[accessibleimage] Re: An antidote to CSUN

Sylvie, thanks for your very thoughtful and eloquent remarks.  I work with
and am friends with many blind people, and find that there is a huge range
among them in knowledge, aptitude and motivation.  It simply isn't a valid
argument to say that all blind people are, as a group, better or worse as
computer users than sighted people, as Darrell suggests. 

Steven Landau
Touch Graphics, Inc.
New York, NY USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Kaizen Program [mailto:kaizen_esl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 7:34 PM
To: accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [accessibleimage] Re: An antidote to CSUN

  Hi all,

I think it is really problematic to generalize about the capacities of blind
people or visually-impaired people for that matter. Among human beings there
is a great deal of variability in how we integrate and coordinate and
process our various senses and capacities, including memory, as well as a
great variability in how much of each sense and what aspect of each sense we
have at any one time in our lives, etc.  I know some people who have been
totally blind since birth and yet have such a good sense of spatial
direction that, if they travel a route once, they will remember it clearly,
and even be able to improvise if a few things change. And, I know some fully
sighted people who literally can get lost if they walk a few blocks, and
certainly cannot remember a route until they have traveled it a number of
times.

On this list, we have learned a lot about how "the blind" draw. We know that
some blind people can draw quite well, and even some well-known and
well-respected artists, living and dead, are blind or have low vision. We
also know that some fully sighted people cannot draw anything that could be
recognized as a depiction of what they see, even if their lives depend on
it.

I think that the distinction between reading by using a screen reader or
spoken words by live readers or recordings and reading hard copy print or
braille, or utilizing print or braille graphics is basically valid. But, I
have questions about separating the tactile from the visual. I think that
there is some evidence to indicate that people learn about the world,
especially as children, but also as adults, by a combination of seeing and
touching. And people learn through socialization how to interpret what they
see and what they touch. For example, judging size seems to be generally
more accurate if one has touched an object.

Also, there seems to be growing evidence that people who use their sense of
touch to read as their primary reading mode are using the same part of the
brain that people who use vision are using for reading. (I also seem to see
the print characters in my mind's eye as I listen to my screen reader read.
It looks like those words in the foreign film captions or like the lights in
the news flashes on the Time-Life Building in New York City used to look
when I could see them.) I, and many other proficient braille readers, see
the character formations of braille in our mind's eye as we read. Although
the common wisdom has it that people who read braille read slower than
people who read print, I have found that the tremendous variability plays
out in many blind people reading braille fairly rapidly and a significant
number of fully sighted people reading print relatively slowly and often
inaccurately. The major problem is that most people who have visual
limitations don't learn braille or don't use it very much, in large part
because they/we are not exposed to the same amount of environmental text as
fully sighted people, and they don't expose themselves because it doesn't
seem worth it. I am a proficient braille reader because I have used it a lot
over the years, to read to my partner in return for his reading print to me.
I didn't want our relationship to be one in which only he did the reading
to... And, I also felt that it was important to take my own notes in college
and graduate school, so that I could have written down for review and
reflection what I wanted and not what others thought important. And, then
when I was teaching in the university, I needed to take notes on the books I
read to prepare for my presentations in my seminars, and notes for the main
points I wanted to make as part of the seminars, etc. because I do not have
a perfect memory! And, so on, and so on. So, I went from being a person who
had used print for the most part as my literacy tool as a child while
learning braille, and who was basically a fairly slow braille reader, to a
fairly rapid braille reader today.

It is generally fairly easy for me to skim a braille page in hard copy to
find information I want, even while doing a presentation in a workshop, and
even while listening to and answering questions from participants. But, some
of the proficient braille users I know who use braille displays with
computers and braille notetakers with  braille displays have told me that
they can easily skip from paragraph to paragraph, but not skim easily within
paragraphs. So, different media have different limitations and different
strengths.

I very strongly advocate people who are blind or have low vision learning
braille so they can have more direct personal control over their own record
keeping and literacy, as well as labeling the things that they want to be
able to find and use independently. I know that some hope that screen
readers will solve their problems, but they don't for a variety of reasons.
So, people have to make their choices, decide if it is worth the effort, or
if they just can't accomplish it.
I do have a fully sighted neighbor who is dyslectic and finds it impossible
to learn to use a computer. She has a masters and is a literate woman, but
she just can't manage to master the use of a computer. So, she has decided
that she doesn't need it. She accomplishes getting articles and keeping in
touch with other people other ways.

Some people who are blind or have low vision can fairly easily learn to use
tactile graphics, while others cannot. But, honestly, I know many fully
sighted people who cannot use maps or graphs. So, it is not just a given for
everyone.

