Digital technique for everyone

Author : Hoang Moc Kien
Date added : 2003-08-16

Brief Project Background

20 years ago at the age of 27, after I graduated from the university, I became completely blind due to an innate disease. And I asked me then myself what I have to do next and how I can overcome the occurring obstacles to be able to work and enjoy the life. Thanks to the wise advise of my good friends working in the field of computer science, I have found the solution in the information technology. I learned to understand that the capability to access wide range of information is vital for every one living in the modern world nowadays. Information and knowledge are power. Also in Vietnam, IT plays in the present time already an important role in many fields, such as education, telecommunication, mass media, office work, publishing, entertainment, etc. That helps to enhance the life quality, to enrich much the knowledge of everyone and to increase the efficiency in the work. The position of certain disabled people on the labour market and in the society generally is much improved if they master the IT. Unfortunately, most of the blind people in the developing countries are still left behind the global informatics revolution, that includes the visually impaired people in Vietnam. They have just very little access to the huge available information resource and their exchange of information with others in the society is still quite poor. They can not reach huge amount of information stored on disks, in local networks and on the web sites. They can not use a number of e-services, such as e-commercial, making digital phone call, e-mail and administration services. And they can not participate in any educational program available in the computer network. The main reasons are technical and economical, therefore we have to find the solutions based on technical creativeness and economical means to solve the problems to help sight impaired people in Vietnam become more capable in accessing the computer world. The display of different types of information on the digital screen hinders much the visually impaired users from accessing numerous electronic devises including personal computer and its peripheral devises. The screen access technology is the key technology to overcome such obstacle. the essential basis of this technology is digital technique. Below in this document we will expound some techniques in which I’m involved to customize and develop. Also in this text I will bring up various problems to be solved and way to help visually disabled people in Vietnam to access the IT in the next period of time.

I have decided to work on the IBM PC compatible, windows operating system and a number of popular applications such as WinWord, excel, internet explorer, outlook express, etc. that choice is most economical and it enables such users to integrate well their activities on the PC with the work of others in the informatics field. This integration includes exchange of learning, programs and information as output of the PC.

I have decided to use the following technologies specially designed for the visually impaired PC users:

A. The screen access technology is the tool to help them to access the PC system. It gathers, filters and presents the information displayed on the screen in a special and easy way for touch and hearing. The screen readers must be customized to function with Vietnamese language on the PC and to fit the specific need, capability and habit of each user. These packages must be then able to handle the Vietnamese text coming from different input sources, such as website, optics recognition, document file and interface of the software and to speak it then in Vietnamese through a sound card or a special speech synthesizer hardware. Parallel, the screen reader has also to display the processed text in Vietnamese braille on the braille display. In order to help the users whose English is quite poor to understand the English messages the screen readers must translate automatically the encountered messages from English into Vietnamese. Furthermore to make the interactive relationship between the sight impaired users and the PC become more convenient for them, the audio feature is added to the system. For longer term, i would like to cooperate with other experts to develop a screen reader running under Vietnamese Linux. In Vietnam there is now already a Linux available with an application named Open Office running with Vietnamese.

B. The engineers of the mssapi used with the Vietnamese speech synthesizer and its associate communication link with the screen reader must be added to the operating system and to the screen reader to enable it to speak the output text in Vietnamese.

C. The adding of audio function with the characteristic of the Vietnamese language (Vietnamese speech) to the PC system enriches much the interface of the system. Various types of sound and several speech messages in Vietnamese are assigned to different events of the computer running.

D. The creation of the Vietnamese braille translation table as part of the screen reader enables the screen readers to convert the Vietnamese print text encountered on the screen into Vietnamese braille characters to be displayed on the braille display.

E. the keyboard manager functions as part of the screen access technology. it consists the simulating the functions of the mouse on the keyboard and the assigning many commands for execution to certain keystrokes so that it facilitates greatly the visually impaired pc users to navigate throughout the screen with the mouse pointer and to execute the most popular software fast, correctly and conveniently, for the instance the Microsoft word, excel, outlook express, internet explorer, etc.

F. The creation of the Vietnamese braille translation tables as parts of the braille translators enables them to convert Vietnamese print document into Vietnamese braille formatted document for sending then to the braille embosser. By the mean of the Vietnamese and English braille translators, the documents in several fields, such as literature, science, etc originally edited for the sighted readers can be converted into braille for the production of braille material for educational and entertainment purposes. This way, braille translators enable sighted PC users to produce braille documents even they do not know at all about braille sighns.

The essential point in the project is the launch of several training programs at different knowledge levels to correspond the learning and skill of the trainees.

