Posts tagged with 'Accessibility'

Guest blog - Computers find male voices harder to recognise - Oh dear

By Rhodri Buttrick on 9 March 2010

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On 4 March, I came across an article on the BBC News web site reporting that some researchers at Stamford University and at Edinburgh University found, Computers find male voices ‘harder to recognise’. Now I am male and as I cannot hand write, I have been using voice recognition technology (VRT) since I was 10 years old. So, I “screen read” the article to see what insights it had for me.

When I started using VRT, I could barely read but had to read “training text” for the computer to learn my voice. My mother had to sit behind me, whispering the text into my ear in short phrases, which I repeated into the microphone. I was using Dragon Naturally Speaking version 5. It was hard work, but I persevered as this was the last chance saloon for me as I was unable to write and typing was painfully (literally!) slow. I adopted the “good practices” recommended by the software supplier, such as correcting any recognition errors as I went along using the “Correct That” function, rather than overtyping. The result was I achieved a recognition level of over 98%, talking in a natural way, at normal talking speed.

So, what about the Edinburgh and Stamford Universities’ research?  The BBC report says:

Computers failed to understand men’s speech because they make “umm” and “err” sounds more frequently.

Comment: I could have told them this ten years ago! Of course sloppy speech makes recognition levels bad and perhaps men umm and err more than women! People with speech ticks such as saying “y’know” in every sentence also have problems. Isn’t there and old computing saying of “trash in, trash out”?

Computers made mistakes with words which sound similar and can occur in similar contexts, such as “I saw him” or “I saw them”.

Comment: This is a good point. They ought to try “I scream” and “ice cream”. In one of my Religious Studies essays I had “cheeses of Nazareth” leading his disciples. I have however got round this now and I’ll tell you how in a later blog.

Variations in pitch, tone and speed can also cause the system to misunderstand voices.

Comment: Not for me; even though my voice broke, my good practices carried me through and I can talk as fast I want to.

It then said the research was to “improve the accuracy of automated ticket booking lines.” Ah!!! This research was not for people like me after all. It was all about replacing call centre staff with machines; this software would have to deal with any voice without the benefit of any training! Perhaps, if they crack this problem, it will eventually benefit people who cannot hand write or maybe it will be so expensive, it will remain the preserve of the major corporates.

Only the future will tell; until then, I’ll keep using my Dragon Naturally Speaking software coupled with some common sense good practices.

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Are your PDFs accessible?

By Brigitte Simard on 3 March 2010

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We often get asked about by clients, so I thought I’d also share some thoughts on this matter in this blog post.

Accessible PDFs

PDF files have always been embedded in web pages and that’s not likely to change in the near future. The real challenge here is making sure that the information in the PDF can be accessed by all users, as screen reader and screen magnifier users have traditionally had problems with PDFs. However, screen readers can now read aloud PDF files and they can be magnified by screen magnifiers.

Creating a new PDF

Firstly, you’ll need to make your Word document accessible through the following steps:

To create the PDF you then need to select the toolbar icon:

The alternative way of creating PDFs, that is, printing to Adobe PDF should not be used. This latter method does not tag the PDF document, meaning that all heading information is lost.

After the PDF has been created, you must then check that the document is properly tagged and bookmarked.

Converting existing PDFs

With Acrobat Writer, it’s possible to modify an existing PDF through the following steps:

  • Add new tag
  • View, Re-order, Rename, Modify, Delete or Create tags
  • Update the reading order
  • Add alternative  text to images
  • Convert a scanned PDF with Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

We will follow this post up with a more substantial article in the next couple of months, but let us know in the meantime what your thoughts are on the accessibility of PDFs.

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Guest blog - Student loans, another online form!

By Rhodri Buttrick on 2 March 2010

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An email came into my inbox and I stared at it with trepidation. It was a reminder to apply for my student loan for my second year at university. I remembered last year: it took ages; I couldn’t find the information and then it timed out as I was too slow.  Next I thought, where did I put the record of last year’s application? What did I say? What if I am not consistent? Is any of the information here (at Uni) or is it at home?  I put it off applying as long as I could but felt that if I didn’t tackle it soon, I wouldn’t get a loan. So, I set aside a whole afternoon and logged in. But, what was this I saw? All last year’s data was already entered! All I had to do was go through each page confirming that is was correct: place of study, course, course code, address (term time) and so on. The only additional data I needed had been sent to me by the university in plenty of time – that was the annual course fee.

