BusinessWeek: Apple To Improve Access For The Impaired

by , 11:00 AM EST, March 17th, 2004

Apple has done a pretty decent job on its User Interface (UI), having moved from "lickable" to useable in OS X. The Dock, one of the biggest UI changes between OS 9 and OS X, has become an accepted, and even welcomed part of the Finder. Mac users have choices in how they interact with their computers: They can use Aqua, the Command Line Interface via the terminal, or some combination of the two.

Apple has always included some provisions for the visually and hearing disabled in OS X, but it seemed more of a token gesture than any real attempt to make Macs more accessible. Navigating through OS X, for instance, is nearly impossible for many of the visually impaired, even with Universal Access options turned on.

Alex Salkever, of BusinessWeek Online, is excited about Apple's recent decision to build in a spoken interface option into OS X. In the latest edition of his Byte of the Apple column, Mr. Salkever praises Apple for its efforts to make computing more accessible, and points out that Apple may well benefit greatly from doing so. From the column:

This week at the 19th annual Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference in Los Angeles -- the biggest assistive-technology confab in the country -- Jobs & Co. introduced a nifty tool to help the blind use Macs again. Apple calls this new technology "Spoken Interface." The basic concept is to vocalize and make audible everything that visually happens on a desktop, just like screen-reading software.

UNEQUAL ACCESS. That's big news for a couple of reasons. With no screen reader available on Macs, any schools wishing to deploy them faced a potential lawsuit on grounds that the blind would be denied equal access. Even if no one sues, the prospect of advocacy groups for the visually impaired blaming Apple for shunting blind kids onto Windows machines and further isolating them from their sighted classroom peers presented a looming PR nightmare.

[...]

I suggested in a November, 2003, column that Apple create a screen reader for Macs and offer it to the open-source community (see BW Online, 11/12/03, "A Failing for Apple in the Classroom"). After all, that's just what Apple did with its Safari Web browser, and the result filled a gaping hole in software offerings for the Mac. Apple Senior Product Manager Chris Bourden told me the company was aware of the potential problems and was going to work on something to address them.

BARGAIN BUY. Apparently he meant it. And even better, unlike traditional screen readers, Apple's technology will be built right into the next version of the OS X operating system. That will be a big help. For starters, the price is sweet. Spoken Interface won't cost anything extra because it'll be part of the core OS. Screen readers for Windows can run up to $1,000, on top of the cost of the computer itself.

There's much more in the full article at BusinessWeek Online.

If you'd like to look through what options are currently available for the visually and hearing impaired in OS X, bring up 'System Preferences' and click on 'Universal Access' There's also more information about Universal Access in OS X at Apple's Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

Mr. Salkever is absolutely correct, this is big news. Some have often believed that a voice based UI would be great to have, not just for the visually impaired, but for the general computing populace as well. Apple should be congratulated for putting some extra effort behind this development.

We should note that Apple hasn't been sitting idle when it comes to making OS X more accessible, however. OS X includes many features that could make using Macs less of an effort, even for those with no impairment. For instance: Open a Terminal window in OS X Panther and type this: say "Yo. My Mac can talk to me."

If you did it right you should have heard your Mac say the words you typed between the quotes. What's really cool about this neat little feature is that you can get it to read any text file (say -f anytextfile), or convert a text file to an audio file (say -f anytextfile -o audiofile), which can be useful for listening to your mail while you iron your clothes, for instance.

The point is that Apple has made some quiet steps towards making Macs more accessible; now the company is making some noisier steps in that direction, and that is a good thing.

Finally, Apple Speaks to the Blind