As the population of computer users grows, so does the variety of special needs of the users. For a user to maximize their efficiency in completing tasks on a computer, the user interface must meet their specific requirements.
For the purposes of this document, the term “typical computer user” will refer to individuals without any impairment, mild or severe. A typical computer user can effectively use a computer without employing any adaptive hardware or software, and without using any accessibility features that may be built into the computer's operating system.
Blind computers users are unable to see the screen on a computer so must access the information using some form of access technology. They may listen to the information through a text to speech engine, read the information on a refreshable Braille display or feel the information utilizing a Haptic display. With these adaptive features, software delivers the information to the various output devices by taking the information from the screen buffer, acquiring it from an application program interface (API) or by generating the information internally from its own data.
Low vision users differ from blind users as they can see some things but are still unable to read a computer screen without augmentation to the image being displayed. Low vision computer users may employ screen magnification software, screen reader software using text to speech output or work with the features of the operating system to change colors, mouse pointers and other attributes of the display to make customize the image to address their specific requirements.
Deaf and hearing impaired computer users can see the contents of a computer screen but are unable to hear the information delivered in an auditory manner. Many deaf people also have difficulty with written text in their native language as the various sign languages used around the world often differ from the spoken or written word. To maximize their efficiency on a computer, a deaf or hearing impaired user may employ visual cues to deliver information that otherwise may have been presented as a sound. A deaf user may also use a screen reader that turns written text into sign language delivered by an animated avatar.
Computer users who are both deaf and blind use computers with screen reading software that sends information to a refreshable Braille display. To interface with the computer, they provide input to the computer utilizing controls on the Braille display or with a keyboard.
Individuals with learning disabilities have a wide variety of different needs that must be met in order for them to effectively use a computer. These requirements vary from changing colors of text, changing the spacing between words, changing the shape of characters to be tall and thin or short and wide, using software that delivers information through a text to speech engine or employing a wide array of different augmentations to the information presented on a computer screen.
Many mobility impaired users have no difficulty accessing the information provided by a computer but, rather, require physical accommodation, such as a special desk designed to accommodate a wheelchair. Individuals whose motor impairments affect their ability to type on a keyboard or otherwise use their hands do require special adaptive hardware and software to be able to provide input and command and control to a computer.
For the purposes of this document, the term, “temporarily disabled” refers to individuals who, due to a temporary circumstance, lose the ability to use their eyes, ears, hands or some other human attribute. Examples of temporarily disabled individuals include motorists, who cannot take their eyes off of the road or their hands off of the steering wheel; people working in very loud places where they cannot hear the audio from a computer and people performing other tasks that cause them to be unable to interact with a computer in a typical fashion.
The list above describes some of the more common special needs that a computer user may experience, either permanently or temporarily.
Visual difficulties and impairments include low vision, color blindness, and blindness. There are many options for individuals with vision difficulties to modify the computer displays and appearance so it is more legible, or receive information through sound or touch. These options are commonly referred to in the industry as, “assistive” or “adaptive” technologies. Individuals who have visual difficulties and impairments may utilize any one, or a combination of, assistive technologies including screen enlargers, screen readers, speech recognition systems, voice recognition programs, speech synthesizers, text-to-speech systems, refreshable Braille displays, Braille embossers, talking word processors and large-print word processors.
To succeed in a professional environment, most employees need to create, read, collaborate on and share documents of many different types generated from many different software programs. Visually impaired individuals have often struggled to perform some of the most basic document related tasks as it is very difficult and in some cases, impossible for them to understand the subtleties conveyed through visual attributes and alignment of text.
Systems currently known in the art utilize unstructured data formats to provide data to assistive technology devices. The use of unstructured data formats requires that the software make continuous calls to component object modules (COM) to establish the relationship between the assistive technology device and the unstructured data format. With these call to COM objects, the data formats are unable to convey the subtleties inherent in most basic documents. The need to make repeated calls to a COM object required substantial processing and generates latencies in the system that are effect the experience of the end user.
It is known in the art that computer programs utilize extensible markup language (XML) as the native document format for their data storage. XML is simply a string format in which the string contains text descriptions (descriptors) for the data in the string. These descriptors allow a parser to find information in the string without the string having a predefined format.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a system and method that transforms XML information from an application into a user definable audio, visual or tactile enriched document.