After half an hour, the whole application was done. The only tricky part was when the form had an ambiguous question on “Did I want to apply for disability allowance?”  Contrary to my instincts, the right answer was “No” as I had already applied the previous year and disability allowance is for the full 3 years and doesn’t have to be reapplied for.  So, 9 out 10 for the people who designed that form, making it easier for people like me and, as a wider benefit, easier for everyone else as well.

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Ecommerce accessibility 2010 - report released

By Trenton Moss on 19 February 2010

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Yesterday we released the findings of this year’s ecommerce accessibility report and found that, unlike in usability, not much had changed when it comes to website accessibility among the top high street retailers.

Whereas the average score in usability has been increasing year-on-year, the average accessibility score actually went down slightly this year (although that may be partly because Woolworths was included again this year and only scored 38 per cent, but this time last year it wasn’t around to assess).

There were obvious exceptions to this lack of improvement however. B&Q was the outstanding mover and has clearly invested in its website since last year. It achieved a score of 84 per cent to top the table, up 16 per cent from last year. Other big improvements were seen with H.Samuel climbing from 8th place to 3rd, improving its score from 65 to 75, and Next which climbed from 18th to 11th with an improvement of 9% to 60.

In contrast, Marks & Spencer’s website, newly launched in October 2009, only managed to increase its accessibility score by 1 per cent to 59 per cent, even though it now leads the way in usability.

So, what’s the reason for the general lack of improvement in accessibility considering there’s continual investment in these ecommerce websites? Well this could be down to advances in web technologies making it more difficult for ecommerce sites to maintain levels of accessibility as they provide richer interactions.

It used to be the case that, if you did your usability and SEO work right, you’d be 80% there with accessibility due to the interlinked nature of the disciplines. However, AJAX and Web 2.0 present new challenges from an accessibility point of view and this is no longer the case.

However, some of these mistakes are so easy to rectify it’s amazing that so many sites fail every year. For example, the guideline that gets the lowest average every year is providing focus states for links to make them accessible for keyboard-only users. This can be done through one simple line of code, yet only B&Q, John Lewis, Argos and HMV do this to a reasonable level and the majority of sites don’t even attempt it.

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Guest blog - Things can only get worse

By Rhodri Buttrick on 3 February 2010

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The day following my disaster day, I was in the library struggling to find a book for my philosophy essay. Thankfully, there is a “disability coordinator” in the library who is extremely helpful and helps me find the books I need. I can even e-mail him in advance and he will find the books for me so all I have to do is collect them. After he had helped me find the book I needed, I went to the desk to take the book out. This was going to be a better day!

But, reaching into my wallet, I found I had lost my access card! A university access card is possibly the most important thin piece of plastic you will ever own, except perhaps your credit card. Without this, a student turns into a second-class citizen. Not only are you are unable to take books out of the library, you can’t get back into your hall of residence as all the gates are electronic. Officially, you can’t even get food from the canteen, as need to show the card to the kitchen staff.

So this was not just inconvenient, it was a total disaster - I was potentially homeless, hungry and late in starting my essay. What’s more, if I didn’t find the card I would have to pay £10 for a replacement. With the exception of not being able to rent out library books there were ways around the other problems. I had to phone a friend every time I wanted to get that into my hall and the office wrote me a note so I could get food.

With dyslexia, is the best way not to lose things, such as access cards, is to get into a good routine of where to put things. I think I know how I lost the access card. When you enter the dining room you have to show your card so I must have left it on my tray and after finishing my meal, left the dining room and forgotten about it. Usually, one of the kitchen staff notice and rescue the cards but on this particular lunchtime, we had fish and chips wrapped in paper! So a lot of things went in the bin rather than the dishwasher and the odds are, my poor card is languishing in a rubbish dump somewhere.

After about a week of searching and trying to survive without the card, I stumped up the cash and bought a new one. I was determined not to lose this one and figured out a new system. Instead of putting my access card on my tray at lunch, I would put my wallet with my access card in it on the tray. This might sound like a risky strategy as doesn’t this mean I will simply lose my wallet? It is bigger, however, and far more noticeable than a card therefore I’m more likely to remember to put my wallet back in my pocket.

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