Paradox: Articles that talk about accessibility of E-Text are not accessible

This post is about this article and the paradox that lies within:

Anderson-Inman, L., & Horney, M. (2007). Supported eText: Assistive technology through text transformations. Reading Research Quarterly , 42 (1), 153-160, Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/stable/i388094 [Note:  For those who can’t access York University’s Library, this article has a stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4151710]

This is a very interesting article that asks educators and producers of E-Text materials to think about  ways to create and incorporate E-text that augment student comprehension and learning. Anderson-Inman and Horney’s ideas have been incorporated into a typology of resources for supported E-text promoted by the “National Center for Supported eText (NCSeT), a five-year national research center at the University of Oregon funded by the U.S.Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs” (p. 154)

NCSeT's The typology is described in Figure 1 below which was taken directly from the article. Here is the irony.  The formatting of Figure 1 (about accessibility factors to consider when using E-text ) makes Figure 1 inaccessible and somewhat incomprehensible.

Print screen capture of Figure 1 in Anderson-Inman and Horney 2007, p. 154

Just in case you can’t read Figure 1 due to problems with it's size and poor contrast of text to background colour, here is what it says. The first resource in column one  is called Presentational. The description of Presentational presented in column two reads  “Enables the text and accompanying  graphics to be presented in varying ways, hence customizable to meet the needs of individual readers” (p.  154).  Column 3 provides the following examples: “Font size and style, text and background color, line and page length, page layout, and juxtaposition with other pages, graphics in relationship to text” (p. 154).  Clearly, the publisher of this article did not take into consideration the Presentational aspects discussed in Figure 1. 

Moreover, if  a reader is using text-to-speech software, the text would be incomprehensible. Due to improper formatting of the table, this is how the text in the table would be entered into the text-to-speech software: “Presentational  Enables the text and accompanying  graphics to be pre-  Font size and style, text and background color, line and sented in varying ways, hence customizable to meet the  page length, page layout and juxtaposition with other needs of individual readers  pages, graphics in relationship to text”.  Would you know what that means?   

Listen to what this sounds like on the free speech reader, Vozme: http://vozme.com/speech/en-ml/ad/ad13daa6a88548efd57f2534de459973.mp3 . Is this comprehensible to you?  Please note, that the voice on Vozme is not that nice.   There are better voices on other free text-to-speech readers.  Personally, I don't mind the voices that come with the free version of Natural Soft Reader.  Higher quality text-to-speech software and voices can be purchased and customized to meet reader preferences.  Nevertheless, if the text that is entered into the reader wasn't optimized for text-to-speech, no matter how high quality the voices, the text-to-speech reader will sound like gibberish.

Anderson-Inman and Horney (2007) say:

“In spite of its inherent possibilities, electronic text by itself is rather limited in its usefulness to readers and learners. In order to really take advantage of its potential as an assistive technology, an electronic reading environment that intelligently transforms text into something that supports comprehension and extends meaningful learning is required. This is accomplished in a variety of ways, including embedded supports (e.g., definitions of unfamiliar terms), multiple modalities (e.g., text that can be read out loud), and links to useful resources (e.g., background information, concept map, notepad) -- all of which can transform electronic text so that it is more accessible and supportive to diverse learners. We refer to text that has been altered to increase access and provide support to learners as supported electronic  text or supported eText” (Anderson-Inman and Horney, 2007, p. 153).

Now, Anderson-Inman  and Horney (2007) need to ensure that what they preach  (which is excellent) is actually put into practice!

Please use the comment section below to let me know what your experience has been with the accessibility of documents that you create and  use.

Thanking you for your comments in advance,

Jayne