Visual

Visual accessibility problems involve blindness, low vision, and color-blindness.

Reference Books and Resources

There are several excellent books related to vision. See the suggested reading list for general information and detailed reference books for your library.

Recent and Relevant

Macular Degeneration

"UCSB Studies Link Alzheimer’s Disease, Macular Degeneration", by Josh Braun, Staff Writer. Published Wednesday, May 28, 2003. Issue 135 / Volume 83

"Retina shift restores sight: Duke Eye Center performs surgery to help people
with macular degeneration see again", by Sarah Avery, Staff Writer. Published by the Raleigh News & Observer - Friday, January 2, 2004

Virtual Blindness Game: Seeing in Relation to the World

The Blind Eye is a hybrid audio game, like The Curb Game and Terraformers. The game is the result of The Blind Eye Research Project, developed in Denmark in 2000, where the participant has the opportunity to experience the virtual world in a manner similar to being visually blind. Conceptually, The Blind Eye examines the idea of seeing in relation to the world. Update: The game is now abandoned and not available for download through the original website (which also has disappeared). A back-up copy of the game is available through a download link, however. All rights remain with the original developer.

Mobile phones: Owasys is a reality

February 2005: An accessible phone designed for blind users. – The Owasys 22C mobile phone uses speech synthesis technology that allows you to make and take phone calls and text messages without the use of a visual display. http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_wel0205owasys.hcsp [United Kingdom / Spain]

The Owasys 22C is now available in the U.S. See http://www.screenlessphone.com/index.html

Accessible cell phones

The American Federation for the Blind (AFB) evaluated 11 of the top cell phones on the market to determine the accessibility of today’s cell phones for people who are blind or visually impaired. They provide several research reports including a report about three types of cell phones that have speech output for the blind: the Owasys 22C, Nokia 3650 with TALKS Software, and the Nokia 3660 with TALKS Software. This article also describes the 16 features that survey respondents rated as the most important for accessibility for cell phones / mobile phones. http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw050406

Making Documents Accessible to the Blind

There is a book published by the American Council of the Blind titled A Guide to Making Documents Accessible to People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired. This document is available online, in regular print, large print, braille, or on cassette tape. http://www.acb.org/accessible-formats.html

Zoom for Low Vision

Wednesday, 15th June 2005 – By Gez Lemon. An article about creating alternative stylesheets for people with low vision. This discusses zooming text and color contrast. http://juicystudio.com/article/zoom-low-vision.php

Blind engineering student ‘reads’ color-scaled weather maps using Cornell software that converts color into sound

January 21, 2005: Victor K. Wong, a Cornell University graduate student from Hong Kong who lost his sight in a road accident at age seven, is helping to develop innovative software that translates color into sound. "Color is something that does not exist in the world of a blind person," explains Wong. "I could see before, so I know what it is. But there is no way that I can think of to give an exact idea of color to someone who has never seen before." The inspiration for using image-to-sound software came in early 2004 when Wong had problems reading color-scaled weather maps of the Earth’s upper atmosphere—a task that is a necessary part of his doctoral work in "space weather," which attempts to predict weather patterns high over the equator for use by Global Positioning System and other satellite communications." more...http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan05/Wong.software.to.html

Libraries for the Blind Launch Digital Audio Book Service

January 5, 2005: State libraries for the blind in Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Oregon, along with the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), part of the Library of Congress, have partnered to launch an innovative digital audio book service for visually impaired users.

Unabridged (http://www.unabridged.info/) enables blind patrons to check out and download digital spoken word audio books directly to their computers. The digital audio books can then be played back on a PC, transferred to a portable playback device, or burned onto CDs.

The Blind Can See with Their Tongues

Update: Source: University of Montreal news release, June 2, 2004: Tongue Display Unit (TDU) perfected. More…
http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/06/03.html

2001—A Danish study found that people who were born blind can learn to see by having electrical impulses applied to their tongue. This research may also benefit other groups of disabled patients with brain injuries or diseases such as epilepsy, dementia, blood clots in the brain or patients who have had surgery where a portion of the brain has been removed. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are developing a tongue-stimulating system that translates images detected by a camera into a pattern of electric pulses that trigger touch receptors. That people can decode nerve pulses as visual information when they come from sources other than the eyes shows how adaptable, or plastic, the brain is, says Wisconsin neuroscientist and physician Paul Bach-y-Rita, one of the device’s inventors. "You don’t see with the eyes. You see with the brain," he contends. An image, once it reaches an eye’s retina, "becomes nerve pulses no different from those from the big toe," he says. To see, people rely on the brain’s ability to interpret those signals correctly. More… See also November 28, 2004: BehindTheMedspeak: BrainPort – See with your tongue and hear and touch as well.