Peripherals for the Visually Impaired? 57
schmiddy asks: "My father, a self-proclaimed Internet junkie, recently lost most of his eyesight, but he can still see a bit out of his right eye (enough to read magnified text on a monitor, with a narrow field of view). As he spends a large amount of his time surfing the web and reading, he's been finding it hard to cope. I've seen a lot of cool toys out there for the rest of us, but can the Slashdot crowd recommend any special monitors, peripherals, or (preferably (F)OSS) text to speech or other software that would help? I think he would much rather continue reading the old-fashioned way than having to use a hack like a Braille output. Also, what about the idea of simply using a large TV screen as a computer monitor?"
Go with the simple stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Festival (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/
Re:Go with the simple stuff (Score:5, Informative)
Check the OS (Score:5, Informative)
eg.
Windows (XP) has magnification, text to speech, alternative input, etc.
Mac (OS X) has magnigication (which magnifies the whole screen and uses the cursor to also move around your 'viewing window'), text to speech, high contrast, etc.
HDTV (Score:4, Informative)
640x720 or whatever...and the higher resolutions.
Go with that.
Free and Open Source Software for Blind people (Score:5, Informative)
SpeakUp [linux-speakup.org]
EmacSpeak [sourceforge.net]
Tool.. (Score:5, Informative)
The free (beer) version of Opera displays small adverts, but you can choose their category.. Or you can couch up USD40 for the registered version.
Opera is also feature-rich and still fast.
OnocularSX (Score:5, Informative)
Combined with that feature, you have inverted color modes which can sometimes be easier to read depending on the impairment. The enhanced contrast feature also takes out the drop shadows on elements making objects more defined. Large on screen command keys will also overlay if you desire to help ensure that you're holding down the correct keys and combinations.
Built in voice recognition for commands may speed up the process a bit as well. Although it's not flawless and takes some time to 'train' the computer to your Father's voice.
Text highlighted by the cursor will be spoken aloud via the tex-to-voice feature, and most applications will allow you to highlight bodies of text and will attempt to read them aloud to you via the same tech.
Any simple G3 or G4 would suffice, a model that has the capacity to output to a larger display/television would also help.
Those of us with severe handicaps can benefit from this a lot, hope you find some way to help out your old man.
Re: Screen Resolution (Score:3, Informative)
However, be advised that most HDTVs including mine have very terrible screen resolutions via the designated computer port. My set supports a maximum of 1024x768 and on a 50" screen, no amount of anti-aliasing is going to prevent jaggies. At some point in time, reading jagged text that big is just going to create eyestrain. I imagine it would be even more fustrating for the OP's father.
I suppose that if I had a digital out on my video card and I separated that signal into the Y Pb Pr values, I might be able to get even better screen resolution. But if I'm at the point where I'm scrounging web sites for custom parts, I'd just go ahead and buy a nice ultra-sharp 19" LCD and rely on software as appropriate.
Very large monitors are available cheaply... (Score:5, Informative)
Note also that sometimes people who are losing their sight need brightness more than size, and a very bright screen, such as a presentation monitor, might be a better solution than simply buying a larger screen. Also make sure that webpage colors are overridden by the browser, and don't show background images.
-Adam
stickers? (Score:4, Informative)
large print keyboard
samples at
http://www.fentek-ind.com/lrgprt.htm
these are nice, I've seen them much cheaper elsewhere
Some random knowledge about hardware (Score:5, Informative)
Using a TV as huge monitor: I own a very recent TV with 100 Hz (storing a 50 Hz PAL picture and displaying it twice) that also has a VGA input, limited to 640x480 @ 60Hz. You can not calibrate the picture geometry as exactly as with a high end VGA monitor, so squares look like hand-drawn boxes and circles look like eggs. High contrast test pictures (three bars white-black-white across the entire screen) influence the geometry as well. So this is no solution you want to use day by day for several hours. But it is usable for surfing and mailing. Some problematic websites assume a resolution of at least 800x600, so you have to scroll a lot. Opera [opera.com] in full screen mode (F11 key) is usable.
Using a beamer: This beasts are loud, need a lot of power, and a replacement light bulb costs half of a new beamer. But you get 800x600 or even 1024x768 at a screen size of 2 meters or more, depending on the quality of the beamer. But you need the room for that picture.
