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Figure 18.7. SONUS-1XT DAB digital radio (photograph reproduced by kind permission of PURE Digital, Imagination Technologies, UK)

and a clear indication of the order in which the singers appear. In concert halls audio introduction is used to present the print programme together with information about forthcoming events. Music scores for blind and visually impaired people, including the use of Braille and spoken music, are discussed in Chapter 16.

18.4.2 Games, Puzzles, Toys and Collecting

A range of games, puzzles, toys and collecting activities are popular with both children and adults. Most of the popular board and card games are available in fully tactile or large print versions, as discussed in this section. Talking computer games have also been developed. There are also issues of whether or not other computer games are compatible with screenreaders, but the authors are not aware of any surveys.

18.4.2.1 Games

Most games rely on visual feedback of the status of the game and in their original format, are consequently inaccessible to blind and visually impaired people. Therefore, making games accessible requires feedback on the status of the game to be available in tactile or audio format for blind people and large print high contrast format for visually impaired people. Due to the relative costs of providing speech or tactile output (Braille, raised or engraved lettering, game pieces of different sizes and shapes and/or holes in the board), most games designed for blind and visually impaired people provide tactile rather than audio feedback. This has the advantage of making them accessible to deafblind people.

Examples include the following from the RNIB online shop:

•Draughts, with the lighter coloured squares on the board recessed to distinguish them by touch from the darker coloured squares, large light and small dark coloured wooden pieces and two easy to see tactile dice.

•Snakes and ladders, with playing pegs of different shapes and colours, different colours for squares, snakes and ladders and a shape/colour system which allows the game to be played by touch and/or sight.

•Chess, with a wooden board and wooden pieces distinguishable by touch, as well as a mechanical chess clock with tactile markings and an audible signal when time is up.

•Monopoly with a tactile board, fully labelled in Braille, tactile dice and all title deeds and cards labelled in large print (16 pt) and Braille).

•Wider than normal playing cards to make them easier to see and use, with large print and Braille markings.

There are also tactile books, blocks and puzzles, as well as other toys designed for blind babies and very young blind children. The RNIB also produces a set of 12 scented water colour markers, with the colour identifiable by the scent.

18.4.2.2 Computer Games

Computer games are becoming increasingly popular. GamesForTheBlind.com produces a number of talking games for blind and visually impaired people. The games include a copy of the Eloquence speech synthesiser, which has eight different voices, covering both sexes and different ages. The pitch, speech rate and volume can also be modified to create a voice that is easy to understand and that speaks at an appropriate rate. The games can be played on a computer using versions of Windows from 95 upwards and does not require any additional hardware and software (other than computer speakers). The initials SV after the name of the games indicate that they are talking or self-voicing.

18.4.3 Holidays and Visits: Museums, Galleries and Heritage Sites

Going on holiday generally involves accessing information and mobility activities, the associated technology for which is discussed in Chapters 5–16. Another important aspect of holidays is sightseeing and visiting museums, galleries and heritage sites. Although one of the earliest touch tours was in 1976, it is only relatively recently that museums, galleries and heritage sites have started to think seriously about blind and visually impaired visitors.

18.4.3.1 Accessible Museum Visits

Tactile exhibitions, often referred to as the ‘touch scene’, in museums are aimed at three different audiences: children on school visits, outreach work with elderly people and visually impaired visitors. One of the earliest touch tours, in which pre-selected objects could be handled, was produced by the Tate Gallery in London in 1976. Unfortunately, visually impaired visitors to this exhibition were not allowed to take sighted friends along as guides and consequently had problems finding their way around and finding the objects to be handled. The first permanent

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touch tours in a UK museum were introduced into the British Museum in 1990. Braille and large print signs indicated that certain sculptures in the Egyptian and Graeco-Roman galleries could be touched. Sighted people, including accompanying people, were not allowed to touch the designated sculptures. Museum guides could be provided for unaccompanied visually impaired visitors if sufficient notice was given. Somewhat ironically in view of the claims that it should be returned to Athens, it is the Parthenon Frieze that has been the recent focus of the British Museum’s accessibility work. The new accessible gallery includes a plastic moulded section of the frieze, an audio guide and a book with a series of simplified raised diagrams. The diagrams show both tactilely and visually what is depicted in the frieze. There is a Braille key and a series of tactile symbols to help with identification, as well as a 5-h taped commentary to guide in using the book (Hetherington 2003). However, the book is a simplified visual depiction that can be touched rather than a source of haptic access.

