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• 1 media/23753065302_26da63dc0e_b.jpg media/screen.gif 2020-01-03T19:37:47-08:00 Rosamond Thalken's Case 10 image_header 2020-01-11T15:17:04-08:00 Rosamond Thalken
  Instructor
  Department of English and Digital Technology and Culture, Washington State University
  Email: rosamond.thalken@wsu.edu
  
  Applying Principles of Universal Design to Kinetic Poetry
  
  The field of electronic literature is partially defined by the experimentation with different modes of perception and ways for “reading” the born digital text. When contextualized with principles of Universal Design, however, variation in modes of interactivity can simultaneously add and inhibit access to the text according to the range of readers’ abilities. When so much meaning is conveyed through visual animation and movement in kinetic poetry, for example, this complicates how to convey that meaning, without loss, to a person with visual impairments. Efforts to preserve electronic literature should prioritize the documentation of visual elements, through developing a language to use to describe kinetic poetry. Through Universal Design, electronic literature can add to ongoing critical discourses about ability and play and disrupt normative concepts of reading.
  
  This essay will proceed with an assumption of the reader’s knowledge of Universal Design and the World Wide Web’s (W3) Accessibility Initiative, as these principles are intrinsic to understanding accessibility. To explore the convergence between accessibility and e-lit, and to avoid presenting a reductive picture of disability, universal design, or e-lit by suggesting a “one-size-fits-all” model of assessment, this essay will critique the lack of access for people with visual impairments in kinetic and interactive poetry, a type of e-lit that uses movement and visualization to create meaning. Here, I will consider two different texts to investigate how kinetic poetry may or may not exclude visually impaired user-readers from experiencing the work. There are myriad methods for analyzing the accessibility of these texts, but by invoking the W3’s standards, the texts ought to be assessed by (1) the perceptibility of user information, (2) navigation, (3) understandability of interface, and (4) compatibility with assistive technologies.
  
  >>oh<< by Jennifer Hill-Kaucher, Dan Waber, and Reiner Strasser is a complex example of a presently inaccessible kinetic poem, with great potential to be made more accessible. In this poem, by hovering the mouse over different small dots on the screen, the dots alter into puddles, which expand and reveal different words, like “oh,” “the,” “puddles,” “rain,” to view a fuller picture of the poem—just for a fleeting moment. This poem is presented in Flash, which immediately inhibits the use of screen readers, while the text is portrayed in especially light grey coloring, which simultaneously suggests the sensational experience of a rainy day while making it incredibly hard to interpret, visually. This kinetic poem conveys a majority of its meaning through the visual elements of puddles revealing and obscuring words, the color scheme, and particularly the different aural inflections of voices exclaiming, “oh.” However, this is likely an example of a poem that could be made more accessible by creating an accurate and easily-accessed description of the visual nature of the poem.
  
  
  In contrast, John Cayley’s popular and experimental piece, windsound might be viewed as more accessible because of how Cayley experiments with aurality and synthetic voice by using text-to-speech software to loyally read a text as it changes and morphs into nonsensical text. Though this piece holds the same trouble of Flash and a lack of functionality, it should be distinguished because of how the piece plays with aurality and reading as a concept. The focus is primarily on the synthetic voice’s attempt at accuracy, which it is constrained to continue reading, even once there is a loss of “interpretable” meaning. This type of synthetic aurality represents the readability of language, regardless of its understandability. However, a vital part of the meaning of this poem is the loss of understandable meaning as the words morph, while the text-to-speech software remains endlessly loyal. Because of the relative simplicity of the visual nature of words appearing and changing in white font on a black screen, this kinetic poem is especially suitable for accurate documentation. More importantly, though, the initially programmed loyalty between the text-to-speech synthetic voice to the visual elements already has made this kinetic poem more accessible.
  
  Rather than add in universal design elements post-project creation, a creator of electronic literature might implement elements that promote accessibility throughout every step of the creation of a work. By doing so, e-lit creators can both confront their own assumptions about (dis)ability, and play with the concept of reading, as Cayley does in windsound. As George Williams reflects on experimenting with text-to-speech software, alongside a woman with visual impairments: “This scenario caused me to reevaluate my understanding of what it means to be disabled, as she clearly was using abilities that I did not—and still do not—have: I had not trained myself to be able to process auditory information as efficiently as she could” (Williams). This woman had refined her aural reading abilities, which was a new experience that shifted Williams’ own understanding of ability.
  
  Williams’ suggestion for reconsidering ability harkens toward Cayley’s theories of aurality. Cayley considers the continuously evolving culture of reading and how it has always relied on technologies and their own evolutions. At the same time, Cayley promotes a concept he terms a “grammaleptic reading,” meaning that “to ‘read’ is, precisely, to transmute perceptible forms—consisting of any material substance—into language” (78). Even when listening to an audio book read by a synthetic voice, for example, we are “reading.” This holds many implications, some of which suggest a shift in what it might mean to be literary, and a freeing from the material form of the text. Cayley comments on how many people who listen to audio books hesitate to say they’ve “read” the book, yet this mindset overlooks people who consistently approach the act of reading differently from normative, visual reading. For people with visual impairments, for example, the process of reading has long meant the utilization of different modes and senses, like tactile senses for reading braille or aural for reading through text-to-speech software. By attempting to make their work more accessible, artists and writers in electronic literature can explore and interrogate how we read even more directly.
  
  To conclude, when ruminating on the potential for more accessible electronic literature, creators might take inspiration from visual artists who have used the necessity for accessible art to influence their artwork. For example, visual artist Roy Nachum incorporates braille into his sculptures, paintings, and installations to create a more interactive and accessible artwork, two of which are included below.
  
  
  Works Cited
  Cayley, John. “The Advent of Aurature and the End of (Electronic) Literature.” The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature, 2017, pp. 73-88.
  ---. windsound. Electronic Literature Collection, 1999.
  Connell, Bettye Rose, Mike Jones, Ron Mace, Jim Mueller, Abir Mullick, Elaine Ostroff, Jon Sanford, Ed Steinfeld, Molly Story, and Gregg Vanderheiden. “The Principles of Universal Design: Version 2.0.” The Center for Universal Design, 1997.
  Hill-Kaugher, Jennifer, Dan Waber, and Reiner Strasser. >>oh<<. Electronic Literature Directory, 2005.
  Nachum, Roy. “About the Artist.” Roy Nachum, http://www.roynachum.com/about.
  Rettburg, Scott. Electronic Literature. Cambridge, Polity Press, 2019.
  Williams, George. “Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities.” Debates in the Digital Humanities, vol. 1, 2012, part III.
  World Wide Web: Web Accessibility Initiative. “Accessibility Principles.” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-principles/.
  World Wide Web: Web Accessibility Initiative. “Tools and Techniques.” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), https://www.w3.org/WAI/people-use-web/tools-techniques/.
  World Wide Web: Web Accessibility Initiative. “Introduction to Web Accessibility.” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/.