Re: Auditory interface ideas, what would help?

  • From: Andreas Stefik <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:55:17 -0500

Donal,

Thanks for a great post, Donal. It's incredibly clear that you have a deep
knowledge of the issues with auditory interfaces and I always appreciate
reading what you have to say. One thing I found particularly interesting is
your discussion of "mapping" java to auditory cues and how a literal reading
just isn't good enough. Not only do I completely agree, but the data we've
generated in our lab VERY strongly supports this hypothesis.

One thing I've been curious about myself is to try and minimize the amount
of mapping required between the cues and the audio that comes out, and to do
this, I've written an entire virtual machine from scratch, and a custom
programming language, that implements a language that requires a very
minimal mapping (with a couple exceptions) between the code and the audio.
It's still just a hypothesis that it will help, but I'm curious.

We're ALMOST done with the first version of the language, the auditory
mapping software for it, and the implementation in Nebeans for people to
actually use it. I've also applied for a government grant to help distribute
it and am applying for another for more support in general with the
implementation. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited.

On this note, at the beginning of the summer we tried to schedule a phone
meeting, but our schedules were both pretty crazy. Now that school's in
session and my wife and I are finished moving, I've got some time. Want to
try again, perhaps on skype? I'm sure Ed Gellenbeck (he is a colleague that
works on math reading for the blind), would probably want to sit in as well,
and maybe we could rope our students in. Anyway, could be fun if you are up
for it.

Andreas Stefik, Ph.D.
Department of Computer Science
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

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