KeyTerm and the Internet   `        o FB        @ AAAAAAAAAA                                   2    KeyTerm and the Internet      The following is a paper which describes some of the functions of     the KeySoft terminal program, KeyTerm.  This paper was presented     at the CSUN Conference in Los Angeles on 22 March, 1996.         KEYTERM - THE EASIEST ROUTE TO THE SUPER HIGHWAY     	 Russell P. Smith Ph. D. Pulse Data International Limited    
 Christchurch, New Zealand      Jerry Kuns M.S. HumanWare Incorporated Loomis, California  
       INTRODUCTION      The ability to send and receive electronic mail and to source     information from the Internet has sparked one of the fastest     growing technology-based industries of the 20th century.  The     spectacular growth of personal computer use in the early 1990s     created a critical mass of potential telecommunications users     that has caused an explosion of on-line use in the last 2 years.      Now, even the people who don't own a PC want to get one so they     can access the Internet.      Making so much of the world's information available to so many     households around the world at a trivial cost, seems certain to     revolutionize information handling in every walk of life.      Education will become increasingly dependent on computer screens,     rather than books.  Institutions such as libraries and archives     will eventually narrow their focus to become providers (to the      Internet) of the special unique information that only they can    ! efficiently gather.  They will provide information that is not    " unique through computer screens that will replace their shelves.     # Researchers who need to handle physical books, if they exist,    $ will need to travel to the archives that house them, and will    % need to treat them like the valuable antiques they will become.  &   ' So how will visually impaired people fare in this new information    ( age?  They will undoubtedly be disadvantaged to some extent, but    ) perhaps less than you might think.  Friendly and intuitive    * talking terminals, such as KeyTerm, which is described in this    + paper, will do much to keep visually impaired people close to the    , revolution.  -   .   / TELECOMMUNICATIONS USING TALKING TERMINALS  0   1 Computers fitted with or linked to speech synthesizers have the    2 potential to provide access to the text component of a terminal    3 display.  Unfortunately, there is no satisfactory way to convey    4 graphical images to a visually impaired user and there is nothing    5 on the horizon to give reason for hope.  Graphical User    6 Interfaces (GUIs) provide  a major challenge for terminal access     as they do for other PC applications.  It is not that access is    impossible, but more that the level of difficulty is too high and    the degree of customization needed to give efficient access too    extensive to attract any but the most hardy souls to the field.     One should remember that many people who are keen to access the    Internet, have no interest in computers per se and no wish to use    a computer for any other purpose.  They are therefore often    starting at base zero in computer literacy.  To confront them   	 with a modern comms package and a Windows screen reader would   
 discourage most of them from ever progressing from base zero.    Also, browsing the Internet for many people is a leisure pursuit,   
 as opposed to a workplace necessity.  The resolve necessary to    learn a difficult access task is therefore unlikely to be as    great and the support unlikely to be as readily available as    might be the case for a work related endeavor.   The entry    barriers therefore need to be made significantly lower for    terminal access if visually impaired people are going to be as    well represented among the ranks of the net surfers as their    sighted counterparts.      ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO TALKING TERMINAL IMPLEMENTATION    One approach to accessing terminal information through speech is    to run a standard DOS or Windows communications package and to    use a suitable speech output screen reading program to read the    screen data.  The problem with this for many people is the sheer    difficulty of doing it.  Communications packages are among the    least friendly of all computer software because of their    interaction with the outside world, and screen readers,     particularly the Windows variety are complex to use, limited in   ! the access they provide, and are certainly not for the faint   " hearted. #  $ An alternative approach to solving the access problem is to use a   % terminal program which has been designed from scratch to use   & speech as the primary display medium.  Such a program can be much   ' simpler to operate as the speech can be unobtrusively linked to   ( the displayed information, thus requiring almost no screen   ) navigation skills on the part of the user, to set up the   * communications or read the on-line text interchange. +  , KeyTerm is a terminal program which takes exactly that approach. -  .  / KEYTERM - A TALKING TERMINAL WITH A DIFFERENCE 0  1 KeyTerm is part of an integrated personal productivity package   2 known as KeySoft.  In addition to the KeyTerm terminal program,   3 KeySoft comprises a suite of user friendly programs which include   4 a word processor with spell checker, a scientific calculator, an   5 address list, and an appointment calendar.  KeySoft is a DOS   6 program which runs on any IBM compatible PC platform.  It can be     launched from DOS , Windows 3.x or Windows 95.   A version is    also incorporated into the Keynote Companion palmtop-based    information manager.    KeySoft was developed to use speech as its primary display    medium.  The visual display is supported also, but only as a    secondary display device.    In KeySoft, the user can switch from one application to another   	 with a single key stroke resuming always with the cursor at the   
 same position as it was left when the application was last    accessed.  Data may be freely passed from one application to    another.   Although it uses its own file format for documents,   
 KeySoft can read or write WordPerfect or ASCII formats also.    KeySoft has been optimized for speech access and supports the    Keynote GOLD and DECtalk ranges of synthesizers, and the Keynote    Companion.      The KeyTerm application is a powerful but friendly terminal,    which is fully integrated with the other applications.  Some of    the features of KeyTerm which make it less intimidating than any    other talking terminal include:    a) Dialog between the user and a remote host is automatically    voiced without any action by the user being required.      b) Each command issued from the keyboard, cuts off any incomplete    utterances and immediately starts to speak the new utterance, if    any, generated by that command.    c) Context sensitive spoken help messages are available at every     point in the operation of the terminal.   !  " d) To assist the user in making decisions on such nebulous   # variables as communications parameters, a sensible default is   $ always offered at every prompt for an entry, and the help message   % defines the range of acceptable values. &  ' e) As a call is auto-dialed, progress reports are automatically   ( spoken.  This alerts the user to conditions such as "no dial   ) tone", "engaged", "connected", etc. *  + Sessions may be "logged" to a file for later reference.  They   , then appear as files in the KeySoft word processor, where they   - can easily be edited, printed, forwarded as Email, etc. .  / An insight into KeyTerm's simple and intuitive operation can best   0 be shown by following through an example of a typical on-line   1 sequence.  The steps below show how a user would send a number of   2 Email messages to mailboxes at several different Information   3 Services: 4  5 1. Prepare the first message using KeySoft's word processor. 6    2. Press the List key (F7) and select the first recipient's    address using the "Find" function.  (The Email service and User    ID for the recipient would have been entered previously as part    of the address).    3. Press the Terminal key (F8) to select KeyTerm and select "Send    Email" from the menu.    4. KeyTerm asks for the "File to Send?" and offers the message   	 just created as the default.  Press ENTER to select. 
