On 22-Feb-98 Nathan Loofbourrow wrote: >I've been looking at options for a screenless wearable as well. A >friend recently showed me her laptop designed for blind users -- it's >a generic-looking subnotebook PC with some custom-looking >text-based/speech-synthesis-based software for word processing, file >management, etc. > >It's a window-like interface, the way screen-based DOS programs looked >before the advent of MS Windows, and the spoken interface isn't that >sophisticated, really. Moving the cursor up and down causes individual >lines of text to be read (she's got it cranked up incomprehensibly >fast, so reading a line of text isn't more than about a second), and >cursor left-right motion causes individual words and punctuation to be >read. When dialog boxes appear, their interior text is voiced, and >tabbing from button to button causes the "yes", "no", "cancel", >etc. prompt to be read. It takes a lot of practice to be able to work with a speech interface only, especially for information that doesn't consist of natural language (consider for example the output of ls -l or colored text or a table based output like midnight commander) or when the "control flow" isn't linear (e.g. mathematical formulas). But since I work with blind people I have been thinking about the same lines - although I like the idea of a wearable braille display better (I already have some ideas, but its still in the early planning stages) >It didn't appear to be that hard to use. Sighted users will probably >find it helpful to be familiar with the program on-screen, as Paul >suggested. It can get complicated, if you leave the limited domain of software, thats especially designed for speech output. As the example of your friend (and some people I know) shows it isn't impossible, but I don't think its practical for a non trained sighted user, who wants to use his wearable as an all purpose computer. On the other hand, if you can limit yourself to a handful of programs, that work reasonably well with your TTS system it will be worth trying out. I will probably be building such a system, but don't hold your breath it's gonna take a couple of weeks or months even. >She's also been looking towards an upgrade, in part to be able to >websurf. There are a number of screen-reader programs out there of >varying levels of sophistication. Some of them also attempt to >duplicate the screen appearance on Braille displays. Nearly all the blind people I know use lynx for web surfing (there is even a dos version available now). I'm also working on a screen reader for graphical user interfaces (for awt and swing not windows) and I've seen a lot of the commercial ones, but I never came across one with a good speech only mode. Ingo ------------------------------------------------------ Dipl.-Inform Ingo KessingerStudienzentrum fuer Sehgeschaedigte Tel.: +++49(0)721-608-4301 Universitaet Karlsruhe Fax: +++49(0)721-697377
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