Tactile versions of a selection of photographs at the Natural History Museum have been made from cellulose acetate, with layered black and white scans of the original photos, interpreted in relief using precision etching techniques. The different textures are used to suggest buildings, animals and landscapes. Some of the tactile pictures require the content to be supplemented by text description, whereas others are immediately comprehensible. Unfortunately, tactile versions are not available for all exhibitions.

Many museums and galleries have audio guides, some of which have been designed specially for blind and visually impaired people. Some museums have audio or scents as part of their display. Some venues produce an access guide with information on services and facilities for disabled visitors. An increasing number of museums, galleries and heritage sites organise a programme of events and workshops, which may include touch tours and events at which the contents of the venue are described. English Heritage produces a guide that indicates which venues have audio commentaries and allow sculptures and stonework to be touched. Its venues provide water bowls for guide dogs on request.

Additional information on haptic access to museums and art objects can be found in Chapter 4. For instance, The Museum of Pure-Form is a European Union Project to make virtual copies of museum exhibits available for haptic exploration (Jansson et al. 2003).

18.4.4 Sports and Outdoor Activities

The ability to participate in sport is important both for social networking and as a means of exercise and maintaining health. Many sports, such as football, tennis and archery, use visual information and therefore visually impaired and blind people require support from assistive technology or a sighted assistant to play them. Despite the potential for the development of assistive devices in this area, there are few (high-tech) devices and many sports are made accessible to blind and visually impaired people by a combination of modifications of the rules and the use of a sighted assistant.

18.4.4.1 Participation in Sporting Events

For most sports, blind and visually impaired people participate separately from sighted people and have their own clubs, competitions, tournaments and rules. However, this separate participation has been criticised and a number of blind and visually impaired people consider that everyone should participate together. There are also sports, such as showdown and torball, that have been created specially for blind and visually impaired people and have been taken up by sighted people. In many team games, blind players use audio information to make judgements about the position of the ball. It is therefore important that there is no competing external noise, for instance from cheering or booing crowds, which could interfere with them hearing the ball. This may lead to different atmospheres at sporting events for blind and sighted players.

Many countries have organisations of blind and visually impaired sportspeople, of which British Blind Sports is an example. These national organisations are frequently members of the International Blind Sport Federation (IBSA). The IBSA covers the following sports:

Participation in IBSA sporting activities is based on the following IBSA sight classifications:

•B1: ‘totally blind’, no light perception in either eye up to light perception, but the inability to recognise the shape of a hand at any distance or in any direction.

•B2: ‘partially blind’, from the ability to recognise the shape of the hand to a visual acuity of 2/60 or a visual field of less than 5◦ in the better eye after correction.

•B3: ‘partially sighted’, from visual acuity above 2/60 to a visual acuity of 6/60 or a visual field of less than 20◦ in the better eye after correction.

However, in the case of archery the classifications B1, B2 and B3 are based solely on visual acuity and there is an additional category of VI Open for people with visual field not greater than 20◦.

As well as participating in sports, blind and visually impaired people are also sports fans and spectators. In the UK, the Visually Impaired Supporters Association was formed to represent the views of blind and visually impaired sports fans and to provide guidance on a range of issues include ticketing, seating, commentary and signage. Audio description (see Section 18.4.1.3) is now available at some sporting events.

18.4.4.2 Ballgames, Including Football, Cricket and Golf

Cricket is played by blind people in many different countries, as well as internationally. Unfortunately, the rules vary in different countries. Since the first Blind

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Cricket World Cup took place in India in 1998, the international rules have largely been based on the Indian national rules, meaning that many blind cricketers have to deal with new rules and a slightly different approach to the game when going from the national to the international level. For instance, the UK game uses over-arm bowling, whereas the international game uses underarm bowling.

