HOMEDAISY Navigation
"DAISY navigation system is one of the most significant developments to be made available since the development of Braille. DAISY allows people who are blind to move around recorded and electronic documents easily and seamlessly in a way so far only available to sighted readers."
- Michael Hingson, the President of The Hingson Group
Throughout the world today, the availability and accessibility of information influences every aspect of a society from education to health care to public policy to the arts. With the emergence of the Internet and new forms of multimedia, information is presented in more and more complex formats. Whether presented on a printed page, in a recorded speech, on a website, or via video, information must be understood in terms of both content and context. First, the reader/recipient must be able to understand the actual message presented. Second, and just as important, the reader/recipient must understand how multiple pieces of information relate to one another.
Consider a publication that educates young mothers about childhood nutrition. The table of contents might include:
- Overview of a Balanced Diet
- Whole Grains
- Fruits and Vegetables
- Protein
- Dairy Products
- Sugars, Fats, Oils
- Getting Enough to Drink
- Common Childhood Food Allergies
While each section contains important information, to get the whole message, a mother must consider the whole publication. For example, a mother who only reads Section 5: Dairy Products may offer her child a diet rich in milk and cheese, but overlook symptoms of milk allergies. To understand how dairy products fit into a healthy diet, the reader must understand how Section 5 fits into the entire publication.
The typical reader gains an understanding of the pamphlet's structure by noting the total number of pages, by skimming through section headings, or by quickly glancing through the Table of Contents. For people with print disabilities like visual impairments, learning disabilities, dyslexia, or illiteracy, it is often impossible to find an efficient index or map of the information contained in a book, pamphlet, website, or audio recording.
DAISY multimedia offers people with print disabilities the opportunity to understand information in both content and context by giving them tools to navigate information in much the same way typical readers skim through a document or website.
The evolution of accessible information from audiotapes to DAISY multimedia is much like the evolution of the written word from papyrus scrolls to bound books. Like a scroll, an audiotape must be read in one direction from beginning to end. Skipping around in the text uses an imprecise mechanism of forwarding or rewinding the tape or scroll. To record an entire book in these media requires multiple tapes or scrolls that can easily be mis-ordered or misplaced. The bound book revolutionized reading by offering all the information in a format that is easily held or stored. The reader can flip through pages quickly rather than unwinding or rewinding scrolled paper.
DAISY multimedia offers the same advantages. Books that once had to be stored on several audiotapes can now be recorded on a single compact disc, flash drive or memory card. DAISY multimedia content can also be made available as a download, or read from a Web browser on the Internet.
Like flipping through the pages of a book, DAISY lets the reader search and navigate a publication by word, paragraph or page number. Navigable DAISY content that has electronic text available, either with or without audio – permits readers to examine the spelling of words, or search the text, using a software player on a computer.
