Feature Writer John Christie – Blind Man Seeks Better Technology for Everybody
T. V. Raman was always interested in books, Math and puzzles from an early age. His passion didn’t change even though glaucoma set in at the early age of 14, which eventually took his eye sight. What changed was the role that technology played in his life plus his own innovations in helping him pursue his interests.
Originally from India, Raman relied on volunteer readers to read him material at a top technical university to leading an autonomous life at Google in Silicon Valley where he is a highly respected computer scientist and engineer. Along the way, Mr. Raman developed tools and technologies that were not specific to the blind. They ranged from a Rubik’s cube covered with Braille to a software program which takes complex mathematical formulas and reads them aloud. This software program became the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation while at Cornell. He also built a Google search service tailored to blind users.
Mr. Raman, now 43, is working on a gadget that, if successful, could make life easier for everyone. This gadget is a touch screen cell phone. “What Raman does is amazing,” stated Paul Schroeder who is vice president for programs and policy at the American Foundation for the Blind, which conducts research that can help visually impaired people. “He is a leading thinker on accessibility issues, and his capacity to design and alter technology to meet his needs is unique.”
Some of Mr. Raman’s innovations may make gadgets and web services more user friendly for everyone. Instead of asking how something should work if a person can not see he prefers to ask, “How should something work when the person isn’t looking at the screen?” With no buttons to guide the fingers across the glassy surface, the touch-screen cell phone may be a daunting challenge. However, with the right tweaks, and with the assistance of gps, they could guide a blind person all over the world. “How much of a leap of faith does it take for you to realize that your phone says, ‘walk straight and within 200 feet you’ll get to the intersection of x and y,’” Mr. Raman said. “This is entirely doable.”
Before Raman joined Google in 2005, he was employed at Adobe Systems. While at I.B.M. as a researcher in 2006, he developed a version of Google’s search engine that gives a preference of web sites that work best with screen readers. To do this, the system had to test millions of web pages. “You wouldn’t have found a single page that fully complied with the accessibility guidelines,” Mr. Raman said. Still, the system could detect reasonably well which pages worked with screen readers. The service isn’t being used as widely as he had hoped. However, it has had an impact. Several operators of web sites asked how their sites could rank better. This is because their sites weren’t showing up prominently. The service includes a screen magnifier that enlarges individual search results. Mr. Raman says that the feature will help low vision users but it will also be a great help for people using cell phones with small screens as well as other devices.
For his own use, he has built a system on his pc and on the web stripping out anything that could slow him down. For instance, on the news sites, he can go directly to news articles avoiding links and other features on web pages. He shares a work area with his guide dog Hubbell and Charles Chen, a 25-year-old Engineer while at Google. Mr. Chen, who is sighted, developed a free screen reader for the Firefox browser. They also have been working on keystrokes for visually impaired users. Now they are focusing on touch screen phones. “The thing I am most interested in is all of the stuff moving to the mobile world, because it is a big life-changer,” Mr. Raman said.
To show their progress, Mr. Raman pulled a T-Mobile G1 cell phone out of his pocket. Both Raman and Chen have outfitted the phone with software that works similar to a screen reader. They want to enable the phone’s user to enter text, numbers or commands without looking at the screen. None of these technologies have been rolled out yet. But they hope to make this technology available soon. The tech industry is also working on a phone that can read signs, a feature only available thanks to a powerful chip in the phone. A blind person wouldn’t even have to point the camera at the sign. The camera would just read the sign. Mr. Raman also worked on PDF documents so that a screen reader would read the document. This was required by the federal government. This technology is a global standard for electronic documents.
Mr. Raman says that if he can convince engineers to work on accessibility issues or convince them that there are problems to be solved in this area, he has the largest impact. “If I can get another 10 engineers motivated to work on accessibility,” he said, “It is a huge win.”
To read the original article, please go to http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/business/04blind.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all