We shall try to give you some ideas about how a blind person uses the internet—how he navigates and reads a page. We hope that by making you understand the process of navigation used by the blind, you will better understand why and how to create pages that are accessible.
This document is formatted using Cascading Style Sheets for maximum accessibility.
The Internet was developed for the exchange of information; It grew into a large database, a virtual worldwide library, which has made information easier for people to assemble. The demand grew geometrically. Soon, corporations started to experiment with making it a place to sell their products. There was great concern that raw information on matters other than selling items may become harder to collect.
Business and a highly demanding public demand more and more attractive pages. Now the net is a true multimedia creation force, spurring technological growth around the world. Simultaneously it makes it possible for more diverse people to gather. Thus it becomes more important them ever to maintain the textual intent of the web.
To maintain the universality of access we must minimize the barriers created in the process of making a presentation look or sound slicker. The use of techniques like JavaScript can make a page unnecessarily hard for many people to use, if alternative methods of navigation are not allowed.
Shoutmail allows composition of text email, hearing of digitized stock quotes, entertainment news, weather, sports, financial stories, and news stories and commentary via the standard phone service used continually by those not literate in computer technology. I can log onto Shoutmail and type messages to friends, record voice mail attachments with a boom mic and earphones, and send it via my computer via the sound card. My other choice is to dial into Shoutmail using a standard telephone and navigate using DTMF (the touch tones), sending and receiving voicemail attachments, as well as using several other services of the Shoutmail product. Now I want to describe some comparisons of Shoutmail with Evoice, Telsurf, and Tellme.
http://www.evoice.com is a similar service to Shoutmail, but the Evoice service does not as yet allow forwarding of voicemail via the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) to users of other systems such as Shoutmail. To forward an Evoice message to a Shoutmail user, I have to log onto Evoice via my Internet Service Provider and type out the recipient name in the To: field. I doubt that this would even work. I believe that Evoice has limited its prospects to forwarding of Evoice messages to other Evoice users. It is regrettable that Evoice is not compliant with all aspects of the Wireless Application Protocol.
1-800-555-Tell (i.e. 8355) is the telephone number to dial to access Tellme. It is a service which allows many of the same things as Evoice, but operates by accepting vocal prompting, because the service uses voice recognition. Tellme allows browsing of restaurant information, the playing of blackjack (sorry, no winnings possible), and the making of a two—minute phone call on AT&T's nickel. One prompts the system by saying various key words, such as "Phonebooth," "Movies," "Taxis," "Traffic," "Horoscopes," "Driving Directions" and so on. Once having navigated one's way into the restaurant menu of TellMe, one can even be connected to a restaurant in the city in which one is interested! When in doubt, one can prompt the Tellme system by saying the Key word, "Tell–me–more."
Now, the interesting part. What I wanted to do was compare Shoutmail and Tellme against Telsurf.
http://888telsurf.com is a system vary similar to Shoutmail, because both allow the composition of messages online. But, once a recipient's name is in a Telsurf user's account address book, one can forward the message elsewhere, reply, and book appointments! This means that the advertised service on Telsurf is a little better and more flexible than Shoutmail's, as well as having some of the functionality and connectivity of Tellme.
Both Tellme and Telsurf allow consultation of stock quotes, but Telsurf has the feature of allowing interface with a Yahoo account, reading the user's Web page aloud over the telephone to the user by use of synthesized speech. Neither Evoice nor Tellme has this feature as of yet. I am inconvenienced by often having to be near a desktop computer, and I certainly wish Evoice and Tellme did have the ability to access tailored information from a Web page.
There is also a service like Evoice called Etouch. The number is: 800-342-3710. It takes a while to get in, sometimes, and you may get a silent line the first few times you try, but when you get in, you dial your own user ID to log in, or the user ID of the person you are trying to reach. This user ID would be the phone number, with the area code, and then, Etouch will tell you how to leave a message. Etouch accounts are free. Etouch is only for leaving messages, though, and you can't forward them or leave group messages. But you can leave five—minute messages! So, it's a good way to keep in touch, also. Etouch seems to be another of those services which is not entirely compliant with the Wireless Application Protocol.
I am sure over the next several years that there will be much wild competition over customer exposure to such various services, and we could also expect some good technological improvement.
It is unfortunate that Telsurf exposes the user to advertisements, but I suppose this is the justification for offering the service free of charge as of yet. I would like to avoid the advertisements to which Evoice, Telsurf, and Juno email expose me. There is another service whereto Tellme is linked, Etrees that performs some of the same service functionality as Telsurf, like reading email to you over the phone.
Now, I need to get into some of the more technical aspects of logging into each service I was detailing. Shoutmail asks the user, when configuring a new account, to select a ten digit access code, one presumably that represents the user's telephone number. By default, this is the user name on the Shoutmail account. Your mailbox number will be that ten digit number. By default your email address on Shoutmail is your telephone number followed by the domain name, shoutmail.com. You have to set up a Personal ID Number, but you choose this yourself. I think Shoutmail is the most fully compliant of the services I was listing with Wireless Application Protocol. The others deviate too much to be said to be compliant.
Once you have such an account on Shoutmail, you can change the email address you can give out by setting up another mailbox with a more reasonable user name, like your first and last name, or whatever, by designating a new access code for this new mailbox. The old mailbox stays on the system, and I find it a good supplement where I can send old mail or things I want to keep. I find that a busy computer user frequently needs additional mailboxes or folders, and one of these can be the mailbox with the telephone user name on Shoutmail. Once you set up two, one will probably be your alphabetic user name, and the other mailbox will be the one with your telephone user name.
Telsurf designates a Telsurf generated Personal ID Number for new users. You still have a sort of customer code (I'm sorry, but can't remember what it's called) but when usingthe phone need only this PIN and your member code, which must be seven digits in length. On Telsurf, you may say or type in both Member Code and Personal ID Number, which is unlike Shoutmail, where you have to enter PIN and Access Code using the keypad of the phone.
Evoice is a little different yet. If Caller ID is not blocked from your home phone, Evoice uses Caller ID to recognize the number from which you are calling, and you as a user only have to enter your PIN and that of the mailbox you want to access if you call from your home number. In the event that you call Evoice from another number, you will have to log in differently. It is, unfortunately, not possible to create other than digits for a mailbox designation on Evoice, and the mailbox is not true email; your address is NOT 1111111111@evoice.com. So on Evoice the user cannot make letters part of the mailbox string. But, the user can assign letters as mnemonics for the digits assigned as the Evoice mailbox. This would allow TechieTalk1 as an Evoice mnemonic, while the actual mailbox would be 83244382551.
Telsurf allows the new user to create an alphabetic string as the user name, conforming perfectly, so far as I can understand, to the conventions for email protocols – you may use numbers, text, and certain punctuation when designating your Telsurf user name.
Although it would seem anyone could use such phone and voicemail services, their functionality is particularly benefitial to blind users. We all would seem to be able to use or benefit from audible sensory input into the brain, yet the auditory sense is particularly compensitory to blind people, so that being able to manipulate the Internet by services such as Telsurf and Tellme creates the advantage of having access whenever you are near a telephone.
Computer Interfaces Used by the Blind