65 results about "Screen reader" patented technology

User interaction of a visually displayed document is provided via a graphical user interface (GUI). The document includes, and is parsed into, a plurality of text-based grammatical units. An input device modality is selected from a plurality of input device modalities which determines the type of input device in which a user interacts with to make a selection. One or more grammatical units of the document are then selected using the selected type of input device. Each grammatical unit that is selected is read aloud to the user by loading the grammatical unit into a text-to-speech engine. The text of the grammatical unit is thereby automatically spoken. Furthermore, a switching modality is selected from a plurality of switching modalities. The switching modality determines the manner in which one or more switches are used to make a selection. Using the selected switching modality, a user steps through at least some of the grammatical units in an ordered manner by physically activating one or more switches associated with the GUI. Each activation steps through one grammatical unit. Each grammatical unit that is stepped through is read aloud by loading the grammatical unit into a text-to-speech engine, thereby causing the text of the grammatical unit to be automatically spoken.

An audible menu system associated with distribution of television content over a service provider network is disclosed. The menu system includes a speech synthesizer and screen reader. Electronic programming guide (EPG) elements are read by a screen reader and provided to a speech synthesizer for presenting audible representations of EPG elements to a user. The user may provide inputs to a remote control device to navigate an EPG that may also be presented through a graphical user interface. As a user navigates a cursor over selectable EPG elements, disclosed embodiments provide audible outputs that correspond to the selectable EPG elements. In some embodiments, users may provide customized audio inputs that are played as audio outputs during future menu navigation sessions.

One aspect of the present invention includes adaptive techniques used to render dynamic web content for accessibility software applications, such as screen readers. In one embodiment, an operation for improving webpage browsing with accessibility software includes detecting if an accessibility software application is in use, tracking the position of user focus on the webpage, and presenting information to the user based on the position of user focus on the webpage. In a further embodiment, additional content is rendered on the webpage to screen reader applications, and is placed at the position of the screen reader focus in response to dynamic content appearing or changing on the webpage. This additional content is read by the screen reader to inform the user of the dynamic content change, and/or enable the user to quickly perform a specific action on the webpage.

A system for providing DHTML (“Dynamic Hyper-Text Markup Language”) accessibility. Rich keyboard and other assistive technology (“AT”) accessibility is provided for sophisticated Web applications. When a user downloads a Web page, the system performs initialization that includes loading at least one display object, and binding the object to a predetermined event, such as, for example, a focus event. The event the object is bound to may be any semantic, device independent event. The disclosed system may also load a device handling function, such as a keyboard handling function. The device handling function associates one or more display objects with corresponding device actions, such as key presses. A keyboard handling function may operate to intercept at least one key press, and determine that an intercepted key press matches a key press corresponding to a previously loaded display object. The device handling function may create a focus event for the previously loaded display object, and post the event to the display object. The display object then handles the event by visually responding to the intercepted key press, for example by changing the visual representation of the display object to be highlighted, or to otherwise indicate that the display object has been selected. The event may then also be sent to an assistive technology program, such as a screen reader program. Using the values of attributes in that display object, such as the value of the role attribute, the assistive technology program responds to the event as appropriate.

A method and system for creating a fully accessible display object is disclosed, that may advantageously be used to provide a fully accessible object within a modal dialog box displayed in association with Web page. A fully accessible object is formed using an image command, and associated parameters, within a document containing formatting information for a user interface. The image command associates a graphical image with an software script event handler used to respond to keyboard actions of the user, such as pressing the enter key, as well as mouse actions, and also enables screen reader program access to the object. The display object formed with the disclosed system may be specifically identified and accessed with respect to the other objects of the modal dialog box through use of a the tab key on the keyboard.

A screen reader application for visually impaired users suppresses unwanted content that is output by Braille or text-to-speech. The invention accesses, but does not modify, the document object model of the web page and enumerates web page elements for the end user to either hide or skip to. The end user selections are saved as rules which may be applied according to various levels of scope include web page specific, site specific or web-wide. A screen magnification application for visually impaired users automatically sets the visual focus and magnification level on a web page element according to end-user selection.

A method, system, and computer program product is disclosed for customizing a synthesized voice based upon audible input voice data. The input voice data is typically in the form of one or more predetermined paragraphs being read into a voice recorder. The input voice data is then analyzed for adjustable voice characteristics to determine basic voice qualities (e.g., pitch, breathiness, tone, speed; variability of any of these qualities, etc.) and to identify any “specialized speech patterns”. Based upon this analysis, the characteristics of the voice utilized to read text appearing on the screen are modified to resemble the input voice data. This allows a user of the system to easily and automatically create a voice that is familiar to the user.

Generally, the systems and methods described herein are directed to rendering a document containing textual elements and graphical elements. The systems and methods include separating the graphical elements from the textual elements, and generating a bitmap rendering of the graphical elements and an HTML rendering of the textual elements. The HTML rendering may then be overlaid on the bitmap rendering to generate a composite document having textual elements that are accessible to screen reader software.

A method and apparatus for reading a web page according to a set of user-configurable settings. In one embodiment, a set of user-configurable settings configured for reading the web page is determined. An initial reading position on the web page is determined as specified by the user-configurable settings. The web page is then read from the initial reading position according to the set of user-configurable settings.

The hotkey conflict avoidance program identifies a set of hotkeys in a first application and a second set of hotkeys in a simultaneously running second application, compares a first hotkey in the first set of hotkeys to a second hotkey in the second set of hotkeys and returns an error if the first hotkey conflicts with the second hotkey. Each hotkey in the first set of hotkeys is compared to each of the hotkeys in the second set of hotkeys. Other features of the hotkey conflict avoidance program include suggesting alternative hotkeys when a conflict is found and saving identified hotkeys and the corresponding actions to a persistent list. In a preferred embodiment, the first application is a screen reader for use by the visually impaired, and the simultaneously running second application is an application with which the screen reader interacts.

A system and method for creating and accessing an object in a computer system is disclosed. The computer system including an application and an operating system. The system and method comprises a plurality of application programming interfaces (APIs) calls in the operating system. The plurality of API calls being utilized to obtain and set state information related to the application. The system further comprises a record/playback application on the computer, the record/playback application being capable of generating and reading script based upon the API calls to record actions that represent the operations of the applications and to reply actions that represent operations of the application. A system and method in accordance with the present invention utilizes existing accessibility screen reader technologies in order to create automated script files to launch program events. This can be accomplished by capturing the actions that the user's mouse and keyboard events create during of launching of a program or application including, mouse clicks, commands, pull down menu selections, etc., by utilizing API calls to retrieve state information concerning the program application.

A screen reader software product including a pattern store containing at least one user-definable array of keywords relating to a subject of interest and skim reading module adapted to apply the at least one array of keywords to a target document whereby only portions of the target document matching the at least one array of keywords are output by the screen reader software to an end user.

A system is provided for evaluating the degree of difficulty a user is likely to encounter when trying to understanding the contents of one or more document pages by listening to a voice output from a screen reader. An evaluation value representing the likely degree of difficulty is generated based on a feature amount representing a feature of the page. A collection section collects the user's actual evaluation value of the difficulty and the feature amount of one or more pages where the generated evaluation value is inconsistent with the user's evaluation of the difficulty. A first update section updates the evaluation function on the basis of the feature amount and the evaluation value collected from the user.

A screen reader feature is described that enables end users to assign their own descriptions to forms and navigational elements in electronic documents such as web pages, word processing documents and portable document formats. The form or navigational element is identified by the end user. A dialog box provides a text entry box for accepting a user-defined description. The description is saved in association with the document and its particular form or navigational element.