Google reaching out to blind customers with new tools

Posted Jul 20th 2006 3:53PM by Brian White
Filed under: Good news, Products and Services, Launches, Consumer Experience, Internet, Competitive Strategy, Google (GOOG)

Google just recently started testing new tools to make it easier for blind customers to search for and find information using Google's ubiquitous search engine. T.V. Raman, a Google engineer who is blind, said that so much information clogs most webpages these days that even magnifying websites with on-screen software tools wastes too much time by visually-impaired customers who spend too much time sifting through extraneous web content looking for what they need.

A solution that was also looked at was the text-to-speech solutions that would read web content to visually-impaired Google users, but this too was labeled as ineffective due to the sheer amount of content on most web pages. The software cannot distinguish what the blind customer may be wanting to read on the page, and therefore, reads everything, again wasting a customer's time.

The new Google features include the design and study of websites to understand, in an automated way, how a blind person may perceive the content. The layout, amount of content and display parameters of content are all part of the complex puzzle a blind Google user needs to know before attempting to *read* a Google-searched website. This is a great example of Google making a real solution to a real customer problem -- kudos to them in a large way.

Tags: GOOG, Google

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-20-2006 @ 5:13PM

l muso said...

Google reaching out to blind customers with new tools?

"Google reaching out to customers who are blind with new tools"

Congratulations on a positive article. You may not be aware that over the past year Google has ALWAYS closed at 4 PM within pennies of a strike price on option Friday. I am not saying within a dollar or two I am saying literally pennies in the order of 10-15 cents. As a matter of fact, I forget which month, it held at say 389.95 from 3:51 till 4:00. I checked two other sources as well as my broker to confirm that price.

Perhaps with your seemingly endlessly complete knowledge of all things concerning Google you could explain this? Perhaps there is a story there maybe even a expose'? Is it market forces, coincidence or manipulation?

The most perplexing thing to me is how the 40+ market makers in Goog come to the same conclusion every month. Remember options can trade for a few minutes after 4PM. Also I must admit I did not track after market trading to see if there was a similar pattern.

I first noticed this May-June of 2005. After seeing this happen monthly through Jan-Feb 2006 I stopped looking. You have plenty of time to blow the whistle if necessary before options expiration tomorrow.