Developing Dual User Interfaces for Integrating Blind and Sighted Users : the HOMER UIMS

摘要

Existing systems which enable the accessibility of Graphical User Interfaces to blind people follow an "adaptation strategy"; each system adopts its own fixed policy for reproducing visual dialogues to a non-visual form, without knowledge about the application domain or particular dialogue characteristics. It is argued that non-visual User Interfaces should be more than automatically generated adaptations of visual dialogues. Tools are required to facilitate non-visual interface construction, which should allow iterative design and implementation (not supported by adaptation methods). There is a need for "integrated" User Interfaces which are concurrently accessible by both sighted and blind users in order to prevent segregation of blind people in their working environment. The concept of Dual User Interfaces is introduced as the most appropriate basis to address this issue. A User Interface Management System has been developed, called HOMER, which facilitates the development of Dual User Interfaces. HOMER supports the integration of visual and non-visual lexical technologies. In this context, a simple toolkit has been also implemented for building non-visual User Interfaces and has been incorporated in the HOMER system.