Home Media Center
Detailed Overview

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Media technologies are undergoing a transformation that presents new and serious barriers to equal access to programs and services by users who are blind or have low vision. Both consumer electronic equipment and computer system manufacturers are developing "media centers," based on similar technical platforms, which are competing to win the role of media gateway in consumers' homes. The user interface for media centers relies on complex onscreen menus and submenus that cannot be utilized by people who are blind or have low vision. The looming pervasiveness of these products in new computers and new digital set-top boxes threatens to create a situation where people who are blind or have low vision will have to rely on sighted assistance to navigate, record and store digital entertainment and information.

The project goal is to include users with disabilities in the audience for this next generation of media products. The proposed collaboration will unite the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), and Panasonic Speech Technology Laboratories (PSTL), in a development project that will advance the usability and accessibility of home media centers.

NCAM will develop a fully operational home media center with voice input and output capabilities enabled via keyboard and remote control, based on open source technologies. PSTL will develop a demonstration model of a small footprint speech interface for this open source media center that previews how emerging speech technologies could be used in new handheld products in development by industry. AFB will contribute expertise to the open source solution and will conduct comprehensive end-user evaluations that document how blind and low vision users interact with and utilize the speech interface offered by both project solutions.

Project activities will include:

• Creation of an accessible Linux-based home media center as a development platform
• Evaluation of other home media center devices and their accessibility requirements
• Publication of source code and specifications for open source media center speech interface solutions enabled via keyboard and remote control
• Demonstration model of end-user control and navigation via a small-footprint speech interface on a personal communication device
• Publication of end-user interface research
• Final report that details the impact of project solutions and publications

For more information, contact:

Madeleine Rothberg
Project Director
The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media
WGBH Educational Foundation
125 Western Ave.
Boston, MA 02134
617 300-3496 voice and fax
madeleine_rothberg@wgbh.org