(ABOVE) Photo caption: Low-vision users have trouble finding the game pieces on the original screen...
(BELOW) Photo caption:...but our high-contrast version with less decoration and larger numbers makes it easier.
NCAM is creating prototypes of multimedia software that are accessible for visually impaired elementary and high school students. "These models will inform teachers and software developers about the possibilities of accessible multimedia," says Madeleine Rothberg, project director for the CD-ROM Access Project.
In Sunburst Communications' "How the West Was One + Three x Four," an audio interface enables children who are blind or visually impaired to play this lively math game. Fun sounds set the Wild West atmosphere while descriptive narration conveys visual information. Commands can be entered using the keyboard or mouse, which also makes the software accessible for students with physical disabilities. A high-contrast option makes locating game pieces on the screen easier for students with low vision.
NCAM is also adapting LOGAL, Inc.'s science simulation software, "Photosynthesis Explorer," with help from experts on Java accessibility at Sun Microsystems and IBM Special Needs Systems. When students explore the effects of six variables on the amount of sugar and oxygen a plant produces, for example, the information is displayed on a graph and described with a text-to-speech interface for blind and visually impaired students.
NCAM's research, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, is aided by the generous cooperation and permission provided by Sunburst and LOGAL. "We'll distill what we've learned from the prototypes to write CD-ROM access guidelines," Rothberg explains. These guidelines, available in early 2000, will enable software developers to create accessible products.
(http://ncam.wgbh.org/cdrom)
Media Access, Spring/Summer 1999:
The Phantom Menace Comes to NCAM | Accessible Digital TV | Enhanced Arthur 2000 | CD-ROMs, Useful for Everyone | MAGpie: Hot New Web Tool | Caption Center Links TV Viewers to the Web | MIT and Online Learning | From the Director | "Messages" at the Museum of Science
Priority Access: Serving NCAM Business Partners
NCAM Helps Prepare Business Partners for the Future | Millennium Partners | Collaborative Partnerships Increase Access | Equal Access: From the 1950s to the Future
Copyright © 1999 WGBH Educational Foundation
NCAM | WGBH Educational Foundation