In the UK, a size three football rather than a cricket ball is used to make it more easily visible to players with some vision. The ball is filled with ball bearings to allow players to hear it and the wicket is larger than in the sighted game to make it both easier to see and touch for orientation. Additional audio cues are provided, such as the bowler asking whether the batsman is ready before beginning the runup and shouting ‘play’ as the ball is released and the ball being required to bounce once and twice respectively when being bowled to a partially sighted and totally blind batsman. A blind fielder is allowed to catch the ball after it has bounced once and the number of runs scored by totally blind players is doubled.

The ball used in international cricket contains beads so players can hear it, but is the same size as a standard cricket ball. Allthough it is considerably less bouncy than the UK blind cricket ball, it is required to bounce on both halves of the wicket on its way to the batsman or batswoman. International cricket is played by two teams of 11 players, with at least four totally blind players (B1s), three partially blind players (B2s) and, at most, four partially sighted players (B3s). B1 batsmen should have a runner and B2 players have the option of having a runner.

The international version of blind football is called futsal. The game is played by two teams of five players, with four totally blind (B1) players and a goalkeeper who is either partially sighted (B2 or B3) or fully sighted and who may act as a guide. Team squads have a maximum of 13 members and consist of the players, a maximum of five substitutes, a coach, an assistant coach and a doctor or physiotherapist. The pitch is 18–22 m × 38–42 m and the longer sides are marked by kickboards of a height of between 1 and 1.2 m. This is considerably smaller than a standard football pitch, which should be 45–90 m × 90–120 m. The ball contains a sound system that does not impede its normal running, rolling and bouncing. In the interests of safety, this system is also required to make a noise when the ball is spinning on its own axis or spinning through the air.

A public address system is set up on top of the timekeeper’s table and used to indicate that play has stopped and provide information on all incidents, including fouls, substitutions and time-outs. It is also used to ask the spectators to remain silent to enable players to hear the ball. Each team has a guide behind the opponent’s goal, who guides the attacking players of the team, including by audibly indicating the position of the goalposts before a shot is taken with the ball stationary. The guide is not permitted to enter the field of play or protest the referees’ decisions. The goalkeeper can also act as a guide when their team is in the third of the field closest to the goal being defended. At the referees’ discretion, the goalkeeper may guide and orientate other players when free kicks, penalties or double penalties are being taken and organise the wall and position the players when a shot is taken at their goal. The goalkeeper is required to do this from the first third of the field of play.

There is also a version of football for blind people for B2/B3 players. In this case, it is important that reflections from sunlight or artificial light on the field of play are avoided and variations in light intensity on different parts of the field of play are prohibited. The ball can be any colour that facilitates locating it. The teams of five players have at least two B2 players. The goalkeeper can either be B2, B3 or fully sighted.

Blind golf is played all over the world and the first match took place in the 1920s. A sighted person, called the guide, describes the distance and direction of the ball and the characteristics of the hole, as well as helping the blind golfer align the club head behind the ball prior to making a stroke. The guide is not required to be a good golfer. The blind golfer then has to use this information to hit the ball in the right direction with an appropriate amount of force. Blind and visually impaired golfers are also allowed to ground their club in a hazard. Blind golf competitions are played in classes using the standard B1–B3 categories of visually impairment.

18.4.4.3 Swimming, Skiing, Athletics, Powerlifting and Tandem Cycling

Athletics is the most widespread IBSA sport and is practised in more than 70 countries. Competitions are based on the IBSA classification of B1, B2 and B3 athletes, with the standard rules of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for B3 athletes and some modifications for B1 and B2 athletes. Most of the modifications relate to the provision of assistance, for instance by running guides, or callers providing auditory information.