I learned to sew as a child when I could see fairly well. Now I am totally
blind and I can still sew very well, making good even and small stitches,
etc. No one had to teach me how to do it without sight. The knowledge just
came to me when I needed it. I can alter clothes so that they fit people as
if they "were made for them" and I can make nice looking clothes from
scratch too. But, I know quite a lot of fully sighted people who couldn't
sew to save their own lives or the lives of their children. And, I have
always been able to do assemblyline work faster and with more accuracy than
most sighted workers. But, I haven't chosen to do that since college.
However, now that I am totally blind, and an older adult at that, I doubt
that I could be hired in a regular factory, even though I know I could
perform well above the average. I am not looking to prove this right now,
but I know a few blind people with very good manual skills who have been
turned down before being given the chance to show what they could do.

It is also important to remember that utilizing tactile graphics and visual
graphics are both learned skills, and may involve varying development of
multiple intelligences too.
That is why I strongly advocate teaching everyone through multiple senses
and multiple intelligences, not just relying on one sense or one
intelligence for learning or exploring the world.

I have experienced some discrimination because of my eye condition, although
not as much as many others. I was refused entrance to Cornell University
during the end of the 1950s, even though my school grades and test scores
definitely qualified me. The reason given openly then, because there was no
Americans With Disabilities Act, was that I was legally blind and couldn't
get around their campus. At the time I could see well enough to travel
without a cane and even see street signs without a visual aid, but the
Cornell admission people never really knew how well or poorly I could travel
because they never interviewed me, and never met me even briefly.
Nevertheless, I have been lucky enough to have been offered jobs a number of
times in my life, rather than having to look for them, and I have been lucky
enough to have had enough vision during a lot of my working life that I
didn't make my employers uncomfortable, and I have been lucky enough to find
my interests drawing me to fields where discrimination was relatively low.

Unfortunately, nowadays, even highly educated fully sighted people are
having difficulties keeping decently paying jobs in the U.S. So, it is not
surprising that blind people are finding it a challenge. I know quite a lot
of highly educated professionals, some of whom used to be considered
successful, who have been "down-sized" and their jobs moved to India or
China, including engineers. And, discrimination is, sadly, a reality, even
for very competent and intelligent blind people. I could go into this
further, but I think it is most fruitful right now to say that no one
individual should  be judged negatively on the basis of whether she or he
has a job at this point.

I do think it is fair to say that people who are blind or have low vision do
have to work harder to succeed than do fully sighted people, basically
because we have to learn and/or discover diverse ways of doing things, as
well as to deal with discrimination and strongly held stereotypes. And, we
have to learn how to adapt ourselves to tools and ways of doing things that
may work well for some fully sighted people, but don't necessarily work as
well for us as other ways. The example of Excel is a good one. There are
other ways of accomplishing the same kinds of things that one can do with
Excel, but if one works a job that requires all employees to use it, that
fact doesn't count for much.

I, myself really appreciate tactile graphics because they help me recapture
some of the vision I have lost, and view some of the things that weren't
available for viewing when I could see. I haven't had a lot of difficulty
using the well-done ones, although even I can be challenged by ones that are
too cluttered or don't have clear enough distinctions in texture and other
elements between different features. And, I have been finding that many
adult students who were never exposed to tactile graphics earlier in their
lives are finding them very exciting tools for learning more about the
world, even though they do take some effort to learn how to use. And when
they are combined with sound, that makes it easier.

Best,

Sylvie

Sylvie Kashdan, M.A.
Instructor/Curriculum Coordinator
KAIZEN PROGRAM for New English Learners with Visual Limitations
810-A Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, WA  98144, U.S.A.
phone:  (206) 784-5619
email:  kaizen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web:  http://www.nwlincs.org/kaizen/



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Will Pearson" <will-pearson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 2:03 PM
Subject: [accessibleimage] Re: An antidote to CSUN


Hi Darrell,

I think that the intentions I had when I originally wrote that piece have
become a little lost, or been misinterpreted.  I didn't claim that being
blind rendered someone unable to process multiple sources of information.
Had I done this, I would have obviously been wrong, as after all, we can
hear sounds from multiple sources at once.  My intention was to dispell one
of the myths that seem to eminate from the world of access technology,
especialy around the time of CSUN, hence the title.  The myth I aimed to
dispell was that screen readers, in their current form, can be just as
efficient at conveying information and navigation as sight is, should the
application and platform vendors modify their software.  So, to be
scientific about it, the independant variable was the modality used, i.e.
speech or sight, and the dependant variable was efficiency.

