Stanza - Accessible E-Book Reader for the iPhone

Scanning through the Personal Tech section of the Times, I bumped into an interesting tidbit, "Tip of the Week - Turn Your iPhone Into an e-Book - NYTimes.com". I have an iPod Touch (the iPhone sans phone), so I ws intrigued, though remaining skeptical, by this tip. I just downloaded the app, Stanza, to my iPod and fell in love. On a technical level, it is a perfect application of accessibility for a visually impaired user. The font sizes can be adjusted with a very wide range. You can select font and background colors with a wide selection of choices, not just a simple reverse color scheme option. The screen rotates with the iPod, so you can read it landscape with the larger text. Pages can be turned with a simple flick on the screen. Best of all, it retains your choice of settings. I could not be happier with the accessibility.

Now I have to download the desktop version and hope that there are interesting e-books to read . . .

Alternative Google Color Schemes

Following up on my earlier post about the lack of accessible Vista themes and my current feelings on standard internet color schemes, I posted the following to the accessible Google Group: Alternative Google Color Schemes - accessible | Google Groups

For the visually impaired, Google's (as well as MS and most websites) color scheme is downright bad. Does Google have or could it develop an alternative accessible co or scheme? Not only should it be high contrast, but also light-on-dark. For me, I like yellow-on-black. Firefox and IE allow users to impose color schemes while browsing, but this method changes all text and background to the same two colors. This ruins the full use of each page. For example, in Gmail, the star feature becomes useless.For another, regular text and hyperlinks become indistinguishable. So this solution is only partial. This remains true for other websites and for Windows as well. Both Vista and XP have high-contrast color schemes, but there are both aesthetically unappealing (Visually impaired does not equal aesthetically unaware) and more problematic then helpful. Is this something that Google could/will implement? Is this something a third-party could do well? There are some third party tools (e.g. Firefox's Accessibar), but none are subtle enough to retain the full nature of each web page. Is anyone up for the challenge? Thanks! PS Can someone create a nice Vista/XP theme with accessible and aesthetic colors and font sizes

I will relay any useful responses.

Accessible Windows Vista Themes

As I noted in the last post, I have just moved to a Windows Vista machine. I have spent the last few days looking for a decent theme with large fonts and good light-on-dark contrast. There are none!

The Windows high contrast themes, besides being hideous, do not have large text. To check these out, you can either right-click on the desktop and select 'Personalize' and then to 'Windows Colors and Appearance' or go to the 'Ease of Access Center' Control Panel and then to 'Set Up High Contrast'. Either way, you are stuck with an ugly interface with the small font. The 'Ease of Access Center' has an option for changing something called DPI to make the font easier to read, but that only goes so far.

I checked out the trial version of WindowBlinds, but I could not easily find any accessible themes. After a frustrating few minutes with the software, I sent an email to the company who sells it, asking them if WindowBlinds offeres any accessible themes.

In the end, I spent a good chunk of time adjusting all the color and font settings in the 'Windows Colors and Appearance' panel. After a few mistakes and having to start from scratch a few times, I succeeded in creating and saving a minimally acceptable theme. It is not professional in the least. My next job is to figure out how to export and share it with you. For now, email me if you would like a copy.

Do you know of any useful themes? Do you know someone who can create one? Let me know!

Zooming in the new IE

At first, I did not like the new Internet Explorer (IE). It buried the accessibility options I like most (text size and ignore colors specified on webpages). There is one new redeeming feature, the new zoom.

Zoom does what it says. Just like zooming in and out with your camera, zoom lets you magnify websites at any level of magnification you desire. I usually keep it between 125% and 200%, but it depends on the website. Very useful. Unlike text size, zoom works on all web pages. The only downside is that many pages will extend eve further off the right side of the screen. The solution for that has been to get a wide-screen monitor.

Zoom's official home is under the Pages menu right about my other favorite, text size.The excellent news is that there are two easier ways to access it. First, the bottom right corner of the IE window has a "change zoom level" drop down menu. Even better are the keyboard controls; Ctrl-+ to zoom in and Ctrl-- to zoom out.

Time to zoom away.

Pogue’s Posts - As We Get Older, Type Gets Smaller - Technology - New York Times Blog

Pogue's post this past week, As We Get Older, Type Gets Smaller, addresses a major issue that I think about too much. I reset the screen resolution, override default fonts and sometimes use Zoomtext.

