By David Rude
(David Rude is the Social Security district manager in Rochester.)

YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY
(June 7, 2004)--If you are a visitor to our local library, you have probably noticed that one of the fastest growing sections is devoted to large-print books.

It really is not surprising when you consider that about 15 million Americans have some form of vision impairment, and millions of other Americans with aging eyes may have trouble reading small print.

That is why Social Security has taken steps to make reading small print easier for visitors to our Web site.

The letter size in reading material is measured in "points." Most text in American newspapers is 9-point type, and most books are set in 10- to 12-point type. But the minimum size for large-print materials is 14-point type, and most large-print materials are available in 16- to 18-point type.

Folks who visit our Web site at www.socialsecurity.gov can easily change the text size on their computer to make the information easier to read. This is done through the Web Eyes plug-in, which is available free on the socialsecurity.gov homepage. Web Eyes can increase text size in two-point increments.

Social Security provides Web Eyes as a courtesy to our Web site visitors. It is available for download at www.socialsecurity.gov/textsizeinst.htm. Anyone who downloads Web Eyes will have unlimited use of it while visiting the Social Security Web site. When they leave our Web site, the text enlargement will continue for five minutes and then automatically return to the settings on the user's browser.

Our technical people tell me, however, that to successfully download Web Eyes, users must have an Internet connection, at least four megabytes of free space available on the hard drive and Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser version 5.5 or higher.

The Web Eyes plug-in also includes a help manual and a help menu, which includes Frequently Asked Questions.

I know that the millions of Americans with vision impairments will appreciate this feature, as will the tens of millions of baby boomers now in middle-age.

While some people can hold a newspaper at arms length to read small print, that trick does not work very well with a computer terminal.