New Delhi: Other than aiming to connect the 1.5 billion people all over the world through its social networking site, Facebook also wants the visually-impaired users have an equal and enjoyable experience as others while using the site.
Facebook’s new accessibility team, led by Jeff Wieland, aims to help people with visual disabilities see images on the social site thereby truly contributing to the idea of connecting the world.
A report on Tech Crunch notes that currently the blind and visually impaired people who have access to screen readers can only listen to what people are writing on Facebook, but there’s no way to help them experience the visual content- the millions of photos shared on the site every day.
Facebook’s first blind engineer, Matt King, says that for people like himself it is difficult to figure out the visual part of the news feed. People with disabilities might be able to know what people are commenting on a photo or liking or sharing it but not know what the image actually is.
That’s why Facebook is currently working on an artificial intelligence-based object recognition tool to help blind users get an idea of what’s in all of the photos people share on Facebook.
The new tool with object recognition tells user about an image. If it is an image with a caption ‘Ready for picture day of first grade,’ without the tool, the reader would only read out the text. However, the tool explains that the image may contain, colon, one or more people, child.
The prototype technology is basically aimed at breaking down the elements of any particular photo so as to make it engaging even to those with disabilities.
King says, “ The level of engagement that’s possible, the amount of enjoyment I can get — that’s like going from zero per cent to at least 50 per cent of what you might get,” King said.
However, before getting onto engaging with photos on social media, the hurdle is getting people comfortable with screen readers, which King wants to make simpler for those with disabilities.
The accessibility team is optimistic of releasing the tool by end of the year to either web or iOS platform.
Comments
0 comment