Swimmers compete in the three IBSA sight categories, with B1 swimmers required to wear darkened goggles. The team coach directs the takeover at relays and allowances are made for B1 swimmers being too close to a lane line for technically correct arm strokes or touches in butterfly or breaststroke. Although the rules allow the use of an approved electronic device, sighted guides or tappers positioned at each end of the pool generally indicate the end of the pool for B1 and some B2 and B3 swimmers. They use a rod with a firm foam tip and synchronise their tap with the swimmer’s stroke movement and momentum. Blind swimmers are not penalised if they accidentally surface in the wrong lane after a start or turn and are permitted to continue in this lane if it is unoccupied or to be given verbal instructions to return to the original lane by the tapper.

Alpine (downhill) skiing for blind and visually impaired people is a team sport, as a sighted person guides the blind and visually impaired skiers through the race course. It provides one of the rare opportunities for blind people to move freely at speed.

Powerlifting is one of the few sports where blind people do not require modifications, assistive devices or a sighted assistant and can compete identically to sighted people. Blind and visually impaired people can participate in cycling by using tandem bikes and sitting on the back seat, so the sighted person at the front steers. There are also racing tandems and a range of competitions over different distances. Tandem cycling can also be purely recreational. As well as steering, the sighted partner can describe the landscape and points of interest when touring.

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18.4.4.4 Archery, Ten-Pin Bowling and Bowls

Archery is the most recent sport to be given official status in the IBSA. Blind and visually impaired archers may use tactile sighting systems and foot locators, as well as a sighted spotter. The spotter sets up and adjusts the sighting aid and foot markers before the start of the competition and quietly informs the archers of the strike of each arrow on the boss using the clock face method. The back of the hand tactile sighting aid is a pressure button type device placed on a stand in front of the archer. It gives a reference point for elevation of the bow by its contact with the back of the bow hand. The long rod system also provides information on elevation, but, instead of making contact with the bow hand, the long rod protruding from the bow riser is guided into a hook type device on the stand. Iris is an electronic sighting device developed in France in the early 1980s. It comprises a transmitter on the bottom of the target and a receiver on the bow, connected to a battery pack. The archer receives the transmitted signal over headphones. Increasing pitch indicates that the aim is approaching the centre of the target. Coaches considered that this was the best method, as it allowed visually impaired archers to be coached in a similar way to sighted archers with a sighting device on the bow. However, the Iris was very expensive and required considerable time to achieve an accurate aiming point, as well as involving numerous wires. Other than in France, it is no longer used, largely due to the high cost of the device. A laser device has also been developed, but high costs have prevented any significant usage. Foot markers are used to enable the archer to retain the same position when returning to the shooting line.

Ten-pin bowling is very popular among blind people and is played in more than twenty countries. Blind bowlers can use any bowling centre, but require either a guide rail or sighted guidance. When sighted assistance is used, the assistant aligns the bowler on the spot from which they wish to execute their deliveries. Guide rails are made of wood or lightweight tubular metal and are designed for easy assembly and disassembly. The rails are placed alongside the bowling approach, extending back from the foul line. The weight of the bowling balls holds the guide rails in place on the bowling approach and they can be used in any bowling centre, without damaging the lanes or interfering with the automatic bowling equipment. The bowler slides one hand along the smooth surface of the rail and delivers the ball with the other hand. A sighted assistant is generally required to inform the blind bowler which pins have been knocked down and which left standing by calling out the numbered locations of the pins. This information allows a blind bowler to know where to roll the next ball or to decide on how to modify the delivery of the next ball.

Bowling is played on a square bowling green surrounded by a shallow ditch. The game starts with one bowler placing the mat and rolling the jack to the other end of the green as a target. Bowlers then roll their bowls from the mat towards the jack and build up the ‘head’. Bowling for blind and visually impaired people involves the minor modifications of the mat being situated with its front end at the fixed distance of six feet (1.8 m) from the ditch and a fine green string running under the centre of the mat and being fixed at both ends. This is used to help the bowler judge

angles. A sighted assistant called a ‘marker’ stands behind the jack and provides information on the position of each bowl relative to the jack in terms of a 12-h clock. This allows blind bowlers to develop a mental picture of the position of the different bowls in the head.