Response on Cell Phon High-Contrast Color Schemes

I had a response form Verizon (who obviously did not read my initial message carefully) which just blew me off. Here is the response and my response:

As I said in the original message, I had difficulty testing each phone in the store. First, the store's inventory did not match the online store's inventory. Second, I was unable to turn on many models. Lastly, it was not easy to search for the correct font/display.color/theme settings on each phone that I could turn on since I am legally blind. Can you at least suggest it to Verizon's accessibility team that they (1) test each phone for high-contrast color scheme options and publish the results and (2) they suggest /require the suppliers to add high-contrast color scheme options if they do not already have them? Thank you. On 4/27/06, Verizon Wireless Customer Service S - Hide quoted text - wrote: Thank you for contacting Verizon Wireless through our website. I appreciate your inquiry regarding starting service with Verizon Wireless. My name is Desmond, and I am happy to assist you today. Unfortunately, I am unable to inform you which handsets have the contrast capabilities you are in need of because I do not have each handset available to test for you. I would recommend visiting your closest Verizon Wireless direct store which will have working models of the handsets we offer for you to test. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. To obtain a list of stores in your area, please click on the following link, which will direct you to our "Store Locator" page: www.verizonwireless.com/storelocator We provide three options to choose from for obtaining new service with us: 1. You may place orders online by clicking on the following link, www.verizonwireless.com/plans which will direct you to the "Plans" page of our website. 2. You may visit a local Verizon Wireless store in your area, where a sales representative will be happy to assist you. To obtain a list of stores in your area, please click on the following link www.verizonwireless.com/storelocator which will direct you to the "Store Locator" page of our website. 3. Additionally, service may be ordered over the telephone by calling our Verizon Wireless Sales Department at 1-800-2-JOIN-IN (256-4646). A representative will be happy to assist you with your request. We appreciate your business. Please contact us at our website for any of your future needs. Again, thank you for using Verizon Wireless products and services. Sincerely, Desmond Verizon Wireless Customer Service "We never stop working for you!" If you have received this e-mail in error or are not the intended recipient, please notify us immediately by replying to this e-mail and deleting it and all copies and backups thereof. If you are the intended recipient and are a Verizon Wireless customer, this response is subject to the terms of your Customer Agreement.

So to whom can I write, if I want a real reesponse?

High-contrast Cell Phones

I am looking at getting a new cell phone. I don't need a fully voice-controlled, phone, but I would like one where the text is large and easy to read. I am having a hard time finding one. Companies do not advertise high contrast text settings, even if they have them.

My wife and I are currently planning to leave our current cell phone provider and are strongly considering Verizon. The main issue is that I am legally blind with partial sight. I don't need the text-to-speech features of the LG VX 4500. I need a phone with a clearly legible text where the font color contrasts sharply with the background color (black on white, white 0r yellow on black, etc). I went to a Verizon store to check the phones, but it was not possible to check many phone (the stores inventory did not match the website, many of the phone on display could not be turned on and it was not easy to check the Display Settings of the phones that were on). Is there a way to find out which phones have high-contrast color themes? The only one I could find is the CDM 8945, but I don't need all the VCAST features and don't want to have to pay for them. A serious attempt to help would be appreciated.

UPDATE: I have posted a link to a review of the Jitterbug phone. The Jitterbug might be the best phone for folks with low, but functional, vision.

Font Size in Balloons

PC Magazine has a tip on dealing with Font Size in Balloons. This should help you resize the font in those little comment balloons in Word.

Formatting multiple equations in Word

Have you ever tried to change the font in a MS Word document full of equations? It does not work. Well, it works for the text, but not for the equations. To adjust the equations, you have to open each one individually, which is a complete waste of a lot of time.

I bumped into this problem over the past week. Luckily, I found a solution. MathType, the big sibling of MS Word's Equation Editor, does the job. MathType, however, does require a financial outlay unless you are satisfied with the 30-day trial.

Happy equation editing!

Let Users Control Font Size (Alertbox Aug. 2002)

Jakob Nielsen, a 'crusader' for web usability, wrote a plea,Let Users Control Font Size (Alertbox Aug. 2002), a few years ago. In this article, Nielsen articulates an idea that I have been percolating for a long time. From his column,

Consider adding a button that loads an alternate style sheet with really big font sizes if most of your site's visitors are senior citizens or low-vision users. Few users know how to find or use the built-in font size feature in current browsers, and adding such a button within your pages will help users easily increase text size.

I think that we need to expand upon this idea. Not only should every browser should come with a 'large print' style sheet and an easy-to-find button to load it, but every computer should have an easy-to-find icon on the desktop that will reset the Appearance setting to a larger font, higher contrast (but still visually appalling) setting. Computers at kiosks and in school computer labs and even ATM machines should be reuired to have these 'large print' icons.

Internet Explorer: Increasing Font Size

For Internet Explorer (IE), click on Text Size in the View menu and select the appropriate size. Try out different sizes. In general, I choose Largest, but this can cause some web sites to display incorrectly. You will see when this happens if lines of text overlap each other, becoming unreadable. If this happens, reset the font size to something smaller and the problem should disappear.

The advantage here over Firefox is that IE will remember your font size preferences while Firefox does not. The drawback for IE is that there are only five font sizes to choose from, while Firefox has no limit.

Here is a link to Microsoft's instructions: Step by Step Tutorials for Internet Explorer 6: Increase or Decrease the Font Size of Web Pages Displayed on Screen.

