Icons, Symbols and Cognitive Disabilities

Guideline 1.3 Create content that can be presented in different ways (for example spoken aloud, simpler layout, etc.) without losing information or structure

Draft Guideline 1.3 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 discusses the importance of making information available in a form that can be perceived by the user- either directly or through an assistive technology. For example, if a site uses an image to convey meaning, then the alt text should be present so that it can be seen (in a text-only environment), heard (by a screen reader) or even felt (through a refreshable braille display). This pertains to both presentation and structure.

The technologies mentioned above- text-only browsers, screen readers and electronic braille- all do a good job at presenting information to the appropriate audience. However, what about users with cognitive disabilities? Text read aloud may be helpful in some situations, but what about a graphical representation of content? There are already some efforts in this area with the Communicate: Webwide symbol supported browser that claims to be able to represent over 29,000 words with symbols and while I applaud their efforts, with a Windows-only, proprietary, subscription-based product, I doubt there will be any widespread adoption in the near future.

Perhaps one day there will be an open system that will facilitate the collection and use of symbols in everyday tools. Until then, here are some other project/ideas that are exploring the use of symbols:

• Merriam-Webster Visual Dictionary
  Over 6,000 images organized hierarchically under 15 major themes
  
• Zlango Over 200 icons divided into 8 major categories developed for use on mobile devices. Read Romeo and Juliet in Zlango speak.
  
• sosymbol There isn’t a lot of information on this site, but they do have a collection of standardized icons and you can contribute your own using their online symbol creator after you have logged in.
  
• Iconfinder Icon search engine
• Symbol Signs from the AIGA 50 freely available passenger/pedestrian symbols.
• Symbols.com Simple symbols for a number of words.

Does your mail client support email standards?

Email Standards Project

The Email Standards Project works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email.

Online Video Captions

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL have announced their participation in the Internet Captioning Forum (ICF) established to promote the use of captioning for online video. They will be working with the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) at WGBH Boston. You can read quotes from Vint Cerf and other representatives from each of the big four at the National Center for Technology Innovation regarding the effort.

I am neither deaf or hard or hearing, but the captions are almost always on when the television is on in our home. I enjoy the viewing experience and miss fewer words mumbled here and there when I can look down and glance at the words when needed.

Google video currently provides detailed instructions on adding captioning to videos. Additionally, in the Google Video Help Center, this questions is asked, “Do you generate captions/subtitles for my video?” and the answer they provide is a promising “Not at this time.” They also have a section where you can view examples of captioned videos.

NCAM Press Release

(hat tip: The Assistive Technology Blog)

Alt Text, Less Can be More

Aaron Cannon at NorthTemple.com offers insight from the perspective of a blind user on the importance of alt text. First from Aaron, as quoted by Ted Boren:

For some reason, some folks get it into their heads that being blind is really terrible and the only way our lives can be whole is for us to have all the pretty pictures in the world described to us. Where, in actuality, most blind folks couldn’t care less about most of it.

Aaron then expounds:

…if there was a picture of a man using a particular product, I’m really not interested in hearing “picture of a man looking pleased as punch to be using the new ultra-lite USB hair drier,” or worse, “picture of a man.” I really don’t care about what image the designers chose to use as eye-candy. I can’t see them, and descriptions of meaningless images just waste my time and delay my getting to the information I’m really interested in.

Read the entire post for an apt comparison of web accessibility to bread making. Thanks Aaron, I’ll think twice the next time I feel an urge to wax poetic in my alt text.

Accessibility guidelines make clear that null alt text should be used for images that do not convey meaning, decorative images. Is the point at which an image goes from meaningful to meaningless unclear to anyone else?

Tactile Video Displays

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has licensed a technology for the commercialization of a tactile graphic display device. The device promises users who are blind the ability to feel images from any number of sources on a refreshable braille display. The technology has been in development for awhile, but commercialization is a significant step forward.

From the press release:

ELIA Life Technology Inc. of New York, N.Y., licensed for commercialization both the tactile graphic display device and fingertip graphic reader developed by NIST researchers. The former, first introduced as a prototype in 2002, allows a person to feel a succession of images on a reusable surface by raising some 3,600 small pins (actuator points) into a pattern that can be locked in place, read by touch and then reset to display the next graphic in line. Each image—from scanned illustrations, Web pages, electronic books or other sources—is sent electronically to the reader where special software determines how to create a matching tactile display.

From the ELIA Life Technology About Us page:

The ELIA Life team strives to improve the quality of life of visually impaired persons and their family members by enabling the visually impaired to live, work, learn, and communicate with greater independence and dignity.

It appears that they market the tactile alphabet as an alternative to braille and claim that, “only three percent of legally blind Americans can read Braille”

I don’t know how long before this technology will be made widely available, but it raises a couple of interesting questions:

1. Would you prefer effective alt text to a tactile graphic display device that worked?
2. Will this type of technology one day be used as an excuse for people not do use alt tags?

More on the technology: NIST ‘Pins’ Down Imaging System for the Blind

(via WebbAlert)