IBM (International Business Machines) has previewed a social accessibility collaboration software, developed by IBM Research, which allows Internet users to improve upon Web accessibility, particularly in case of the visually impaired.

The company claims that this new collaboration software enables users with low or no vision to report Web content accessibility issues they faced on specific Web pages. In addition, Internet users who wish to aid in improving Internet accessibility would be able to respond to such requests from visually impaired users by using the tool to contribute alternative text to solve the reported issue.

To explain how the software works, IBM cites an example: a visually impaired individual wants to find out what image is showing. The image shows a photo of Mount Fuji taken at sunset. Existing screen reading software may not obtain the same information as shown in the image, or a description of the photo is simply missing. Whenever visually impaired users face such difficulties, they can report the incident by using the collaboration tool developed by IBM Research and ask for an improved alternative text to be added. Their request would then be automatically sent to a server hosting the social accessibility project Web site where visually impaired users and Internet users who wish to help can register themselves to use the collaboration tool.

Internet users registered with the social accessibility project can see the request on the project Web site, and may decide to respond to it by using the collaboration tool by clicking 'start fixing it' and typing in a short description like in this case -- "Photo caption: Mount Fuji during a gorgeous sunset". The description gets transformed to external metadata so that the next time a visually impaired person tries to visit the Web page showing the photo image, screen reading software reads the alternative text from this metadata to give a better explanation. Having external metadata reside at the Web server, Web content remains unchanged while making the Web more accessible.

The social accessibility project Web site and the collaboration tool are available free of charge from the IBM alphaWorks Services Website. You can also view a related video here.