Firefox Tip: Increase Font Size

To follow up on my last post, I thought I would show the ways to increase font size in Firefox. The first way is to select Text Size from the View menu, then click on Increase Font Size on the submenu that appears. For me, I need to increase the font size substantially, so I have to repeat this process several times. Fortunately, there is a trick that makes this process simpler. While holding the Control (CTRL) button down, I repeatedly press the + button until I find the right size. [Note: this is often written as CTRL-+.] If I go too far, then pressing Control and - will reverse this process and shrink the font.

Setting up Lignt-on-Dark Contrast for PDFs

Adobe Reader 7.0 allows users to change the coloers used to display PDF files. If you go to the Edit menu and select Preferences, you will see a new indow with a list of options on the left. Select Accessibility and you will see the following window. Check the Replace Document Colors box and select the Use High-Contrast Colors option. I recomend the yellow-text-on-black setting. Adobe has other accessibilty features that I will highlight in other posts.

LaTeX: Changing the Font Size

Caveat Emptor - This post is a not for everyone. It is about a typesetting software, called LaTeX, which is primarily used in technical, academic fields, such as economics or mathematics. I regularly need to read PDF files generated in LaTeX for my day job. There are some accessibility problems with these files. Generally, new PDFs can be made accessible by 'reflowing' them (more on this in another post), but some PDFs generated by LaTeX lose what is called the interword spacing (i.e. the space between words - love that techno jargon!). This results in PDF documents where each paragraph reads like one long word. For an example, download this document, open it in Adobe and reflow it. The obvious solution would be for the PDF generator to be fixed. However, I can not figure out to whom I need to report this. I contacted Adobe by email and through their forums and am awaiting a response. I contacted the LaTeX project, who suggested that "this is not something that can be fixed within LaTeX itself; it is probably caused by the part of the system that produces the .PDF files and this varies a lot". I am currently trying to track down the system that "produced the problem files" at the suggestion of the LaTeX people. I will see where this takes me. In the meanwhile, I have searched for a workaround. My best find has been to regenerate the PDFs after inserting the /Huge command to increase the font size. Purdue has a page, LaTEX: Changing the Font Size, describing how to implement this. It is not a perfect solution. The math is not enlarged and, given LaTeX's predisposition towards excessive margins, makes the documents many more pages in length. Hopefully, I will be able track down the culprit and bring it to the correct group's attention. Regardless, I hope that LaTeX begins its own 'accessibility audit' and develops a more thorough approach to addressing accessibility issues. PS I want to add that LaTeX produces beautifully typeset documents and the LaTeX project is doing an amazing job. I am only pointing out a minor bug in the grand scheme of things that is a fairly major bug in my much smaller scheme of things. PPS If anyone has any suggestions about this or can clue me into something I have missed, please let me know. UPDATE (02/06/2005): I have had some more response from the LaTeX project and from an Adobe support forum. So far the culprit seems to be that these programs are not tagging the PDFs, which is necessary for proper reflowing. I will update you as I find out more.

Increasing Font Size

Increasing the font size in the way I describe here is a small, though useful, step towards making the computer easier to see. This procedure will enlarge the fonts on your desktop, such as the names of icons, and the fonts in used in the Taskbar and dialog boxes. It does not affect the fonts used on websites or in files. We will address these other issues in another post. To increase the font size in Windows XP, you need to access the Control Panel and open up the Display Properties. Once there, click on the Appearance tab. This should be the third tab from the left. On the bottom left, you should now see a drop down menu labeled Font size. Try out different font sizes by choosing one (Normal, Large or Extra Large) and clicking on the Apply button. When you are happy with the font size, click on the OK button. For earlier versions of Windows, the process is just a little more difficult. When you open the Appearance tab, you need to select each object, such as icon, and choose a font size. For OS X, the process is similar using the System Preferences. Let me know if you have any questions.

Decreasing your display resolution

Changing your display resolution has both pros and cons. The pros include larger desktop icons with larger text for the operating system, incuuding the Taskbar (in Windows) or the Dock (in OS X). Lower display resolutions only affect the operating system and not the applications you use, so Internet Explorer, for example, won't display larger font sizes. The main con is that not all software is designed to work on low resolution setting, meaning that occasionally windows will extend beyond the edge of the screen. Fortunately, this issue does not occur frequesntly and is easy to rectify by restoring the original display resolution. You can access your display resolution settings by accessing the Desplay Properties in the Control Panel (for Windows - see the System Preferences on a Mac). When you have the Display Properties window open, click on the 'Settings' tab. There will be a sliding bar called 'screen resolution' on the left side. Move the marker to the left, towards 'less' resoltion. then click 'Apply' and see how you like the changes. It is very easy to change it back by following these same steps (excpet moving the marker towards 'more' resoltion). I recommend testing different display resolutions to see what fits your needs best.