Reading websites for the blind (FrontPage)

[SKiTLz]

To quote Kyle from the frontpage

Wow. I am pretty sure we suck at that too, although Steve's mom is blind and she reads our site all the time. Hi Steve's Mom!

Im wondering how this is possible? Is there some kind of hardware?? Anyone have any ideas? I just cant see how a blind person is able to view websites. Whatever it is, kudos to whoever came up with it.

 

[djnes]

There are screen readers that will read text of a website out load. However, in this case, it seems more like sarcasm. On my old website, I had a banner graphic that said "this site is braille compatible".

 

[SKiTLz]

Originally posted by djnes
There are screen readers that will read text of a website out load. However, in this case, it seems more like sarcasm. On my old website, I had a banner graphic that said "this site is braille compatible".

so its like a text 2 speech engine? Thats slick

 

[djnes]

Originally posted by SKiTLz
so its like a text 2 speech engine? Thats slick

Yeah, but from what I've seen (no pun intended), it sucks for web sites, because it can't decipher text on pictures, and sometimes it jumps around if the site has frames or uses a few odd fonts and graphics. You can get software that will read e-mails to you, and then record your text to speech as a return e-mail. I used to work with a blind guy who used e-mail this way. Didn't always get his voice right, so you'd have to spend some time figuring out what he was saying.

 

[KaosDG]

there are screen readers, force feedback mice and screen magnifiers for "visually impaired" (still can see but legally blind)

for completely blind they have text->braille boards. they take lines of text and push out the proper dot encoding.
really cool to see them work (a little noisy though)

 

[SKiTLz]

struth. I didn't even know the gadets existed. Pretty cool.

And yea I can imagine the text2speech not being the greatest for sites. It would be hard to decipher.

Anywho. Thanks for the info.