Great link: in part, it was just this question that prompted Jodi Mattes'
work on accessibility.  In the late 1990s, the British Museum was designing
and installing touch screens with onscreen keyboards for accessing COMPASS
in the Reading Room.  Jodi worked on accessible alternatives.  I think she
may have mentioned this in her paper to the CIDOC/MDA conference at Imperial
College (in 1999/2000?).  Her paper was published in 'MDA Information' in
July 2001.

If you're wondering what happened to the touch screen keyboards...  The
keyboards looked beautiful and worked brilliantly.  Unfortunately, the touch
screens didn't work so brilliantly and I would guess they're all in a
landfill somewhere now...
Fiona



-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jon
Pratty
Sent: 31 August 2011 11:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Kiosk with Touchscreen Keyboard + Jodi Awards

Joe

That's really interesting; lots of food for thought. At the risk of
high-jacking the thread, I think the accessibility implications of touch
screen displays needs to be something we spend a bit more time on
considering. 

Topical with the Jodi Awards coming up! Nominations close at the end of
September: http://www.jodimattestrust.org.uk/blog?item=28

All the best

Jon

Jon Pratty
Relationship Manager, Digital and Creative Economies
Arts Council England
+441273 763037
07872419194
[log in to unmask] 

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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joe
Cutting
Sent: 31 August 2011 10:48
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Kiosk with Touchscreen Keyboard

 >>
Tom - I'm asking on behalf of South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture 
who are undertaking a project to put in touchscreens that will allow 
visitors to carry out research on their digitised collections. 
They've been told by their developers that an onscreen keyboard would 
be "rather difficult to do on a touchscreen".
 >>
Hmm, it's all really depends on what type of "research" you're 
expecting visitors to do. If you're expecting them to type more than 
a couple of sentences then the developers may actually have a point. 
Touchscreen keyboards are definitely usable but they're also slower 
and people type less - mainly because you can't touchtype. Notice how 
all those "sent from my iphone" emails are usually quite short. If 
you want people to type more, a proper keyboard will encourage them to do
so.

 >>
I was just wondering about the accessibility implications of kiosks 
with 'digital' keypads. If the usual keyboard macros can be made to 
work that's fine. How would vision impaired users manage though, if 
the screens are smooth?
 >>
Jon, this is an issue for pretty much all touchscreen type exhibits. 
The real answer is that you make sure that the "keys" and active 
areas are large, the contrast is strong and the exhibit gives audible 
feedback when touched. The recommended minimum size for a touch area 
is about 1 inch square. This all makes it usable if your sight isn't 
that good.
Things aren't so good if you have almost no sight. Screen reader 
functionality isn't usually practical in a gallery type setting. 
Either the gallery ambient noise is too loud and you can't hear the 
reader or some child discovers that they can make the exhibit talk 
and everyone else in the gallery then wants to smash the exhibit to 
make it shut up. You'd also need to make sure that partially sighted 
people actually recognised the exhibit and knew how to work it. In 
this respect web based exhibits have a lot of advantages for vision 
impaired users, but that pretty much goes for most exhibitions which 
consist of text and objects anyway.
Having said all this I did see an interesting case of totally blind 
people being able to use iphones - as far as I can tell the phone 
speaks to tell you what you're touching. I'm not sure how you select 
things. It would be interesting to some more research on this and see 
if it could be applied to touchscreen kiosks.
There's a lot more too this and it all varies according to particular 
circumstances, but that gives you an idea.

Cheers


Joe









Joe Cutting
Digital exhibits and installations
www.joecutting.com
35 Hospital Fields Road, York, YO10 4DZ
01904 624681

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