From Braille to Next Generation Web

Braille gave the blind the possibility to read text, with braillle embossed text the blind got access to textbooks and other printed material and a new world of possibilities opened up, and a greater possibility to participate actively in the society.

Braille is a way of representing characters in dot-matrix in cells of six dots, arranged in a grid of two dots horizontally and three dots vertically. The raised dots give a tactile feeling so that the blind can read the characters and get the same possibility to read text as a seeing person.

To produce textbooks in Braille is expensive and time consuming, often leaving the blind student behind when new editions are issued and the curriculum changing. With the personal computer in the mid 1980's access to books in Braille became easier. Systems for translating electronic versions into Braille and reading lists were huge improvements.

One electronic format that have helped the blind to get access to electronic versions of textbooks is DAISY (ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005) (www.daisy.org). DAISY is a digital talking book format, that synchronizes text and audio files. Using the format increases the reading experience and helps the blind navigate efficiently in the text.

In the mid 1990's we witnessed a paradigm shift in how information was published with the evolvement of web as invented by Tim Berners-Lee. Suddenly the blind had the same possibility to access information as a seeing person, at the same time, with the same effectiveness. This represented a great leap forward as newspapers, governmental agencies and others started to publish their information on the web as well.

In the early days of web publishing textbooks and learning material had the information coded in HTML. HTML have some types of semantic coding (e.g. using H1-H6 for headings, OL/UL for ordered and unordered lists etc.). However, the web transformed from a way of sharing information into a market place for advertising and selling products, with more complex designs and use of images and image maps, javascript, DHTML and flash to code and represent information. We got less use semantic coding, and more use of presentation coding. A fierce competition between different web browser-vendors introducing new functionality and elements for the specific browser made the situation for the blind even more difficult. The standardisation of HTML was rapid, the need to satisfy free usage of elements was one of many reasons for developing the XML-specification.

As a response to this trend of more inaccessible websites World Wide Web Consortium launched the WAI initiative in 1997 to focus and better organise the guidelines and recommendations that were published on the W3C web. W3C also started work on separating content from presentation with the introduction of CSS. During the last few years the support of CSS is stable in almost any web browser - again giving the blind easier access to information.

The advent of what has been known as "Web 2.0" or Participatory Web technologies raise a new set of challenges with regard to accessibility. The more complex the interaction schemes and tools are, the more in-accessible the systems will be. This calls for a stricter focus on accessibility. The possibility to share and co-operate is maybe one of the most important tasks in learning, and to enable this learning experience for people with disabilities as well will be an important task.

To be able to ensure that all have the same ability to share and participate in the learning experience, we need a holistic approach towards accessibility and learning technologies (Kelly et al., 2005). What we will find is that every system are connected and need to provide accessible and adaptable information in one way ore another.