Results

Since the time I have started to work with IT, the style of my life has been changed much. Based on the IT I have obtained very good method for my work and I can get access to various kinds of works. My computer system can hear, see, speak, display braille and emboss braille material. I am now quite independent in my work. Always my wishes are to share my skill, experience and knowledge with others who fall into such a situation like me. Since 7 years I work closely with a number of institutions for the blind in Vietnam to produce braille material. And many braille textbooks have been provided to the blind pupil.

Lessons

The commonly used graphical operating systems like windows and many applications including software specially designed for the blind, such as screen reader named jaws, speech synthesizer named Microsoft text-to-speech and braille translator run just with english interface and are not designed for processing Vietnamese text. These programs require from the users certain level of technical skill to run them, But the knowledge of the most visually impaired people about English and technique generally are still very poor, therefore applications with Vietnamese or English interface and their output information are not reachable for them yet. To customize the screen readers, braille translators and to link several programs and devises to each other we need occasionally to change their internal components and/or add new modules to the existing system. Without assistance of their developers, it is often not possible. The development of the software and hardware is very fast, that is why it is very difficult and hard not to be behind the progress over long period. For the users in the developing countries the prise of the special equipment for blind users is too high. All these facts push me to utilize the following methods:

1. Analyse the encountered difficulties and the potential capabilities of the sight-impaired users in the interaction with the PC to identify the appropriate technologies used to solve the concrete problems. The design of The selected technologies must base on general standard. It has to enable the users to operate the normal microcomputer system functioning with the popular programs. The software must be so flexible and open that we can then easily tailor it. Beside the technical criterions described above we must also consider carefully the price the users must pay for the selected technologies.

2. Work closely together with the developers to customize their programs and add additional modules to selected technologies, for example integrate Vietnamese braille translation table and Vietnamese speech synthesizer as additional components to the existing screen access software to meet specific desire of users in Vietnam.

3. Split sensibly the development process in several phases corresponding the technical and economical condition. For the instance in the first step we just try to master the chosen technology to work with English characteristic, in the second step we customize it to create Vietnamese braille on the braille display and braille printer and just in the third step we try to make the screen reader to function with the Vietnamese speech synthesizer.

4. Create communications between several devises and programms to set up a system with numerous functions to solve the problems comprehensively. The PC as the central unit is linked to scanner, microphone, modem, ordinary screen, braille display, ordinary printer, braille printer, speech synthesizing devise, speaker and other PC. In order to operate the whole system with various functions, such as optics recognition, presentation of the information displayed on the screen in speech and in braille, production of braille document, creation of appropriate interaction with the PC for the blind by the keyboard manager and so on, we must install the screen access software and link it to other packages, for the instance to numerous utilities of windows, the microsoft word, the braille translator and the optics recognition programms. As the result, we can offer the blind users a PC interface which fits their special requirement.

5. Need the screen access software which is more open (accessible source of some modules) to facilitate the advanced users to customize it to make it fit better the individual need of those users.

The above described technologies would benefit great number of visually impaired people in my country in accessing information resource and in exchanging information with surrounding world if in the future the special devises like braille display and braille printer will be cheaper than now. There should be also less sophisticated equipment at lower price available. To increase the number of the sight impaired PC users, many educational programs and training courses related to applying IT must be launched. Also, advisory services must be provided to help them to find the right approach to the PC world and to solve the occurring problems while using the computer. Depending on the new special demand of the visually impaired users and development of the computer world the existing technologies for them must be continuously modified and/or new components must be developed and added to them. Also, maintenance services for the devises, especially for the braille display and braille printer must be organized, otherwise these users will fall into a very difficult situation.

Development Impacts

1.make this special PC system work better with the Vietnamese language.

2.remove the remaining errors in the system, for the instance, conflicts among the installed programmes.

3.add new features to the system, for the instance the audio feature.

4.improve the integration of the blind PC users into the normal society.

5.empower the blind to improve their position on the labour market and in the society generally in order to give them more chance in the life.

Project Information

Organisation : VASEP
Total budget in US$ : 500000 US$
Country of activity: Vietnam [VN]

Are there any partners involved : Vietnam Blind Association, Swedish Blind Association, SIDA and I
What is partners role?: SIDA and the Swedish blind association support the transfer of the IT for the visually impaired PC-users to the Vietnam blind association. And I myself play an active role in the realization of this IT-transfer process. I have setup the computer system in my office at first just for my own use. But after a while others including SIDA have found it interesting and want to apply it in some institutions for the blind. In the conjunction with this project I wish to make further progress in my computer system.

Contact Information

Hoang Moc Kien
kienhm@vasep.com.vn
1 Yecxanh Street, Haibatrun District, Hanoi

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