18.4.4.5 Games Designed for Visually Impaired People: Showdown, Torball and Goalball

A number of ball games with an acoustic ball have been designed specifically for blind and visually impaired people, but can also be played by sighted people wearing a blindfold. Showdown was developed by Joe Lewis, a totally blind Canadian in the 1960s as a sport that could be played recreationally or competitively by blind people without assistance. It requires a specially designed table, two paddles, a special ball into which metal bee bees have been inserted and a room of suitable size to take the table. A glove is sometimes worn on the batting hand. The bee bees rolling round inside the ball indicate its location during play. The game involves batting the ball off the side wall, along the table, under the centre screen and into the opponent’s goal. The first player to reach 11 points, leading by 2 or more points, wins. A player scores two points for a goal and one point when their opponent hits the ball into the screen or off the table or touches the ball with anything but the bat. Showdown is being played in many countries throughout the world and the IBSA is encouraging regional and national tournaments as part of a campaign for international recognition at the Paralympics.

Torball is a team sport for blind and visually impaired people developed in the 1970s. It is played by two teams of three players on a rectangular court 7 m × 16 m with a goal at either end. The ball only weighs 500 g and is pumped up with air, making play tricky and fast. It contains a bell, so players can detect its location, and must be thrown under three cords which are taut across the court. Each team tries to throw the ball across the opponent’s goal, while the other team tries to prevent this from happening. The game is currently played by about 1200 people, in about 30 countries. It developed from Goalball, then known as Torball, which was based on Rollball, and invented in 1946 to help in the rehabilitation of blinded war veterans. This led to two varieties of Torball in central Europe. The older version was played with a 2-kg ball and later called Goalball, the English translation of the German name Torball, whereas the more recent version kept the name Torball and used a lighter ball of 500 g.

Goalball is also an IBSA sport and is also played by two teams of three players. The court is slightly larger than the torball court at 9 m × 18 m. It is marked out on the floor of a gymnasium and there is a goal at either end of it. The aim is to score goals by rolling the ball across the other team’s goal line. The ball is heavier than the one used in torball at 1.25 kg. It contains noise bells and has eight holes. All players are required to wear eyeshades throughout the game, which lasts 20 min, divided into two halves of 10 min.

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18.4.4.6 Accessible Sports Equipment

Accessible sports equipment can be divided into two main categories:

•Low-tech mechanical devices, including balls containing mechanical noisemakers and archery sighting aids. Many of these devices have been mentioned in the discussion of the different games and sports.

•Higher tech talking devices, including step counters and compasses.

18.4.4.6.1 Audible Balls

These include the following products supplied by the RNIB:

•An inflatable white rubber football, containing carbon steel ball bearings, which rattle when the football is shaken or moved. The ball has a valve and can be reinflated with a bicycle pump.

•A blue rubber ball for goalball (See Section 18.4.4.5) with eight holes and containing a metal bell for location in play.

•An orange inflatable rubber ball containing bells that can be used in a gym or a swimming pool.

18.4.4.6.2 Talking Step Counter

Cobolt Systems distribute two talking pedometers. They can both be clipped to a belt, carried in a pocket or just carried. Both tell the user the distance walked or run. One version has FM radio and also announces the calories consumed and the elapsed time. The announcements can be heard at preset intervals, or at the touch of a button. The other version also provides a talking alarm with a choice of four sounds and a selectable music function with its tempo dependent on how fast the user is walking. However, it may not always be very accurate, as it requires the user to enter their average step length. Utmost Technology Corp also distribute a talking pedometer, with a voice announcement and display of the number of steps and the distance travelled. It can measure up to 99,999 steps and 1999.99 km or miles. Seven melodies can be played while walking or jogging, with the music tempo synchronised with the walking or jogging speed. The pedometer also has a talking alarm clock with four different alarm sounds.

Cobolt Scientific’s talking digital skipping rope has a calorie counter, jump counter and timer. The voice announces the number of calories consumed, the number of jumps, the workout time and the time remaining until the end of the workout, with a maximum setting for the workout time of 99 min. It will speak at preset intervals or on pressing the talk button. There are also four display modes for the number of jumps, number of calories, elapsed time and countdown timer. The rope length can be adjusted for the user.