MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Like radio for the hearing impaired, the internet has remained difficult to appreciate or enjoy for those with limited vision. Industry search giant Google hopes to change the online status quo with a new version of its browser, which will be designed specifically to address the needs of the blind and visually impaired.The new version of the browser, called Accessible Search, is currently available on Google’s experimental software site at http://labs.google.com/accessible and uses the company’s pre-existing page-ranking system. What sets it apart from more standard searches is the fact its results evaluate how usable each web page it serves up, based on things like simplicity of page layout, design quality, and efficiency of information organizing and labeling.
Another important aspect that sets Google’s effort apart from the herd is the fact that T.V. Raman, one of the project’s research scientists knows exactly how effective the company’s efforts to create a usable search engine are. Like many, even Raman with his insider’s understanding of the needs of the blind, had no idea what to expect when the company decided to tackle the issue.
“I knew it was a hard problem,” he recently confessed, “It’s an even harder problem than I anticipated.”
Among the challenges is dealing with complex graphical designs that contain important information. Obviously, those with lower vision get less from such things, even with screen magnifiers, than do those with keener sight, but every little bit helps. Likewise, dyslexic users and those with no ability to see can use screen readers to convert text into spoken words using a synthesized voice. These, however, are time intensive and cumbersome since skipping over unneeded content is difficult.
It is believed that approximately eight million people within the United States have visual impairments, with nearly three million of those being color blind, according to a 2001 web site accessibility study. Without intending it, web designers using creative shortcuts to make their sites easier to parse by the average visitor are blocking many of impaired surfers, because machine-reading technology is often unable to make sense of the pages.
According to Jakob Nielsen, co-author of the 2001 study Beyond ALT Text: Making the Web Easy to Use for Users with Disabilities,” some things that can help make a page friendlier to those with limited visual abilities include avoiding the use of small buttons, minimizing scrolling, designing and labeling pages consistently, and creating a good contrast between text and pages.
Raman also recommends that web designers take advantage of style sheets that keep web page formatting away from content, label columns of data, caption photos, and essentially code their pages cleanly. He believes that these elements, along with the Google Accessible Search, built using Google Co-op technology, may well lead in time to improved ways for all users, including those with disabilities, to find what they’re searching for online and better perform more precise searches.
