Eight years after the Americans With Disabilities Act became the law of the land, activists who once fought for wheelchair ramps and beeping crosswalk signals have moved their battle to cyberspace. And David Poehlman is on the front lines.
Born blind, Poehlman is a computer consultant in Wheaton. In addition to work, he uses the World Wide Web to chat with friends, check bus and train schedules, shop for everything from CDs to garden hoses and scan the daily papers.
"After I got on the Net," he says, "my life changed."
For blind people once limited to books and other documents published in Braille or available through audio or telephone services, the Web is more than a diversion - it can be a lifeline.
Says Kurt Milam of Baltimore, who also is blind: "The Internet puts so much information at our fingertips, and it's often easier to read. A 500-page book is 20 volumes in Braille."
But as Web designers unleash flashy, animated graphics and sound to draw attention to their sites, some people with disabilities worry that the very technology that gave them unprecedented independence may someday shut them out.
To navigate the Web, Poehlman and other visually impaired surfers use their computer keyboard and "screen reader" software, which "speaks" text on the screen in a synthesized human voice.
As Poehlman pokes around the Web, his screen reader talks to him in a choppy monotone. "Blank," it drones when he maneuvers his cursor over an empty spot. "Period," it blurts when he reaches the end of a sentence.
But often, Poehlman and others say, screen readers stumble. Common stylistic flourishes employed by Web designers - such as frames, tables or columns - can render a screen reader speechless.
Nor can the software decipher a graphic image unless a Web designer has added some descriptive text, such as "Mom's picture" or "Click here to purchase." When Poehlman's screen reader encounters an unlabeled graphic, it rasps only, "Graphic." If the unlabeled image is a link to another page or part of a menu, a blind Web surfer could sail past the very information he or she is looking for.
"You know it's a graphic, but what?" says Poehlman. "Point and click is not as easy as some people seem to think it is."
As a result, Poehlman and others are pushing software publishers and Web designers to develop "electronic curb cuts," technical changes to make the Web more accessible to screen readers and other helpers.
