In response to complaints that Amazon.com’s Kindle was not accessible to blind and visually impaired users, Amazon announced in a news release Monday its plans to give the reader an audible menu and an extra large font.

This announcement came less than a month after criticisms from Syracuse University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The universities said they wouldn’t continue to purchase the device until Amazon made it easier for blind students to use.

The audible menu system will ensure that blind and visually impaired readers can easily navigate to books unassisted, in addition to listening to books on the device, which is already an available feature. The new font planned for the Kindle will be twice the height and width of the current largest font, Amazon said in the Monday news release.

The new features should be available on the Kindle this summer, according to the release.

‘I think it’s a great thing they’re talking about developing the Kindle further, but they haven’t developed them yet,’ said Pamela McLaughlin, director of communications and external relations for SU’s E.S. Bird Library.

SU currently offers two Kindle DX devices to students that can be checked out for a 24-hour period from Bird and Carnegie libraries.

‘We are doing a pilot project with the Kindle. We didn’t have plans to buy more, just to study the device for textbook material,’ McLaughlin said. ‘Once the study is complete, if at that time the Kindle is accessible, they will be on a list of things we are looking at to purchase.’

Still, McLaughlin said actions speak louder than words for Amazon.

‘A lot of times vendors will come out with a story like this, and then they will see that it’s harder to do than they thought,’ she said.

Chris Danielsen, director of public relations for the National Federation of the Blind, said the federation is very encouraged by the announcement, but agrees with McLaughlin. They will need to see how well Amazon executes its promise, he said.

‘It expresses a commitment by Amazon to make the design accessible,’ Danielsen said. ‘It appears that Amazon is moving to address the concerns we expressed, but we will have to see the actual results to see whether or not they’ve been addressed adequately.’

Danielsen said he doesn’t think making technology accessible to the blind is a hard thing for technology companies to do.

‘Apple has made the iPod, iPhone and Mac accessible to the blind,’ he said. ‘It’s not something that is difficult for companies to do, it just requires that they commit the time and effort to making it happen.’

The National Federation of the Blind has been advocating for the Kindle to be accessible for the blind and visually impaired since February when the Kindle 2 came out, Danielsen said.

‘I think this is an important step that Amazon is taking,’ he said. ‘I hope that because an industry leader like Amazon is making its mainstream product accessible to blind people that other companies will follow suit. For the first time in history, this could allow blind people to have access to the same books as everyone else and at the same price.’

rltoback@syr.edu

Published on December 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm