Assistive Technology for Information Access (Visual Impairments) UNDERSTANDING ACCESSIBLE FORMATS

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles Text PDF (Accessible?) HTML – Already known DAISY

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles - Text Desktop Icon Texts and Menus File and Folder Names Notepad, Website, Forms(?) Files Application Menus Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentation Texts Graphics Alternative Texts Anything More?

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles - PDF Postscript Defined Format (PDF) Accessible PDFs – Created by Save as, Print options in Word processors and other formatting applications Non-Accessible PDFs – Scanned documents / images converted Anything More?

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles – UNICODE Encoding Unicode Representation of text in modern software products and standards by Unicode Consortium Provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language is, including Indian languages

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles – UNICODE Unicode The Unicode Standard has been adopted by such all industry leaders as Apple, HP, IBM, JustSystems, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun, Sybase, Unisys and many others Unicode is required by modern standards such as XML, Java, ECMAScript (JavaScript), LDAP, CORBA 3.0, WML, etc., and is the official way to implement ISO/IEC 10646

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles – DAISY Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) Designed to be a complete audio substitute for print material and is specifically designed for use by people with "print disabilities," including Blindness, Low Vision, and Learning Disabilities like Dyslexia Based on the MP3 and XML formats, the DAISY format provides both Audio and Text composing and reading options

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles – DAISY Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) DAISY multimedia can be a book, magazine, newspaper, journal, computerized text or a synchronized presentation of text and audio It provides up to six embedded "navigation levels" for content, including embedded objects such as images, graphics, and MathML. In the DAISY standard, navigation is enabled within a sequential and hierarchical structure consisting of (marked-up) text synchronized with audio

Information Access for VI – Accessible Formats Computers and Mobiles – DAISY Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) DAISY 2 was based on XHTML and SMIL XHTML - Extensible Hypertext Markup Language for Text SMIL - Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language for multimedia representations

Information Access for VI in Computers and Mobiles Selection Criteria and Factors Impairment Conditions – Low Vision or Totally Blind, Deaf Blind or associated conditions Environment – School, Higher Education, Daily Life, Workplace Tasks – Task requirements and level (easy and advanced) may depend on the environment Tools – Word processors, Spreadsheets, Presentation, Browsers, Players

Queries and Discussion