27 December 2006

Speech-friendly Google Maps

Google used their blog on Boxing Day to announce a new speech-friendly interface for Google Maps.

The new interface does away with graphical maps and concentrates entirely on giving directions and directions which can be cleanly read out by a screen reader or presented in a Braille browser. The UI (user interface) works for Google Maps US and European versions of the site such as Google Maps UK. Google often rolls out enhancements only to the US version of their service first.

The speech-friendly interface is not the only foray into accessibility that Google has made. The search engine launched its accessible search option in the middle of July this year which re-orders results to favour sites which are more accessible than others.

The new version of Google Maps presents the speech-friendly directions in a similar table to the original Google Maps but uses the entire screen. This technique is similar to Google's approach for Accessible Search where the search results appear to look the same to a normal organic search. The search engine has deliberately kept the visual output the same even though accessibility improvements have been made in the code. Google's clean look and feel has become very much part of its brand. There are also Usability benefits in keeping a uniform feel to navigation throughout the site.

The blog post for the new Maps interface and Google's accessibility search announcement were both prefaced by the editor "T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see -- tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful. - Ed."

T.V. Raman may find he faces a mixed reception at Google on issues of accessibility. Although the search engine has been greatly improving its own accessibility options many of its web developers remain keen on AJAX. In fact, Google has released toolkits to encourage other web developers to build sites with AJAX. Very many of the default implementations of AJAX are neither accessible nor search engine friendly. It is common place for AJAX to be used to change portions of a page, rather than a whole page, which is a tricky non-linear change for screen readers or Braille browsers to interpret and announce.