Published on Sep 6, 2004

In the near future, people who are disabled as well as senior citizens will be able to enjoy a better quality of life. They will have more comfort in their daily activities, at home, in the car, or shopping, thanks to the accessibility research being done in IBM’s Tokyo research laboratory where technologies for disabled and older people around the world are being developed.

Chieko Asakawa, group leader of IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory’s Accessibility Research Centre, said that the lab has been developing several accessibility technologies to assist people with all types of sight difficulties.

Blind since the age of 14, Asakawa has spent 20 years in research and development of accessibility technologies for disabled people.

Since the technology trend is toward broadband and wireless, ubiquitous computing, radio frequency identification (RFID) as well as Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS), IBM has plans to integrate all of these into accessibility technologies to enable the disabled to live as normal.

RFID is a technology based on radio waves that can identify an item, an animal or a person by an electronic tag capable of transmitting data. With its traceability, the technology is a recognised alternative for applications where the bar code has reached its limits.

Asakawa said that for the blind, there might be a wearable PC embedded with GIS and GPS devices to make it possible for them to check where they are on the road at any given moment. Then a wireless device, which is embedded with a voice navigation system, when activated by the satellite signal with the current location, will speak instructions and suggest whether they should turn left or right.

In the future, when blind people are in a supermarket, it could be possible for them to shop for all items without help since the products on the shelves will introduce themselves, saying what they are and how much they are priced. Incorporated with sensors and RFID, product information will be transmitted when somebody passing is detected.

Once the products are bought, they will automatically communicate with the stock department through the wireless system so that the department can update the inventory. Such applications are now in the process of development in the lab.

Asakawa said that with the Web development trend towards multimedia, blind and deaf people will be able to enjoy Internet content more than ever.

It is expected that by 2010, only 5 per cent of Web pages around the world will keep text-based main content. Most home pages will use multimedia formats.

To help Web developers design and create websites appropriate for disabled people, IBM has announced a preview of its latest accessibility designer tool called aDesigner. It helps developers ensure that Web pages are accessible and usable by the visually impaired.

aDesigner is a Java-based tool that enable developers to better understand the problems confronting users with disabilities. It automatically detects accessibility and usability problems on a Web page for two types of visual impairments, low vision and blindness.

It provides guidelines on how to correct these issues.

The tool allows Web developers to easily determine how accessible or inaccessible Web pages are by simulating what they look like from the viewpoint of a person with weak eyesight, colour vision deficiency or cataracts. It can detect inaccessible parts of a page by applying image-analysis techniques.

In blind mode, the tool checks for excessive reaching time, which is the amount of time required to reach each element from the top of a page, as well as redundant text, insufficient intra-page linking, and failure to comply with accessibility guidelines.

aDesigner is available at www.alphaworks.com for a 90-day free trial.

Recently, IBM helped Japanese department store chain Mitsukoshi to launch an online shopping site with significant enhancements for older and visually-impaired shoppers. The website adapted the colour and size of text and the reading order for the voice browser, improving site accessibility for these groups of people.

The website used IBM’s Easy Web Browsing that enables visually-impaired shoppers to easily navigate and view a website. They can display enlarged text and have it read by a voice-synthesiser simply by moving the screen pointer to the part of the site that they want to read.

It also uses IBM Home Page Reader, to allow users to shop by using voice only.

In addition, the colour of text and the background can easily be changed so that people who have colour blindness, cataracts, or other visual impairments can view the site easily.

asina@nationgroup.com

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation