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SUMMARY
This study aimed at investigating
the work environment of blind computer specialists in Japan through telephone
interviews. The results indicated that they have difficulty in accessing
computer systems and printed documents owing to the insufficiency of the
assistive technology development and personal support system for them.
Especially, the spread of graphical user interface is threatening to blind
computer specialists. For improving their work environment, much more efforts
of developing effective technology should be made. Also, the opportunities
of retraining and providing new information to the blind computer specialists,
in addition to providing funds and personal services, are necessary for
implementing their jobs.
Key Words: Blindness, Blind Computer Specialists, Assistive Technology, Work Environment of the Blind, Accessibility, Graphical User Interface
BACKGROUND
Complexity of the Japanese
Letter System
One serious problem of blind
people has been the communication restriction of letters. It has prevented
them from taking part in society. The Braille system to be read by touch
was invented for them, and it has been widely used also in Japan. But,
mutual translation between Braille and ordinary letters cannot be performed
so easily in Japanese because of the complexity of the letter system.
There are a variety of letters
in the Japanese language system, which contains kanji (word characters),
kana (phonetics), and the Roman alphabet. The set of kanji is large and
especially complex. As each kanji character has a few readings, we have
to take the appropriate one depending on the context when reading orally
or translating into kana description. And, we do not put a space between
words when writing Japanese sentences, because individual types of letters
can be easily distinguished from each other. Japanese Braille, on the other
hand, is purely phonetic in its system, and when writing or inputting Braille
we put spaces between words. When we translate a Japanese printed text,
we convert kanji-kana sentences into kana description with spaces, and
next change them to kana Braille.
On the other hand, when
we translate a Japanese Braille text into one in ordinary letters, we have
to select a correct kanji-kana combination from among those of the same
reading for each kana Braille phrase.
Use of Computer Technology
The development and spread
of personal computers are most welcome for people with reading/writing
disabilities.
Characters can be converted
into and saved as electronic codes. The electronic Braille has made it
possible to process Braille very efficiently. As a result, transcribers'
work loads have been drastically decreased. As for printed letters, an
optical character reader (OCR) reads them into a computer and stores them
in an electronic medium as inherent signals. Then we can generate the letters
again on a CRT display, or on a voice synthesizer as speech synthesis.
We can also change the letters into Braille codes with a computer program
for Braille translation. We have not yet accomplished a complete system
of translation at present, because a Braille translation program has to
perform complicated processes in the case of Japanese.[1] Therefore, we
must check for details and mistakes after automatic translation. But the
efficiency of Braille translation has been improved by those programs.
Screen reader programs which
speak out information through speech synthesis have also been developed
in Japan. Using a screen reader program, a blind person not only can hear
a kanji-kana document, but can also create a document with a Japanese word
processor program. Furthermore, screen reader programs have made it possible
for the blind to use or to develop application software.
The progress of computer
technology is creating an appropriate learning and working environment
for the visually impaired.
Vocation of the Blind in
Japan
According to an investigation
of the Ministry of Welfare, the rate of employment of the visually impaired
was 27.3 percent in 1991, which was about 2/5 of the level of the national
average.
For more than three hundred
years, there have been exclusive jobs for the blind in Japan. Blind people
formed their own guilds to do massage and acupuncture treatment as public
traditional medicine.[2][3]At present, 32.4 percent of the employed people
with visual impairment are engaged in that sort of job. However, blind
practitioners are beginning to have their prosperity threatened by the
increase of sighted professionals.
A new vocational field for
the visually impaired needs to be developed in our society. The jobs related
to computers have been expected to bring new possibilities.
The training of blind computer
specialists began at Nippon Light House of Osaka in 1972, and in 1980 the
National Vocational Rehabilitation Center launched a one-year training
course of computer programmers. Out of seventy-four persons who completed
two courses in almost two decades, twenty-nine (39.2 percent) were totally
blind and forty-five (60.8 percent) were low vision.[4]Also, Tsukuba College
of Technology was established in 1990 as the first national three-year
college of Japan for people with sensory impairment. This college has two
divisions, for the visually impaired and for the hearing impaired. In the
division for the visually impaired, there are two traditional career courses
for the visually impaired, acupuncture and physical therapy. And as a new
and promising field, there is a computer specialist training course.
This investigation was performed in 1995 to clarify the work environment of blind computer specialists, assistive technology usage, and the problems to be resolved for the improvement of the job completion.
METHOD
Subjects
Participants of this study
were blind and Braille users, and employed as computer specialists. They
were selected from the graduates of computer training courses for the visually
impaired and computer science courses of universities.
Procedure
Individual participants
answered the questionnaire regarding personal data and job environment
through a telephone interview.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Characteristics of Participants
Participants in this research
totaled 17--16 males and one female. The average age was 32.1 years and
the range was between 22 and 45 years. Most were totally blind and used
Braille daily as a communication medium. Regarding onset of blindness,
12 were congenitally or early (before age five), and 5 were late (after
age five). The average job length of the present work place was 6.4 years,
and the range was 1.2 to 19.1 years.
Eleven persons were engaged
in the development and maintenance of business software, three in adaptive
technologies for the disabled, and the others were working as programmers
of technical calculation or operating system development.
