Language impairments can
make the use of (advanced) information technology particularly
difficult. The WWAAC project aimed to make several activities accessible to symbol users and elderly people with language disorders over the Internet.
Each of the software modules has an appropriate user
interface including support for information management such as
e-mail-addressing and navigation routes. With a tool for web authoring
web pages can be made more accessible.
These three exemplary case studies clarify how the software and tools developed in this project innovate the use of Internet services.
Symbol
users talking to each other via e-mail
Person A (PCS-user) transmits the concept "Hamburger" (without a
graphical image) to person B (Bliss-user) over the Internet. The
Bliss user's E-mail program passes this concept to his Bliss
converter to display Hamburger.
When a database doesn't have a symbol for a concept, the E-mail-program can ask the
concept database for help. The concept coding support replies with additional information about the concept. E.g. cheeseburger is not in the Bliss database, but with the information that this is "something in the category of food, with links to hamburger and cheese", the E-mail client
program may be able to show something despite the absence of a symbol for this concept.
Personalized web-reader for AAC-users
A big institutional organisation of day-care centres, rehabilitation and living groups scattered around several locations is using an Intranet for internal communications, including
information provision using standard web servers and browsers. For social activities and information about meals, for example, they would like to make those web pages accessible for non-readers. But it is too expensive to supply those pages both in text (as normal HTML pages) as well as for all the different symbol systems that are currently in use in the different centres.
Now, symbol users with their personalised web-reader can pass the text to the speech synthesiser, optionally supported by text-to-symbol conversion.
With the help of a software tool the web master can produce web pages that can
display themselves according to the specific needs of the recipient
as interpreted by the local web reader. Thus the information can be
displayed with as efficient as possible speech and symbol display
support. The specially developed tool builds on existing and
emerging industrial standards and commercial tools for efficient re-tailoring of information for specific target platforms and requirements.
Interactive Intranet for AAC-users
The institution described in scenario 2 also wants to introduce small dedicated interactive displays in many places, such as in the individual rooms of the inhabitants. Small
wall-mounted dedicated devices (or i.e. wheelchair mounted portable devices) with an active display and touch screen should offer people the possibility to raise an alarm, ask for help, get general information, order meals etc. With the help of the same authoring tools and the use of symbols as in scenario 2, nearly all the online information and interaction can be presented in an accessible way.
