares many of the same structural shortcomings as the rest of the site.

Structural issues aside, I think the folks at Google are missing a fundamental point: Relevancy has NOTHING to do with visual acuity. Relevancy is about the content, not the container. Of course, that is not to say that the container can be dismissed. Far from it. As Google states in their Accessible Search FAQ:

In the past, visually impaired Google users have often waded through a lot of inaccessible websites and pages to find the required information.

Agreed. BUT: By creating a separate search engine for users who are blind—something which in and of itself bothers me, and which seems to contradict their mission of making information universally accessible— Google is merely treating the symptoms; not curing the disease. And what bothers me the most about that is if anyone is in a position to find a cure, it’s Google.

I mean, let’s face it, for better or for worse Google has become the center of the online universe. Businesses and individuals are utterly obsessed with attaining the highest possible page rank—not in Yahoo or in MSN, but in Google. All Google would have to do is integrate their new “accessibility” algorithm into their current method of assigning rank. If your page isn’t accessible, its rank plummets—not just in some specialized search engine, but universally. No one would find you. No one would click on your AdSense ads. Sure people would complain at first—at least those who hadn’t designed their site with accessibility in mind would. But those folks would bite the proverbial bullet and fix their site because Google’s influence is that great.

Were that to occur, there would be no need for a separate but supposedly equal search engine for users who are blind. With that, plus a little structural cleanup, Google could proudly—and this time rightfully— claim that they had fulfilled their mission to “better organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible.”

Google: Sometimes it’s not merely the thought that counts. Sometimes it really is the gift….

Technorati Tags: Google, Accessible Search