If anyone who reads this email has anything to offer - time,
money, equipment, whatever, I'd be *really* grateful to hear
from them. I can put you in touch with people who know about
things like the range of interface devices available for
paraplegic and quadriplegic people. Ideally the program would
be adaptable to a wide range of hardware accommodating a broad
spectrum of disability, but many quadriplegics use equipment
that emulates a standard keyboard and/or mouse, so that would
be a great start.
While I don't have too much to offer, I'll pass along what I do have:
A) An OLPC (mostly Python-based kit) project[1] to provide simple
icons-to-speech that sounds a bit like what you're describing.
My addition to the thread is about Dasher[2], posted as Gumnos.
A Dasher-like interface may allow for a greater range of
expression with minimal "2-axis plus sip-puff" selection. If I
were mobility-impaired, I'd use Dasher to communicate & code
(perhaps even coding Python atoms/tokens as their own entities
for ease of entry :)
B) There are also groups of folks such as the IGDA (Independent
Game Developers Association)'s SIG-Access[3] which focuses on
promoting accessibility in gaming. Robert Florio[4] is one of
the folks in the SIG and has a vested interest in improving
accessibility for mobility-impaired gamers (others on the list
have particular interests/focii in visual, auditory or mental
challenges). I mention this group first because they have some
innovative solutions for taking existing applications/games and
either retrofitting accessibility solutions as well as exploring
new design goals to make applications/games accessible upon
launch. Other similar groups exist for things like
web-accessibility (WCAG WG[5], WAG[6]) but that seems a little
outside your focus.
Hope this gives you some ideas/connections that help you out.
-tkc
[1]
http://www.olpcnews.com/software/applications/free_icon-to-speech_open-source_speech_for_disabled.html
[2]
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/
[3]
http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Game_Accessibility_SIG
[4]
http://www.robertflorio.com
[5]
http://www.w3.org/WAI/PA/
[6]
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/webaccessibility/
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