Hyperbraille: a hypertext system for the blind

Reading documents is a process which is strongly driven by visual impressions. This is even more the case when the document of interest is not only a linear text but rather a hypertext where links to other document parts are realized as highlighted or coloured text. Since blind people are unable to perceive this visual information there is a special need to enable them to navigate through such a non-linear document. In this paper we describe a set of new functions to enhance hypertext systems in order to ensure their accessibility by blind people. We figure out functions that are necessary to step through a hypertext document as well as some status report functions to give access to information that is usually presented visually in common hypertext systems. From our goal to set up an office workspace in a concrete application it becomes clear that we do not only want to enable a blind person to read hypertext-documents but moreover, it must be possible to edit hypertext documents in an easy-to-use on-line fashion. In addition to conventional text processing systems this means that we have to provide effective methods to build and to edit links. Furthermore, we integrate document analysis techniques to build a bridge between paper documents and braille output devices.