Here's my own personal account of meeting Victor. The following article was published in DH on Saturday November 24.
Scaling new heights in technology It may have taken years for Internet firms to make their applications accessible to the blind, but a new breed of evangelists is bringing new momentum to access technology. By L Subramani A few years ago, no one would have thought that a fine-looking philosophy student from Ukraine would go on a journey that would change the way the blind use Yahoo's famed email and other products. Ukraine may remind us of many things - Chernobyl, the recent orange revolution and the record breaking pole vaulter Sergei Bubka. And perhaps Victor Tsaran's feats are in a way comparable with the heights Bubka was regularly scaling with the pole in his hand; observers admired his records with a sense of wonder about them. Today, we sit in front of Victor perhaps with the same sense of wonder about his accomplishments. It's hardly surprising that Victor is blind, given his endeavour in Yahoo (as the company's accessibility manager/evangelist), but precisely how he switched from philosophy to computing remains incomprehensible even to him. "It was perhaps that day in 1994," Victor said to the press in Bangalore. "I discovered my excitement for computers at Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia, where I was a student. The way it worked mesmerised me and I felt it was something I always wanted to do." Victor returned home with a sense of astonishment about computers and also with the awareness that the machines he operated in the US have the potential to transform the lives of fellow blind persons in Ukraine, which was rising from the embers of the Soviet Union. He set up the first ever computer training centre for the blind in the country, but felt much more needed to be done. "I felt the US is the right place to pursue computers and came for higher studies," he said. "Today, when I visit Ukraine, I could see for myself the way computers have changed the lives of people there." After training to be an engineer, Victor finally landed in Yahoo, with the responsibility of making all their products accessible to the blind, a task that keeps him occupied till now and a task that demands constant and patient work. "Accessibility isn't something you write on the rock and say this is it," Victor said, demonstrating how the new Yahoo mail service, developed by Yahoo under his supervision, to a group of computer teachers for the blind in the city. "Accessibility is an attempt to continuously keep pace with the ever-changing technology and keep pushing the envelop. So, like any programmer, we wake up expecting challenges on the board to work with and try to make things better for the blind who use keyboard, not the mouse and take the assistance of screen reading software that acts as their eyes to access computers." Indeed, looking at the progress major internet giants like Google are making, the task is cut out for Victor's team. A couple of years ago, Google appointed T V Raman, a maths researcher and creator of accessibility products, who is entrusted with a similar task of making the web accessible to special users. All these, of course, are happening several years after the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) provided the guideline for creating accessible websites and widespread disappointment among visually challenged persons of their exclusion from the technology that promised them of employment and access to information. Victor feels the interest among internet firms in accessibility stems from the realisation of what it means to persons with visual challenge. "Let's not forget that we're in the business of getting more users and allowing our technology to be as friendly as possible to everyone. And we certainly can't exclude users of screen readers who are blind and visually impaired. If a regular user can click in and can choose a product he wants to buy, why not such a service be available to the visually challenged user as well? I feel this (access technology) has to be approached from the business requirement perspective and not as a charity," Victor said. And so the evangelist got on with his task of removing the barriers and letting open the secrets of internet; setting out once again to scale the heights of technology, much as his countryman Bubka did in the sports arena 16 years ago. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of shahnaz Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 1:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [AI] Yahoo Screen Reader To Open New Vistas For Visually Impaired Yahoo screen reader to open new vistas for visually impaired Reema Jose How popular can Internet be with the visually impaired? A lot, it appeared, as the visually challenged users in Bangalore navigated through the web with the help of a screen reader. Victor Tsaran, the accessibility guru at Yahoo, made a profound introduction as he prepared to demonstrate the company's new mailing version for the blind. "If any of you cannot see my desktop from where you are sitting, it is okay. Then you will understand how your students feel, to be unable to see the screen while using the Internet. I suggest you work on the computer with your screen switched off for a few minutes every day, so that you will know how painful it is, to not see," he said. Himself completely blind and a hand behind the accessible version, Tsaran was perhaps best placed to put the teachers at Mitra Jyothi, a charitable institute for the blind, in their students' shoes for a while. He would hold the keyboard in his lap, and remind the trainers that for their students, the mouse was a vain instrument. But there was good news: "The Screen Reader (software that reads out items on the screen) can do everything on the keyboard." Interestingly, the few visually impaired among the audience were not lost at Tsaran's usage of computer jargons. Questions were asked on the download speeds, the accessibility of graphic content and other navigation-related details of the service. Justin Philip, the tech wizard who worked as a part-time medical transcriptionist, wanted to know if the new user-verifications on the mail were audio-enabled. Tsaran said the email verification process, as well as other products of the company such as search and messenger would be made accessible for the disabled. Hailing from Ukraine where he was a student in philosophy, Tsaran later moved to the US to study computers. "Technology has made people more independent, it has opened jobs for people; but society also has to change," he said. Back in the US, he would continue to work on improving the possibilities of the Internet for those who cannot see, he said. "I do not believe in a perfect world. Technology keeps changing. We have to fight and find solutions (to accessibility issues)," he said. The new version, Yahoo! Mail Classic is aimed at making its blind users more independent while using the Internet. Users should choose the "Classic version" on Yahoo's home page, and navigate as different items on the screen including Inbox, subjects, date and sender details are read out. 5, 50, 500, 5000 - Store N number of mails in your inbox. Go to http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. 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