The comparison made no assumptions about who used the modalities, in fact
the comparison still stands for sighted users who use screen readers, as I'm
led to believe some do.  Further more, it made no judgements about the
overall effectiveness of blind people, as it's difficult to generalise
across populations on this sort of thing, as it is for how much thought
people put into their actions, due to individual differences across other
personal characteristics.

This is one of those problems that I'm rather hopeful can be overcome fairly
soon.  There's a few good people working on this sort of thing in academia,
organisations such as the EU, the EPSRC, the NSF, etc. are tipping money
into answering the question of what comes after the current concept of a
screen reader, and so I'm fairly confident that this will be one of those
gaps that will be closed soon.

Will
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darrell Shandrow" <nu7i@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 5:32 PM
Subject: [accessibleimage] Re: An antidote to CSUN


> Hi Lisa,
>
> Alas, I'm afraid Will's article is much gloomier than all that as both
> full page Braille and tactile graphics are still methods of serial
> information retrieval and processing.
>
> Now, I am about to say something that some may find offensive but I just
> can't hold out any longer.  Despite our apparent shortcomings as blind
> people (being unable to do parallel info retrieval without sight, etc.)
> I'd put a competent blind worker up against a sighted one anyday.  Why?
> Alas, as I live my life out in the real world, I find that most sighted
> people, for whatever reasons, choose not to use the brains and other
> abilities given them by God.  So, in other words, while most people (whom
> happen to be sighted) apparently have all these abilities I lack as a
> blind person, I find I am often able to best them through competent
> performance of the task at hand...
>
>
> Darrell Shandrow - Shandrow Communications!
> Technology consultant/instructor, network/systems administrator!
> A+, CSSA, Network+!
> Visit http://www.petitiononline.com/captcha and sign the Google Word
> Verification Accessibility Petition today!
> Information should be accessible to us without need of translation by
> another person.
> Blind Access Journal blog and podcast: http://www.blindaccessjournal.com
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Lisa Yayla" <fnugg@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 9:13 AM
> Subject: [accessibleimage] Re: An antidote to CSUN
>
>
>> Hi Will,
>>
>> It was very interesting to read your letter. I really enjoyed it. And if
>> I understand correctly  it seems also to strengthen the argument that
>> tactile graphics are important. That it  is important to have non-linear
>> information and for the blind this is done through tactile  graphics -
>> staggered information. Or how would you call tactile graphics?
>> Non-serialized information?
>>
>> And does this also say something about the importance of reading Braille
>> in page form?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Lisa
>>
>>
>> why learning Braille is important
>>
>>
>>
>> accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>  Now that all the hype of CSUN is behind us, I thought it time to begin
>>> to
>>> explore the more serious questions, the sort that are rarely touched on
>>> at
>>> CSUN.  The first question I felt worthy of an attempt at an answer is,
>>> whether using a screen reader can ever be as efficient as using sight?
>>> There's been plenty of speculation on the topic, usually resulting in
>>> the
>>> answer that if <insert application vendor or platform vendor> waived
>>> their
>>> magic wand using a screen reader would be as efficient as sight.
>>> However,
>>> after spending several years considering this, and other human computer
>>> interaction issues related to screen reader use, I take a different
>>> view. My justification, whilst not exhaustive, is below.
>>>  The first area where screen readers appear to fall short is in their
>>> ability to communicate semantics.  Communication is all about
>>> communicating thoughts, concepts, states, etc., and communication
>>> between
>>> an interface for a piece of software and a user is no different in this
>>> respect.  The main problem is that screen readers, through their use of
>>> speech and Braille, both of which are serialised forms of communication,
>>> use less physical variables to encode semantic content than sight does.
>>> There's roughly six variables that can be used to encode semantic
>>> content,
>>> and these are:
>>> * The position of something on the X, Y and Z axes
>>> * The position of something in time
>>> * The frequency of the physical wave, represented by things like color,
>>> pitch, etc.
>>> * The amplitude of the physical wave, or how strong it is
>>> Using a computer with sight typically takes advantage of five of these
>>> variables, whilst screen readers typically only use two.  So, it will
>>> take
>>> longer to communicate the same semantic content using a screen reader
>>> than
>>> it will sight.  To some extent this has supporting evidence from
>>> psychological studies in which the listening and reading speeds of the
>>> same person were compared.  These studies found that the same individual
>>> could read something faster than they could listen to it.  There are
>>> differences between individuals, which can account for why some screen
>>> reader users can listen to things faster than some people can read
>>> things,
>>> but within the same individual the evidence seems to indicate that
>>> listening to things is slower.
