Some Windows features can assist the disable

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Personal computers are supposed to help us maximize our productivity. They are supposed to make it easier for us to access, process, store and retrieve information. They should also serve as enablers, and therefore they should also help people with different kinds of physical disability realize their potential.

We all know that people with disabilities may have hidden potential that could be realized if they had the right tools. In many cases, a personal computer with the right hardware and software is what they need to accomplish things that even non- handicapped people cannot accomplish.

As we move from one version of Windows to the next, I have been looking at different ways the operating system can help people who cannot see very well, cannot use the keyboard and the mouse, or cannot hear. There have been some advancements here and there, although not as much as we would like to see. Yet, it is worth looking at what is available natively in Windows.

Perhaps a misnomer, accessibility in Windows basically refers to the tools and features that enable a disabled user to use their personal computer. If a PC is used by more than one user, these features and tools can be included in the user profile of those who need them so that they will be automatically activated each time they log on.

In all versions of Windows since Windows 98, the set of accessibility tools includes Magnifier for people with poor vision. Activating Magnifier requires multiple steps. You have to click on Start, Programs, Accessories, Accessibility and then Magnifier. The panel can be re-sized, and we can place it on any side of the screen or leave it floating. We can change the magnification level up to 9x, but the image will be jaggy and the text will be too distracting to read comfortably beyond the 2x level.

Windows 98, Me and XP also have two accessibility features that help people with hearing difficulties. These are SoundSentry and SoundShow. The first will flash part of the screen each time the speaker emits sound, while the other will flash text to complement the sound normally produced by a particular program.

Windows 98 also included an Accessibility Wizard, which helped us automate the activation of the features based on the need of the user. If the user has trouble reading the regular text that the system uses on the title bar or menus, for example, he can change the font size using the Wizard. We can also change the size of the scroll bars to make it easier for the visually impaired to scroll up and down or left and right in Word, for example.

People who can only hit one key at a time can also use combination keys using the StickyKeys feature. So, for example, when typing a person's name, they can press the Shift key once and then the first letter of the name.

The Shift key will remain virtually active until the next key is pressed. Activating ToggleKeys will tell the user which of these special keys is being pressed using different sounds. If you dig a little deeper in the Accessibility dialog box, you will also be able to set activation options. For example, you can tell Windows to activate StickyKeys after hitting the Shift keys five times successively.

Some people also tend to inadvertently press other keys with their palms, and the result can be annoying. My wife, for example, sometimes presses the Alt key with her palm and she does not realize it. She will then call me over and tell me that the computer has stopped working. Windows' FilterKeys can detect unintentional repetition of key presses. The MouseKeys will help people who cannot or do not want to use the mouse and want to control the cursor movement with the keyboard instead.

In Windows Me and XP, the size and transparency of the screen pointer can be set in the Accessibility Wizard. In Windows XP, we can even increase the width of the I-beam to make it easier for people with poor vision to know where the next character will appear if they press the keyboard.

Both Windows Me and XP have an on-screen keyboard, so that anyone who can only use a pointer device or a touch screen can also input text. Of course, Windows XP has a better looking soft- keyboard than the one found in Windows Me. Another addition in Windows XP is the Utility Manager. It will tell us which of the accessibility options are active.

The Release Candidate 2 of Window XP Professional that I have been playing around with, comes with built-in speech utilities. I have not tested its speech recognition capability, but I have tried the Narrator, the built-in text-to-speech utility. We can set the Narrator to read aloud each of the keys that we press. It can also be set to announce events on the screen by saying, for example, "Foreground Windows, Microsoft Word". The rest of what the computer says is not clear, unfortunately.

The Narrator is definitely not ready for prime-time yet. According to Windows Help, it may not read text correctly from applications other than Windows' own Notepad, Wordpad and Control Panel. I also found that the voice of the narrator is not as good as some of the shareware that we can download from the Internet. Microsoft does admit that these utilities are not meant for serious use. I do not know whether the shipping version of Windows XP, which will be available in retail stores less than a month from now, will have a better Narrator.

There have been a growing number of tools and features in Windows that will make it easier for handicapped users to use the personal computer, and Windows XP has added new features. Apparently these tools and features are rarely used, as most people do not understand what they are for.

However, there are also shareware items that we can download from the Internet to improve Windows accessibility. In an article in the near future, we will look at these free or low-cost downloadable utilities that will help the deaf and the blind use the computer. There are also guidelines for making Web pages more accessible to the disabled, and we shall look at them too. (zatni@cbn.net.id)