As everyone knows, there are currently many solutions supporting collaborative work, remote learning and entertainment. During the pandemic time, they turned out to be more necessary for multiple user groups and therefore strongly developed. This situation applies to all people, but it has  of particular importance to Blind and Visually Impaired (for short). BVE).
We should to note here that BVE use the computer using specialized software that runs permanently in the background while they are using a computer. These software are called The screen readers or screen magnifiers. They enable BVE to use a computer and any software which is installed on the machine. There are screen readers and magnifiers available for all operating systems and devices. For Windows we have a programs NVDA [nvda] Jaws [jaws] for Windows and for MacOS there are Voiceover [voiceover]. There are also native features built into the operating system such as magnifier or Narrator for Windows or Talkback for Android. All these programs work in the following way: a blind user works using a keyboard without using a mouse. During he performs a different operations, he  constantly can listen to voice messages sent to him by a screen reader. It reads what keys the user presses and what is focused on the screen. If the user has a braille display connected to the computer, the messages are also send to the braille display where the user can read them as a braille characters with his fingers. In the case of a partially sighted user, the fragment of the screen explored with the mouse or keyboard is automatically enlarged and sometimes it receives a different color or contrast depending on the user's preferences set earlier.
Using these basic solutions, BVE can use standard office programs, browse the web, communicate, use listening and even editing software, etc. However, for this to be possible, these programs must be designed and implemented in accordance with the accessibility guidelines. For web solutions, such guidelines are the W3C WCAG2.1 [wcag] standard and the Accessible Reach Internet Application (ARIA) [aria]. The rules contained in WCAG should also be applied to desktop and mobile applications. Therefore, when programming such applications, developer should remember to use standard controls, use menus instead of toolbars and add keyboard shortcuts to each option that will allow for activation them.

As we know, large companies such as Google and Microsoft have their own platforms for creating online meetings, exchanging information or working together on documents or spreadsheets. Google provides applications such as a calendar, meet, classroom, google drive documents, etc. Unfortunately, they are only partially available for BVE, for example, a blind person cannot perform some operations in Google classroom, or read content of the tasks if they are published as a graphics. The situation is slightly worse in the case of solutions provided by Microsoft, i.e. Teams and office 360. BVE may have difficulty with creating a Teams meetings, running screen split feature, etc. An example of the online meeting solution that is almost accessible for BVE is the Zoom platform although it requires of installation the software on users computer. Unfortunately, other less known platforms, clickMeeting [clickmeeting] Hubilo [hubilo] or Glisser [glisser], are even less accessible to a blind user.
The situation is the similar when we will take into account educational platforms, especially solutions related to teaching mathematics or foreign languages. For example, one of the most popular math teaching platforms GeoGebra [geogebra] is poorly available for BVE. An example of a solution that is accessible in this domain is Desmos, [desmos].  It offers special functions for the blind, such as the ability to write an equation for a function and then draw and play its graph with sound. However, this seem to be an only positive exception.
After analyzing this situation, we can come to the conclusion that there is no one solution that would be suitable for mutual communication, knowledge exchange, joint learning or entertainment. Even more so, there is no such universal solution that would provide additional facilities for blind and visually impaired people. Taking this into account, in the V4 + ACRD Consortium, we undertook work on adapting the already existing WPAD knowledge exchange software for the needs of the blind. First, we analyzed the availability of the WPAD software in the version installed on the local computer and in the BOX cloud repository. The experiment was to use the WPAD software with a screenreader in which data from various domains and topics were added to the tables. These were data such as information on publications and magazines, information on organizations supporting BVE, as well as educational materials in programming languages ​​and web technologies intended for students. This work allowed us for gaining experience and determining the actual level of accessibility of the WPAD software for BVE. It turned out to be almost completely available to all screen readers, except for a few of the following use cases.
The WPAD user interface is based on the logic of a database table where information is collected in columns and records. They can store a Information such as entry date, subject, category, sub-category, content, links to other entries, etc. A blind individual can navigate through columns and records using standard keyboard shortcuts. During this operation the screen-reader reads the contents of the appropriate cells. Such a logic of information storage allows for the accumulation and structured knowledge so it is a kind of knowledge base similar to a simplified ontology. In addition, the program has a very extensive menu in which the user can find options in the database of necessary information, filtering, searching the resources of his own computer and even searching the Internet. Another useful feature is the ability to automatically generate web pages in static html directly from the data table in the WPAD program. Thanks to this, a user also a blind or visually impaired teacher can easily generate educational packages for his students. During our investigations, such packages were also created with the support of a NVDA screen reader. These educational packages generated in the form of html pages, were then made available for use by students.
But there were a few accessibility problems. The biggest accessibility problem in the WPAD software was that the screen-reader did not read the content of the text field intended for inserting large amounts of data, which was revealed while navigating through it. Moreover, while working with the program, error messages often appeared, which in the case of work of a blind user who is not very familiar with computer technologies, may be irritating to him. The accessibility status of the WPAD software is described in more detail in the article [svedski].
In the next stage of works, we made efforts to eliminate these problems and make the knowledge exchange system fully available for the blind user. The work on this issue is being continued until the current time.
In addition to the corrections of the problems mentioned above, the idea arose to implement the entire system in the form of a Web application. This is how the Personal Information and Knowledge System called PIKS was created. A big advantage of this idea is that they use the same table structure as WPad but is accessible via a web browser. In this way, the biggest problem related to the inaccessibility of a large text field has been eliminated because in PIKS it is already read correctly in the web browser by the screen-reader. So it can be freely edited by a blind user.
However, because html tables are quite tedious to view using a screenreader, the idea was born to build in PIKS a mechanism of various filters for the displayed data. Thanks to them, it is possible to display only data from a given category or subcategory.
After continuing and extending our work the PIKS system can become a portal where a visually impaired user can carry out many of his activities in one place. For example, he may have one table for his work, another for learning and sharing knowledge with others, and another for entertainment. Therefore, in the next stages of work, we will develop a category system for the user that will take into account his activities in such areas as work, science, entertainment, music or communication on social networks.

references
[nvda] R. Scholar, M. Mundada, and C. Kayte, ‘Screen Readers for Linux and Windows – Concatenation Methods and Unit Selection based Marathi Text to Speech System’, International Journal of Computer Applications, vol. 130, pp. 975–8887, Dec. 2015, doi: 10.5120/ijca2015907192.
[jaws] F. Scientific, ‘JAWS for Windows® Screen Reading Software’, ConsultĂ© le, vol. 17, 2013.
[voiceover] B. F. Smaradottir, J. Håland, and S. Martinez, ‘User Evaluation of the Smartphone Screen Reader VoiceOver with Visually Disabled Participants’, Mobile Information Systems, vol. 2018, pp. 1–9, Dec. 2018, doi: 10.1155/2018/6941631.
[wcag] W. W. W. C. W3C, ‘Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0’, 2008. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ (accessed Apr. 05, 2018).
[aria] A. Whitbrook, ‘Programming with the ARIA API’, 2010. doi: 10.1007/978-1-84882-864-3_2.
[svedski] our previous paper.
[clickmeeting} Click Meeting homepage https://clickmeeting.com/pl
[hubillo} vFairs Virtual Event Platform - 24/7 Global Customer Support https://www.vfairs.com/
[glisser}  Glisser: Home https://www.glisser.com/
[geogebra] GeoGebra | Darmowe aplikacje matematyczne - używane ... https://www.geogebra.org/?lang=pl
[desmos] Kalkulator graficzny - Desmos https://www.desmos.com/calculator?lang=pl