>>>  This serialisation of semantic content, brought about by the smaller
>>> capacity of speech, also has implications for memory utilisation and
>>> cognitive workload.  Studies involving Functional Magnetic Resonance
>>> Imaging of the cortex have shown greater activity in the cortical
>>> regions
>>> of the brain when listening to speech than when reading something.  Not
>>> only is there activity on the left side of the cortex, in regions such
>>> as
>>> Brocha's Area and Wernicke's Area, which is present for both reading and
>>> listening, but listening to speech also produces activity in the right
>>> side of the cortex, which is thought to be related to contextual
>>> priming. In addition to the extra neurological activity associated with
>>> language
>>> processing, there is also a higher demand on short term working memory.
>>> As speech is temporary, one moment it is there, the next it is not,
>>> someone listening to speech has to remember more than someone reading
>>> something.  It is not so easy to move back to a previously listened to
>>> word or sentence than it is to move back to a previously read word or
>>> sentence.  Navigating by listening often involves listening to words,
>>> deciding whether they are the ones that are saught after, and if not,
>>> navigating some more and repeating the process.
>>>  Another consideration are the distinctions between programatic focus,
>>> the
>>> mechanism used to shift attention with a screen reader, and visual
>>> attention.  Screen readers utilise a mechanism of programatic focus to
>>> shift the user's attention between user interface elements.  This means
>>> that a user's attention is only focused on a single point at once,
>>> something further compounded by a screen reader's use of serialised
>>> output.  Whilst visual attention is usually focused on a single object,
>>> it
>>> can shrink and grow, similar to a zoom lens, to encompass more or less
>>> of
>>> an object.  This ability to shift attention from a word to a paragraph
>>> and
>>> then onto the entire document provides a number of benefits for people
>>> reading documents.  The most obvious benefit is the ability to not only
>>> navigate by word or line, but to navigate around the document based on
>>> more granular objects, such as paragraphs, tables, images, etc.  Whilst
>>> similar functionality is available in some screen readers for a limited
>>> set of scenarios, this functionality is not as flexible as the visual
>>> mechanism used to shift attention.  The visual mechanism can group
>>> granular objects together, such as a table proceeded by a diagram, and
>>> can
>>> jump to those with very little requirement for processing.  In addition
>>> to
>>> granular navigation, attention can also be shifted based on physical
>>> features, such as color or location, which requires just the elements
>>> with
>>> those physical features to be searched, as suggested by Treisman's
>>> Feature
>>> Integration Theory.  As far as I am aware, no equivalent functionality
>>> to
>>> this exists in a screen reader.  One key difference between programatic
>>> and visual attention is that programatic attention can only be moved to
>>> fixed points, whilst visual attention can be moved to any point or
>>> object.  The final difference worth mentioning is that attention is not
>>> just limited to a single point in the visual field.  Whilst there are
>>> overt, indogenous, mechanisms to control visual attention through moving
>>> the point of fixation, attention can also be focused in the periphery of
>>> the visual field, through covert, indogenous, mechanisms.  This is a
>>> useful point, as it means that sighted people can detect changes in the
>>> state of something that occur away from their current point of fixation
>>> without the cognitive work involved in moving the point of fixation
>>>  So, I, for one, am beginning to form the opinion that screen readers
>>> are
>>> not physically capable of delivering the same levels of efficiency as
>>> sight can.  This isn't to say that blind people cannot gain the same
>>> level
>>> of efficiency, just that it looks likely that they are unable to do this
>>> using a screen reader.  What is more, is that this is not the fault of a
>>> particular application or platform vendor, as is often claimed, but more
>>> a
>>> problem with the core concept of a screen reader, a concept that
>>> requires
>>> everything to be serialised.
>>>  Will
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>  Now that all the hype of CSUN is behind us, I thought it time to begin
>>> to explore the more serious questions, the sort that are rarely touched
>>> on at CSUN.  The first question I felt worthy of an attempt at an answer
>>> is, whether using a screen reader can ever be as efficient as using
>>> sight?  There's been plenty of speculation on the topic, usually
>>> resulting in the answer that if <insert application vendor or platform
>>> vendor> waived their magic wand using a screen reader would be as
>>> efficient as sight.  However, after spending several years considering
>>> this, and other human computer interaction issues related to screen
>>> reader use, I take a different view.  My justification, whilst not
>>> exhaustive, is below.
>>>  The first area where screen readers appear to fall short is in their
>>> ability to communicate semantics.  Communication is all about
>>> communicating thoughts, concepts, states, etc., and communication
>>> between an interface for a piece of software and a user is no different
>>> in this respect.  The main problem is that screen readers, through their
>>> use of speech and Braille, both of which are serialised forms of
