TextSL

TextSL is a command based web interface that allows visually impaired users to access the popular virtual world of Second Life using a screen reader or using built-in self voicing. The interaction mechanism of TextSL was inspired by text based adventure games which allows users to explore Second Life and interact with other avatars and virtual world objects using a natural language interface.

How to Use?

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.
Access TextSL through your browser at the following url: http://ear.textsl.org. Turn off any screen readers as TextSL is self voicing. If you access 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 you can log your avatar into Second Life by typing login
Explore Second Life! Your start location will be the Virtual Ability Island - a virtual community in Second Life for users with disabilities.
To get information on the commands available type in "tutorial" or "help" to get a list of commands available.

Feedback

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

Developers

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

Publications

Bugra Oktay, Eelke Folmer. Syntherella: A Feedback Synthesizer for Efficient Exploration of Virtual Worlds using a Screen Reader, Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2011. Pages 65-70, St John, New Foundland, Canada, May 2011.
Bugra Oktay, Eelke Folmer. TextSL: a screen reader accessible interface for Second Life, Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A) Raleigh, North Caroline, April 2010. [video]
Bugra Oktay, Eelke Folmer. Synthesizing meaningful feedback for exploring virtual worlds using a screen reader, Proceedings of the 28th of the International Conference extended abstracts on Human factors in Computing Systems Atlanta, Georgia, April 2010. [video]
Bei Yuan, Manjari Sapre, Eelke Folmer. Seek-n-Tag: A Game for Labeling and Classifying Virtual World Objects, Proceedings of Graphics Interface (GI). Pages 201-208, Ottawa, Ontario, June 2010. Toronto: Canadian Information Processing Society. [slides] [video]
Eelke Folmer, Bei Yuan, Dave Carr, Manjari Sapre. TextSL: A Command-Based Virtual World Interface for the Visually Impaired, In Proceedings of the 11th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and Accessibility, Pages 59-66, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 2009. [slides] [video]

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 2008-2012 Eelke Folmer