Huge keyboards for nearly blind people or people having trouble with fine motor manipulations: Simple! There are several vendors offering custon keyboards for electronic cash register systems. Those systems are essentially stripped-down PCs, so you should have no interfacing problems. A friend of mine (suffering spasticity) uses a standard PC keyboard combined with a cash register keyboard at work. That keyboard has a matrix of programmable push buttons and can be equipped with key caps that fit one, two, or four (2x2) pushbuttons. He uses it with 2x2 key caps, so he has the 20 most used keys on the cash register keyboard rapidly available even with spasticity, and for the other 80 keys, he still can use the standard keyboard, with a "speed penality".
Mouse replacement: I don't look at my mouse, I feel its case and buttons. I know where it is placed, about 5 to 10 cm right of my keyboard. No need to look away from the screen. So I guess blind people should have not much problems using a mouse. My friend (suffering spasticity) uses a standard mouse (now wireless, but just for fun) with no special hardware, I just slowed down the settings in the mouse driver (low speed, low acceleration). He's not as fast as me using Windows, but he reaches nearly the speed of an average Windows user. A touchpad or that little nipple on IBM laptops would be horror for him, but I think he could also work with a trackball, with a little training. We also tried a special mouse driver that used a low cost PC joystick to move the mouse cursor. It was quite usable, but my friend decided to use a standard mouse, mostly because the driver conflicted with the games that needed a joystick.
Tux2000
I've worked with JAWS... (Score:5, Informative)
The company I used to work for used JAWS [clb.org] for allowing blind employees to use windows software.
It interfaces very well out of the box with standard applications, like IE, and it also allows you to write custom scripts so that it is usable with any application. We had to heavily customize it to work with out proprietary apps. It also interfaces well with many braille readers and text-to-speech synthesizers.
The downside is that it's expensive, and hardware to extend the functionality is also very expensive.
Some folks take this stuff really seriously... (Score:5, Informative)
...and some of the posters here just pull answers out of thin air.
My employer, [irs.gov] however, has a long-standing commitment to employing the visually-impaired. We have a large support office dedicated solely to their needs. From the intranet site of that office, let me offer a couple of things.
First, here's the general background paragraphs designed to let managers know what sort of things can be done to assist people with low vision:
As for specific items available for us to install and use, this is the list for low vision folks. Note that you'll need to Google various terminology to get a look at the actual products. (I apologize for the way the lameness filter has forced me to mangle this list by cramming everything onto one line; I hope it's still reasonably readable.)
Note that that's a long list of equipment and training aids, many of which aren't applicable to your situation. But if you don't get some good ideas from that list, you're just not trying. I work with this equipment all the time and I gotta tell ya, it's truly gratifying to set up a computer so that a blind or nearly-blind person can use it and make a living instead of being dependent on other people. Good luck in your efforts. They will be worth whatever effor they require.
Re:Go with the simple stuff (Score:3, Informative)
Use Opera - Keypad +/- zoom up down very nicely.
Although a TV lacks the resolution of a monitor, skin tones and pictures look better due to some sort of airbrushing effect.
TV's are optimised for linearity: monitors are optimised for sharpness. Monitors often have greater persistance, which reduces flicker but tends to give blurry trails on movement.
For those with normal sight, a monitor is undoubtedly better than a TV for computer use. But for someone with impaired vision, all rules change. Either a large TV or a mrojector might work. If you can borrow one, give it a try.
Re:Check the OS (Score:2, Informative)
While the pointer/cursor maneuvers the actual view displayed on the screen through the greater "windowing/desktop" environment, the pointer is in the same place on the visible screen as it (and the visible screen) is in relation to the windowing/desktop environment.
For example, when the pointer is in the top left of the screen while "Zoom" is turned on, then the magnified, visible area shown on-screen is in the top left of the windowing environment, and when the pointer is moved to the exact center of the screen, then the zoomed/magnified area moves to the exact center of the desktop/windowing environment.
In other words, turning the "Zoom" feature on or off (using a keyboard shortcut or the control panel) does not change the position of the pointer on the screen, and the position of the visible screen and the pointer in relation to the desktop/windowing environment is always clearly visible.
The experience can be a little disorienting at first, but can be adjusted to with a little practice by anyone who knows that the positional information is there and has some basic 2D spatial ability. It seems to be a simple, effective method for extending the desktop/windowing environment's usability to the visually impaired.
-Jon Smith,
bboy, artist, comp-sci student