>>> communication, use less physical variables to encode semantic content
>>> than sight does. There's roughly six variables that can be used to
>>> encode semantic content, and these are:
>>> * The position of something on the X, Y and Z axes
>>> * The position of something in time
>>> * The frequency of the physical wave, represented by things like color,
>>> pitch, etc.
>>> * The amplitude of the physical wave, or how strong it is
>>> Using a computer with sight typically takes advantage of five of these
>>> variables, whilst screen readers typically only use two.  So, it will
>>> take longer to communicate the same semantic content using a screen
>>> reader than it will sight.  To some extent this has supporting evidence
>>> from psychological studies in which the listening and reading speeds of
>>> the same person were compared.  These studies found that the same
>>> individual could read something faster than they could listen to it.
>>> There are differences between individuals, which can account for why
>>> some screen reader users can listen to things faster than some people
>>> can read things, but within the same individual the evidence seems to
>>> indicate that listening to things is slower.
>>>  This serialisation of semantic content, brought about by the smaller
>>> capacity of speech, also has implications for memory utilisation and
>>> cognitive workload.  Studies involving Functional Magnetic Resonance
>>> Imaging of the cortex have shown greater activity in the cortical
>>> regions of the brain when listening to speech than when reading
>>> something.  Not only is there activity on the left side of the cortex,
>>> in regions such as Brocha's Area and Wernicke's Area, which is present
>>> for both reading and listening, but listening to speech also produces
>>> activity in the right side of the cortex, which is thought to be related
>>> to contextual priming. In addition to the extra neurological activity
>>> associated with language processing, there is also a higher demand on
>>> short term working memory. As speech is temporary, one moment it is
>>> there, the next it is not, someone listening to speech has to remember
>>> more than someone reading something.  It is not so easy to move back to
>>> a previously listened to word or sentence than it is to move back to a
>>> previously read word or sentence.  Navigating by listening often
>>> involves listening to words, deciding whether they are the ones that are
>>> saught after, and if not, navigating some more and repeating the
>>> process.
>>>  Another consideration are the distinctions between programatic focus,
>>> the mechanism used to shift attention with a screen reader, and visual
>>> attention.  Screen readers utilise a mechanism of programatic focus to
>>> shift the user's attention between user interface elements.  This means
>>> that a user's attention is only focused on a single point at once,
>>> something further compounded by a screen reader's use of serialised
>>> output.  Whilst visual attention is usually focused on a single object,
>>> it can shrink and grow, similar to a zoom lens, to encompass more or
>>> less of an object.  This ability to shift attention from a word to a
>>> paragraph and then onto the entire document provides a number of
>>> benefits for people reading documents.  The most obvious benefit is the
>>> ability to not only navigate by word or line, but to navigate around the
>>> document based on more granular objects, such as paragraphs, tables,
>>> images, etc. Whilst similar functionality is available in some screen
>>> readers for a limited set of scenarios, this functionality is not as
>>> flexible as the visual mechanism used to shift attention.  The visual
>>> mechanism can group granular objects together, such as a table proceeded
>>> by a diagram, and can jump to those with very little requirement for
>>> processing.  In addition to granular navigation, attention can also be
>>> shifted based on physical features, such as color or location, which
>>> requires just the elements with those physical features to be searched,
>>> as suggested by Treisman's Feature Integration Theory.  As far as I am
>>> aware, no equivalent functionality to this exists in a screen reader.
>>> One key difference between programatic and visual attention is that
>>> programatic attention can only be moved to fixed points, whilst visual
>>> attention can be moved to any point or object.  The final difference
>>> worth mentioning is that attention is not just limited to a single point
>>> in the visual field.  Whilst there are overt, indogenous, mechanisms to
>>> control visual attention through moving the point of fixation, attention
>>> can also be focused in the periphery of the visual field, through
>>> covert, indogenous, mechanisms.  This is a useful point, as it means
>>> that sighted people can detect changes in the state of something that
>>> occur away from their current point of fixation without the cognitive
>>> work involved in moving the point of fixation
>>>  So, I, for one, am beginning to form the opinion that screen readers
>>> are not physically capable of delivering the same levels of efficiency
>>> as sight can.  This isn't to say that blind people cannot gain the same
>>> level of efficiency, just that it looks likely that they are unable to
>>> do this using a screen reader.  What is more, is that this is not the
>>> fault of a particular application or platform vendor, as is often
>>> claimed, but more a problem with the core concept of a screen reader, a
>>> concept that requires everything to be serialised.
>>>  Will
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

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