Friday July 3, 2009
Helping the blind get connected
THE Malaysian Association for the Blind (MAB) has launched a campaign to promote web accessibility for blind people.
“This campaign is the first in Malaysia as the MAB previously only conducted workshops to educate web developers on how to make websites accessible to blind people,” Science, Technology and Innovation Deputy Minister Fadillah Yusof said while attending the launch of the campaign.
MAB IT manager Silatulrahim Dahman and his team of three have been entrusted with the task of ensuring that all websites in Malaysia are accessible to the blind.
(From left) Silatulrahim, technician Hasrulnizam Ahmad Mokhtar and IT instructor Fadzlin Hiezrie demonstrating how a website accessible to the blind should work. Many local websites, including those of banks, are not user-friendly to the blind because the text-to-speech (TTS) programmes are not able to identify some features on the pages.
TTS software is the primary means for the blind to “read” information on computers.
Through the campaign, Silatulrahim and his team will offer professional consultation services and give recommendations on how government and private sector websites can be improved.
In Malaysia, Dahman is among the three certified trainers who promote web accessibility for the blind, along with MAB IT instructor Fadzlin Hiezrie and Allan Wong, a part-time IT instructor. There are six other trainers in the Asean region.
Hiezrie said many web developers were not aware of requirements that guarantee the blind access and control over content on the Internet.
These standards were set by the Web Accessibility Initiative, a working group of the Worldwide Web Consortium, that develops Web standards.
Source:
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