By Daniel Connolly
July 5, 2007
Designers make Web accessible for disabled kids
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Frank Kimmel/Special to the Commercial Appeal |
A group from Canada recently approached graphic designer Michael Schmidt and his colleagues with a challenge: Create a method to explore the Internet for children so disabled they can only make a single movement, such as blinking or blowing into a tube.
Now, Schmidt and his team at the Center for Multimedia Arts have produced a basic prototype of a program that could make the Internet accessible for such children.
"We had to completely think of the idea of a Web browser from scratch," said Schmidt, a graphic designer who's the center's director.
The program is one of the latest projects at the multimedia center at the FedEx Institute of Technology on the University of Memphis campus. The small center uses graphic design and techniques such as video and animation in research and consulting projects that aim to improve quality of life.
The Memphis researchers got their start on the Web browser project after Dr. Tom Chau, a Canadian expert in creating technology to help disabled children, became interested in the idea of allowing people with limited mobility a chance to experience the Internet, "another huge part of our society," Schmidt said.
Chau approached an Ottawa firm called Flick Software Inc. about the possibility of creating a means for profoundly disabled people to use the Internet, Schmidt said.
Flick asked the Memphis designers for help in creating a new type of browser, the computer software used to view data on the Internet.
Currently, most Web sites are built on the assumption the user will have a mouse or similar method to move a pointer anywhere on the screen, and a button that allows the activation of links that lead to more information.
But someone who is extremely disabled might only be able to communicate through blinks and couldn't move a mouse or press a button. How then to select and activate a link on a Web site?
Art director Juliane Richter demonstrated the solution this week in the organization's studios.
"This is a really early prototype," she said as she pointed out an upside-down L-shaped image that stretches along the top and the right side of a handheld computer small enough to be moved next to a person's wheelchair.
The L-shaped image has buttons that represent tasks ranging from making the text bigger to returning to the home page. Buttons light up in a regular sequence, and the user waits for the light to come around to the button he wants.
If the user blinks or blows into the tube when the "back" button is lit up, for instance, the Web browser moves back to the previous page. The user can select another button to move down the page or jump to the next link.
So far, the program has never been tested on disabled patients. Chau plans to work to develop the hardware at Bloorview Kids Rehab, a large research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto, Schmidt said. The product may eventually be adapted for use by adults, he said.
The Web browser is still in its infancy, but the center has made much more progress on computer programs meant to help parents at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital understand potentially risky clinical trials and decide whether to enroll their children.
Now the multimedia center is working with St. Jude doctors and psychologists to develop a program called Compass that's meant to draw out children's thoughts about participation in these trials. The computer program allows the child to arrange priorities on a pie chart.
For instance, a child who is near death might wish for a final party to say goodbye to friends, time with his grandfather who lives in Ohio, or to stay in the hospital for a clinical trial that would help others. The child can change the size of the chunks to select what's most important.
The tool is a method to show the child that time is limited and not everything is possible, Schmidt said.
Richter said it's meant to help parents weigh the child's opinion and not live with regrets later.
"Maybe it won't even change the decision that they make, but it would help them to be at ease with their decision," she said.
For Richter, who is trained in graphic design and who helped corporations establish brand identities when she worked in her native Germany, it's challenging and rewarding work.
"And as a mother-- I have a child -- it is actually very rewarding, where we really share that vision that can help and it can support families in these situations," she said.
-- Daniel Connolly: 529-5296
Center for Multimedia Arts
An institute that uses graphic design and new media techniques
in projects that aim to improve quality of life.
Director: Michael Schmidt
Employees: Three
Address: 365 Innovation Drive, Suite 335
Web site: cmamemphis.com
About Flick Software
Flick Software is a leading provider of software products and services for the mobile and wireless communication industry. Flick’s Mobile Interactive Guide, first introduced in 2004, delivers differentiated and high value service options to museum visitors, and incremental revenue generating capabilities for museum administrators. Flick Software is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.