Hi Edward,
I would like to take accessibility a step further. We all know about
the virtues of text-to-speech. It would be a great boost to literacy
if we could combine that with a karaoke-style text-coloring process or
an old style bouncing ball to indicate the exact part of the text
being read. This would provide the same general effect as
Same-Language Subtitling of Bollywood movies, which is reportedly the
most effective literacy program ever in India, particularly when done
for musicals that audiences sing along with. See
http://www.planetread.org/ for examples and more information.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaking text & highlighting it as it is read is definitely a useful
tool to help many folks learn how to read. Please see the fourth bullet
in the Accessibility Wiki page section on cognitive impairments
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Accessibility#For_people_with_cognitive_impairments)
where I note this, and also note a product from Ireland that has proved
to be very useful in Western classrooms (Read & Write Gold).
I've updated that portion of the wiki to note the planetread technology
as well.
One other consideration to keep in mind with the approach used by
planetread - we mustn't use color as the only indication of something,
as that will impact folks with color blindness. Giving lots of color
configuration helps with this, and ensuring contrast changes (e.g.
inverse video) will address it. But for example to change green text to
red text as it is read would be very bad for as much as 1/10th of the
white male population.
Regards,
Peter Korn
Accessibility Architect,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
On 3/29/07, Peter Korn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi guys,
Thanks to Jim Gettys I've started looking at OLPC & Sugar accessibility
in what passes for spare time. We've just started a mailing list to
discuss it ([EMAIL PROTECTED]), and I've updated the
Accessibility wiki page (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Accessibility and
also added a bit to start things off on the accessibility section of the
OLPC human interface guidelines
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines/Design_Fundamentals#Accessibility)
I would very much appreciate a conversation looking at these issues, and
on how (and when) we might address accessibility in Sugar and on the
OLPC. From my brief play with the OLPC via a stock BTest-2 system,
there is quite a lot of work to do to provide anything like a similar
level of accessibility support as we have in a GNOME 2.16 or later
desktop (including keyboard navigation support, theming for visual
disabilities, and of course assistive technologies). There is also a
lot of great potential for this device to open up some neat new options
for people with disabilities (sign language chat with the built in
camera; augmentative communication for folks who can't speak by having
the OLPC talk for them), and also for a rather radical cultural shift in
the many developing countries where people with disabilities are often
shunted into a horrible, marginal existence (I recommend the book "My
Path Leads to Tibet" about the story of a German blind woman's efforts
to teach Braille to children in Tibet - see
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1559706589/104-7759792-5139164?v=glance).
Do you know Werner Herzog's Land of Silence and Darkness (Land des
Schweigens und der Dunkelheit), about the world of those who are both
blind and deaf? There is another German documentary called Taubblind,
apparently about them also, that I haven't seen. In Germany, they are
taught a touch alphabet for spelling out words on another person's
hand. I don't suppose we are ready to teach this to a robot
text-to-finger-speech device for developing countries, but it bears
thinking about.
As I'm new to the OLPC & Sugar, I'd also appreciate your patience and
understanding (and your kind assistance) with my ignorance of what has
already been discussed in this area.
Thanks!
Peter Korn
Accessibility Architect,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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