A Search Engine For The Blind: Google Unveils Accessible Web Search


250,000+ readers!

Home

Windows Tutorials

Google has just unveiled Accessible Web Search, a search engine for the visually-challenged. Here's how it works:

Regular Google sorts search results primarily by how relevancy, but Accessible Search takes it a step further by also listing pages will that will be easy for the blind to navigate.
To meet Google's Accessible Web Search criteria, a web Site has to be "visually simple." That means it should contain few images, work well even if those images are turned off, and can be navigated primarily with a keyboard. (Source: google.com)
Before Google Accessible Web Search, searching the Internet had long been a futile task for visually-impaired people.

David Faucheux was one of those people. He is blind and writes for Blind Chance, an audio blog for visually-impaired people. His experiences with traditional search engines have not been positive. "I do a Google search," he said, referring to the regular version of the page, "and usually after the first several hits, I don't continue to look for anything." (Source: news.com)

Ironically, Google agrees with Faucheux:

"In the past, visually impaired Google users have often waded through a lot of inaccessible websites and pages to find the required information," the company admits on its Accessible Web Search FAQ page. "Our goal [with Accessible Web Search] is to provide a more useful and accessible web search experience for the blind and visually impaired." (Source: google.com)

About the new service, Faucheux stated, "I hope they can make things easy to use." (Source: news.com)

Google Accessible Web Search can be accessed here. For more information on computing for the blind, check out this very informative article from the Infopackets archive:

Computing For The Blind

Recent articles (from all channels):

2008/05/12 Today in History: for Monday, May 12, 2008
2008/05/12 [ShellX 20080512]: 'Remote Manager', and 'Cyber Bandwidth ...
2008/05/12 Video Gaming Trade Group Struggling
2008/05/12 T-Mobile Finally Joins 3G Phone Race
2008/05/12 Apple Slammed by Environment Watchdog
2008/05/09 [ShellX 20080509]: 'Advanced Run', and 'Diver Windows Manager'
2008/05/09 Texas Refuses Facebook Friend Request
2008/05/09 Photo-Enforcement Technology Replaces Officers On Patrol
2008/05/09 Cuban Government Says 'Ok Computer'
2008/05/09 Excel Can E-Mail Your Weekly Reports For You!
2008/05/08 [ShellX 20080508]: 'Shell Enhancer', and 'Lansweeper'
2008/05/08 Xobni: MS Outlook Social Networking Technology for your Inbox
2008/05/08 Music Companies Jump on GTA IV Bandwagon
2008/05/08 Fascinating: Memristor to replace Binary
2008/05/08 Adobe Hopes To Make Flash Master Of The (Mobile) Universe
2008/05/08 Spiffy Envelopes and Labels in MS Word
2008/05/07 [ShellX 20080507]: 'Winbin2iso', and 'Loop Typer'
2008/05/07 Yahoo Adds Security Warnings To Search Results
2008/05/07 Apple to Lose Money on iTunes Movie Releases
2008/05/07 Amazon.com takes New York Tax to Court
2008/05/07 Need Glasses for the Slide Sorter View in MS PowerPoint?
2008/05/07 After Winning The DVD Format War, Blu-Ray Sales Tank
2008/05/06 [ShellX 20080506]: 'Visual Basic 6.0 Portable', and 'Double-...
2008/05/06 Yahoo Outsources to Jajah
2008/05/06 New HP Circuit Could Change Technology Forever
2008/05/06 Movie Downloads To Match DVD Release Dates
2008/05/06 Microsoft Ends Yahoo Bid
2008/05/05 [ShellX 20080505]: 'Ie7 Pro', and 'Desktop Ok'
2008/05/05 The WB Network Hops Online
2008/05/05 Microsoft Slashes Price of Xbox 360 Overseas
2008/05/05 Google CEO Wants YouTube to Take More of Your Money

--

Subscription Management

To subscribe to our newsletter, or to read past issues:

http://www.infopackets.com/windows+newsletter.htm

To remove or change your subscription information, visit:

http://www.infopackets.com/remove+change+email.htm