Text SL

TextSL is a command based interface that allows visually impaired users to access Second Life using a screen reader. The interaction of TextSL has been inspired by text based adventure games like Zork because virtual worlds have their origins in such games and the way input and output is provided is very suitable to be read with a screen reader. TextSL accepts commands from the user allowing the user to move their avatar around, interact with other avatars and objects and get information on their environment.

It's also allows user to manage their educational task and get access to professional writer services , for finding the solution for school of university.

Download

A beta version of TextSL can be downloaded here. Currently only the JAWS screen reader is supported. TextSL can run on a low-end PC running windows XP or Vista but requires the .Net framework to be present. If you have the latest updates for your operating system this is already installed. If you get an error loading textSL, please install the .Net framework fix, which can be download here.

How to Use?

  1. You must first sign up for a Second Life account. Choose a unique first name and a last name from a list of Second Life names for your avatar. You must also provide a password, date of birth and an email adress. Make sure to remember these names as TextSL will need them to log in your avatar. To register you must pass an audio CAPTCHA test. You can sign up for a Second Life account here.
  2. Start up the Jaws screen reader.
  3. If you start TextSL for the first time it will ask you to provide your avatars first name, last name and the password. If these are provided TextSL will store this data on your computer and log your avatar into Second Life
  4. Explore Second Life! Your start location will be the Virtual Ability Island - a virtual community in Second Life for users with disabilities.
  5. To get information on the commands available type in "tutorial" or "help" to get a list of commands available.

Feedback

TextSL is still a Beta version and we would be happy to receive feedback such as bug reports or suggestions for improvement. Contact us through feedback at textsl dot org or put your feedback in TextSL's Google Groups Discussion forum.

Contribute

The TextSL executable and source code are distributed under the Gnu General Public License. Anyone interested in contributing to our project please visit TextSL's developer pages.

Publications

Eelke Folmer, Bei Yuan, Dave Carr, Manjari Sapre. TextSL: A Command-Based Virtual World Interface for the Visually Impaired, In Proc. 11th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and Accessibility, Pages 59-66, October 2009.

Developers

This application has been developed by Dave Carr, Manjari Sapre, Bei Yuan and Eelke Folmer of the University of Nevada in Reno.


Acknowledgements

This research supported by NSF Grant IIS-0917362 and IIS-0738921

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
TextSL is copyright 2008-2010 Eelke Folmer