There were 5 who were mainly
using personal computers, and the other 12 additionally used workstations
or mainframes as the host machine. All were users of MS-DOS system but
some users had to use MS-Windows or OS/2 systems. Programming languages
for software development were C language (9 persons), COBOL (7), BASIC
(3), and one each for FORTRAN, PL/I and assembler.
All participants were assistive
technology users. And three people relied exclusively on an employed assistant,
while the others accepted support from their colleagues if necessary.
Assistive Technology Usage
Blind computer specialists
must utilize assistive technologies to access computers. Six persons were
using the Optacon to read the information presented on the CRT display,
of which two were users of mainframe computers. As the mainframe did not
prepare assistive interfaces for the blind, they reluctantly coped with
this problem by using the Optacon or by assistance of sighted persons.
The other four persons were mainly using speech synthesis or a Braille
display, and the Optacon supplementarily while checking the layout of a
display.
The users of speech synthesis
were fourteen, and of those, seven were mainly using synthesizers. Some
problems which were pointed out regarding the use of speech synthesis were
that the users frequently failed to discriminate among details, that they
experienced difficulty in detecting spelling errors and grasping the global
layout of a program constitution.
Nine participants were using
the Braille display. Of those, 5 usually used only displays, while the
other 4 additionally used the speech synthesis together with it. Unlike
the spoken words produced by the synthesizer, the information on the Braille
display can be accessed as many times as they are needed. Therefore, the
Braille displays might be indispensable for them to check documents or
source programs which they made.
Although the speech output
applications for graphical user interfaces (GUI) have already appeared
in the English Windows operating system, the software which can produce
Japanese speech is still in the stage of development. There were two Windows
users among the participants, and they were coping with the problem by
using the Optacon or through the assistance of colleagues. Almost all of
the participants were fearing that they might lose their jobs owing to
the spread of GUI.
Circumstances in Implementing
Tasks on the Job
Computer specialists need
to read many documents and manuals on the process of program development.
Those materials are usually printed not in Braille but in ordinary letters.
Participants were asked how they communicated with their peers about the
materials.
In the routine of software
development, 7 asked colleagues to read materials out loud, input them
as electronic files, translate them into Braille, and so on. The other
8, in addition to receiving support from colleagues, positively explored
resources outside the work place, such as the reading services of public
libraries, the telephone services of product makers, and the forums of
personal computer networks. The rest answered that they asked volunteers
to translate manuals into Braille, or made Braille materials by themselves
from electronic manuals.
On the other hand, computer
specialists with visual impairment must write documents on a medium which
the sighted can read by sight. Thirteen participants wrote the printed
documents by word processing with speech synthesis. The others asked colleagues
to write documents, or to translate Braille into printed text.
Problems To Be Solved
The first problem is the
preparation of assistive technology for accessing computers. Personal computers
of DOS systems commonly have interfaces for blind users, which can read
out the information of a display on a speech synthesizer, or present it
on a Braille display. However, larger computers called mainframes or workstations
and personal computers of Windows systems do not prepare such interfaces
for blind users.
All of the participants
wanted to perform their work with Braille. A text editor capable of coordinating
with a Braille display seems to be an important system for blind computer
specialists. At the same time, a full page Braille display which simultaneously
presents twenty lines of Braille must be developed for this purpose.
Some problems were presented
from the participants about the reading of printed materials. It was pointed
out that the participants were not able to immediately and freely read
the materials when they needed to. When they asked colleagues to read,
it was difficult for their requests to be given priority. Or, there were
few materials converted into electronic files available to access by computer.
Braille translation tended to take much time. Moreover, when a blind user
called up a service center of a product maker, he frequently could not
acquire sufficient responses because the service person did not have an
appropriate understanding of blind people's needs.
In general, as people with
visual impairment find it difficult to acquire new information and skills
due to a letter-based communication disability, blind employees have troubles
in the adjusting to a changing environment. Therefore, the opportunity
of retraining should be significant for them.
CONCLUSION
Although the computer-related
field is expected to be a new career for the visually impaired, some problems
to be solved remain in the man-machine interface of computers or the preparation
of necessary resources. Especially, the progress of graphical user interface
is affecting the work environment of blind computer specialists due to
its visualization. To cope with these environmental changes, the development
of human interfaces is needed. The computer specialists working in the
information age must gain high grade competencies and a global understanding
and create by themselves new career opportunities with computer technology.
At the same time, the system of vocational education for the blind must
be restructured for a changing society.
REFERENCES
[1] Ohtake, N. A computerized
system for translating Japanese print into Braille. Journal of Visual Impairment
& Blindness 1996 90: 3, 283-286.
[2] Armitage, T.R. Education
and employment of the blind: what it has been, is, and ought to be (2nd
ed.). London: Harrison & Sons, 1886 176-177.
[3] Taniai, S. The history
of challenging blind people. Tokyo: Kozue, 1989 10-83 (in Japanese).
[4] Nagaoka,H. The transition
of computer specialist training for the people with visual impairment in
Japan. Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Research Association
of Vocational Rehabilitation 1994 73-76 (in Japanese).
* This project is supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education.