SuperNova Access Suite Case Study: Surfing the net with Supernova.

My name is Neill McBride, I'm a Supernova user and I work for Dolphin Computer Access, Ltd. as a member of the technical support team. My lovely wife Lisa also works for Dolphin and it was through Dolphin that we met. So, you may say I've got a bias towards Dolphin in more ways than one!

Diagnosed with RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa) at the age of seventeen I came to rely on Lunar during my college days and now completely on Supernova for both my PC work and for PC play.

But, being honest, these days it is speech that gives me the support I need much more than magnification! Having a role in technical support has given me the opportunity to take onboard information and then air my views on product development from what is really a user's perspective. Today, it seems that access to the Internet is the first objective most users have when they switch on their new PCs. This is no different for users with a visual impairment. Much to Lisa's dismay, most evenings you can find me browsing Liverpool FC's web pages to get the latest club info and gossip on players' comings and goings. However, with Christmas drawing near Lisa's now threatening to place the Christmas shopping at my doorstep or, should I say mouse mat and keyboard!

How accessible is the Internet? Web accessibility has always been a thorny issue and will continue to be one for as long as web page designers neglect the needs of users with disabilities. For instance, the simple inclusion of alternate text for images can make the world of difference from the accessibility viewpoint but it remains in many, many cases a neglected task! But don't be put off or disillusioned because good sites do exist and businesses are slowly coming around through pressure applied both legally under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 and via organisations like the RNIB and our own Web Accessibility campaign. Slowly but surely the Internet is becoming access friendly! The Internet, Supernova and Me So, the Internet can be accessed with Hal or, in my case, Supernova, but can this be achieved in an elegant and stress free manner? Suffice-to-say the steps are few and the rewards are plenty. To help with this, Dolphin's Marketing and Technical Support Departments have produced some helpful literature on this very topic.

This and our usual technical information are available from our online knowledge base, or from the support literature that accompanies your Dolphin product. Tips for getting around Dolphin’s Virtual Focus gives you automatic keyboard access to web pages. Form filling is simple and automatic – just press Enter to interact with an edit field or control, when you Tab out of the field, Virtual Focus resumes automatically. Easy! Cycle between all the controls on a page (edit areas, buttons etc.) by pressing Left Control Page Up and Left Control Page Down. Moving around the page is simple. You can simply tab from link to link as normal, or use the up and down cursor keys to move from item to item. The software also allows you to jump directly to, or move between, specific areas. We’ve already mentioned Left Ctrl + Page Down for jumping between control areas, but you can move between text areas and between links. For example, if you come to a page with a load of adverts right at the top, skip over links by pressing Left Control Left Shift + cursor right. (Cursor left takes you back) This will jump you to the next text area. Cycle through links only by pressing Left Control + cursor up. (Cursor down takes you back) If you hear a link which just says “click here” find out where “here” is by pressing Left Shift + Num Pad 0 to hear the URL. Don’t forget if you want to sort through links quickly, use the Dolphin Links Navigator. Internet Explorer users will find this under the Tools Menu in your browser.

Links can be sorted instantly by tab order, recently visited or alphabetically. If you know where you want to go, press the first letter of the link to jump right to it then press Enter. When you get to a body of text you want to read, press Num Pad Plus to start Document Read. Press Plus again to pause; the virtual focus will route to the last word spoken by your synthesizer. Notice that the page will scroll down automatically as you read. If you want to go back up, simply press cursor up. Magnification users - don’t forget you can use Document Read with any of the screen views. Try it with Auto Lens – this will magnify one word at a time as you read, leaving the rest of the web page at regular size. Another neat trick for magnification users is the middle mouse button. Click anywhere on the web page with your middle mouse button then press Num Pad Plus to continue reading from there. If your mouse doesn’t have a middle button, simply use the Configure Access System Keys dialog in your Dolphin Control Panel to add an alternative of your own choosing (e.g. shift + right click) The ‘Find’ feature is useful for everyone. Press F3 and type the text you are looking for then press Enter. Your Virtual Focus will jump right to it. Press F4 to find next occurrences, and F2 to find previous occurrences. If the word is contained in the Alt-Tag text of a graphic, your focus will jump right to the graphic. Again, the web page scrolls up accordingly and the magnification tracks with the speech and Braille.

Of course, Braille users will also find links indicated on their Braille display and can activate them using the standard cursor routing buttons. At the moment, from my experience I'd recommend Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher as the browser of choice and the use of Hal or Supernova version 5 with its powerful internet support and new features. With this combination, I'm able to access the information I need from the web quickly, easily and without any fuss. The Internet represents the future and Lisa believes there is a huge untapped source of male shoppers out there waiting to go online and remove the drudgery of shopping from their wives'. She's hoping I'll be a fantastic example to everyone! Joking aside, it is here and it is generally easy to use and getting better.

Computer users with a visual impairment are set to fare better than any other user group from the internet and as web masters become aware of this accessibility it will just get better and better. Dolphin too, will continue to invest heavily in the development of their products and access to the Internet will continue to gain the highest priority in programming policy. Our development alongside the growing realisation by businesses that accessibility means customers suggests the future does appear bright.

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