The Science Access Project at the University of Oregon was developed to ensure full accessibility of electronic information by individuals with visual difficulties. This project promotes the development of technologies that will allow full access of electronic information to individuals with print disabilities. Their philosophy is that information should be created and transmitted in a form that is as display-independent as possible with the user having maximum freedom over how information is displayed. This, it is believed, will lead to maximum usability by everybody and will assure equal access. Ideally information should be made accessible by controlling the display, not the information itself.
Science Access Project concentrates on accessibility of non-textual information including:
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1. new and improved paradigms for tactile and audio-/visual information display
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2. hardware for tactile information display
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3. software that utilizes display-independent information and multi-modal access
TACTILE INFORMATION DISPLAY
Science Access Project ( SAP) actively promotes reforms in Braille and development of DotsPlus paradigm used to represent more general text and graphics. Braille is a tactile method of representing words by dot patterns. Fewer than 15% of American who are legally blind and read Braille. Even few of those readers can read the special Braille codes needed to represent math, science, and computer programs. Therefore there is a movement to develop a more useful method of Braille. This new unified Braille code would allow readers to represent math and science in a more simple fashion.
DOTSPLUS
Dotsplus is a tactile font set developed by SAP. Dotsplus permits straightforward tactile hard-copy representation with the same format used in print. Signs such as plus, equals, times, parentheses, fraction bar, etc. are represented by tactile images with the same shape as the print symbol. Although it is not easy to distinguish the shapes of letters and numbers factually. SAP developed the TIGER (Tactile Graphics Embosser) which is a high-resolution embosser that can print DotsPlus. In addition, to is a major improvement in making graphics accessible.
AUDIO/VISUAL DISPLAYS
A wide range of software applications that utile audio display is being developed by SAP:
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1. The TRIANGLE program is able to display x-y graphics and bar-charts through tone displays. To display formatted text, tables and math equations a variety of speech enhancements and non-speech audio are used in TRIANGLE.
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2. The Audio System for Technical Reading (AsTeR) is a reader program that presents scientific expressions compactly in speech and other audio. Audio formatting use a higher pitch for superscripts and lower pitch for subscripts. They also group symbols by changing tone or rate and by using strategic pauses. Different words may also be used depending on context
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3. EmacSpeak is a self-voicing system that has expanded the accessibility of blind users to the UNIX operating systems
TACTILE HARDWARE
Methods and hardware for making tactile graphics materials for blind users including:
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1. Swell paper is the only practical methods for making tactile graphic materials from computer applications. To do this a black image is transferred to this special paper. It is then passed through an infrared heater that makes the black areas swell. The images however are soft and not very pleasant to read. The process is also expensive at a cost of dollar plus per sheet to produce. Also the process is cumbersome.
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2. A new embossing technology has been developed and patented by Oregon State University that produces a high-resolution tactile graphics (20 dots per inch) to be embossed on standard Braille paper and plastic media. It is able to produce smooth lines in vertical and horizontal directions. The company that purchased the license for this technique is working on a commercial embosser.
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3. In 1997 a prototype personal embosser called TIGER was exhibited at the March of 1997 at the International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities, in Los Angeles. TIGER automatically converts fonts to a user-selectable computer braille representation using Windows 95 and a printer driver.
TRIANGLE
The Science Access Project wrote a computer program that permits blind people to read, write, and calculate math and science problems. Written in DOS it requires a DOS screen reader and includes a math/science word processor, graphing calculator, a viewer for y versus x plots, a table viewer. It also Touch-and-Tell, a computer-assisted reading program of tactile figures that uses an external digitizing pad.
Triangle allows a keyboard or any specialized device that emulate a keyboard to be used to provide input. The output is transmitted in several ways:
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1. Visually with text on the DOS screen
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2. Audibly with the assistance of a screen-reading program, external voice synthesizer and PC speaker
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3. Factually with use of a braille screen access program and external refreshable braille display
Triangle also can provide the user with visual, audible, and tactile output simultaneously.
GRAPHIC ACCESS
Often graphical information is available only in printed hard copy or as electronic bit-mapped images and must be make accessible to blind or visually impaired individual. Several programs including the Objective and Boxer programs support access to graphical information. They are designed to simplify the process for the sighted transcribed making tactile copes and the electronic label maps necessary for blind users to read complex figures.
These programs are available free of charge through SAP. They require use of the Nomad tablet (American Printing House for Blind), the TRIANGLE Touch and Tell view, and audio/tactile viewing programs. They are designed to assist sighted people in making tactile graphic materials for blind users.
OBJECTIVE
This is a programs that implies editing bit-mapping graphics. It prints using a braille graphics printer. Users are able to make an electronic label file for viewing with the Triangle. Objectif is a Windows program that intrinsically requires some sight for its use.
Boxer was designed to make trees and flow charts that can be printed on a standard braille text printer. Boxer can be used by a blind person.
VRML VIEWER
It is important to assure that all electronic informational graphic is accessible. The VRML viewer is used in many world wide web applications and has been demonstrated to be fully accessible to graphics. For instance, the periodic table of chemical elements can be made accessible using a standard VRML browser that speaks object labels when you click either on-screen or on a tactile copy sitting on the external touch pad.
SCREEN
UNIX is an operating system originally used on mainframe computers. It now is also used on many stand-alone work stations in companies and universities. UNIX was accessible only through DOS machines used as terminals. This lack of direct access prevented blind and visually impaired users from working with this system. Now, however, SAP has developed a direct braille access to UNIX text applications.
Screen is a full-screen window manager. It multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes such as interactive shells. Braille additions have been added to Screen to allow the user to view these directly with the display without having to log in through a DOS machine.
TUTORS
Assistance from a paid tutor or volunteer can provide the following services:
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l. Reading texts, lecture notes and other documents
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2. Production of braille and tactile educational materials
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3. Typing and proofreading of term papers and assignments
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4. Assisting with laboratory work