   5. KeyTerm asks for the "Recipient?" and offers the last address    accessed as the default.  Press ENTER to select. 
   6. KeyTerm asks whether you want to "Queue the file or Send it    now?".  Press Q to queue it.    7. Repeat steps 1 to 6 for the second message and so on.    8. On the last message, select S rather than Q to Send it now.    KeyTerm will now, without any further actions by the user,    complete the following steps:    * Select a "Script" file to access the first Email service,  * Dial the first service, giving spoken call progress messages,  * Transmit the User's ID and password when required,  * Select the mail facility,  * Send the User ID for the first message when required,  * Send the first message, giving audible blips to indicate    progress,  * Send the User IDs and messages for other recipients connected     to the same service, ! * Repeat the procedure for each information services required. "  # The fact that  the above sequence can be described in the space   $ of less than one page is itself an indication of the clean and   % simple access a custom talking terminal like KeyTerm can offer. &  '  ( ACCESSING THE INTERNET )  * Useful and important as Email is, the excitement of the   + information superhighway lies in accessing the Internet.  KeyTerm   , also offers an easy path to this tremendous information resource. -  . One of the first steps to providing efficient access to the   / Internet for visually impaired people, is to find text-based   0 access services.  Using a GUI talking screen reader in   1 conjunction with the graphical interface of one of the popular   2 web browsers, greatly complicates and slows down access and, at   3 the end of the day, gives no reward for struggling through the   4 graphical content. 5  6 Fortunately there are a number of Internet access services which     provide access to text mode services.  Examples of such gateways    include: BIX (Byte Information Exchange operated by Byte    magazine) and Genie (operated by General Electric Inc.)     Accessing such a service is no more difficult than accessing any    other on-line information service.  You need a User ID, a    password, and a local access number.  The charges are minimal.    Once connected to one of these providers, a text-based web    browser, such as Lynx can be selected.  In combination with   	 KeyTerm the Lynx browser is particularly friendly and easy to   
 operate.  Access to a wide range of other Internet Search    Engines, such as  Internet Search, Yahoo, Gopher, Archie, is also    readily accessible. 
   Two commonly used devices for seeking information from the    Internet are  "Searches" and "Hypertext links".  KeyTerm provides    fast and efficient access to both these devices.  A Search is the    starting point to locate information on a particular topic.     Search "Engines" are provided by a number of different    organizations and a user can type in one or more key words into    such engines which then search the part of the Internet they have    access to, and produce a listing of references.  Hypertext is a    method by which key words on one Internet page are cross    referenced to other relevant references on another page on the    same site or anywhere else on the Internet.      Entering search words at a search engine prompt is very easy with    KeyTerm as the prompt may be easily recognized due to its    highlighting and the words are spoken as they are entered.  To    follow a sequence of hypertext links requires successively    selecting the appropriate highlighted words which indicate the    presence of a link.  The ability of KeyTerm to automatically     announce highlighted text and allow the user to step through all   ! highlights makes this variety of "surfing" fast and efficient. "  # Once the user has identified a range of Web sites of particular   $ interest, these may be accessed directly using the URL (Uniform   % Resource Locator) without calling on a search engine. &  ' These techniques will be demonstrated live during the   ( presentation of this paper at the CSUN Conference on Technology   ) and Persons with Disabilities. *  +  , CONCLUSIONS -  . Although roaming the information superhighway will always be more   / challenging to visually impaired people than it is for the fully   0 sighted, friendly access programs such as the KeyTerm program   1 described in this paper will play an important role in lowering   2 the barriers. 3  4  5  6 Contact Telephone Numbers for the text-based Internet Access     Services mentioned:    BIX:1 800 695 4775  Genie:1 800 638 9636      The following are trademarks or trade names of their respective    owners:  KeyTerm, KeySoft, Keynote, Keynote Companion, Windows,    WordPerfect, DOS, DECtalk, BIX, Genie, Yahoo. 	  
   End of document 