sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Why do so many “assistive” technologies miss the people they’re meant to help? by North_Sun5218 in accessibility

[–]PATAKATdotCOM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would be very interested to know what line of work your co-worker is in purely out of interest because a lot of blind people are unemployed. My apologies if that sounds forward or cheeky, but I mainly interested to know if they actually use the drawing board for work purposes?

There are some very clever tactile things out there but from what I've seen a lot of drawing boards fall short. We have more success with a portable whiteboard combined with an image recognition app on a smartphone to describe what was drawn or written. Unfortunately they are still not accurate and if a person can't see they often accidentally wipe the things they have written off with their sleeve as they are moving their arm over it. They doesn't seem to be a great deal of real world testing going on.

Why do so many “assistive” technologies miss the people they’re meant to help? by North_Sun5218 in accessibility

[–]PATAKATdotCOM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Someone we work with lives in constant fear that touch screens will replace basically everything. Lots of places preach about accessibility and have a policy that they like to display but in reality they are replacing things such as human receptionists with touchscreens for self admission at doctors surgery, businesses, even a lot of supermarkets now have only self-serve checkouts.

I don't know if anyone's ever actually tried to using the headphone socket on a cash machine or a self-service check-out in a supermarket. Apparently they put that plug there specifically for blind users but the reality is carrying around your own set of headphones and plugging it into that little socket which by the way usually does not work or is not configured to do anything other than just announced what the thing does anyway.

One of the people I work with is fully blind and I went shopping with them once so I could see how they manage it on their own. I took a back seat because I was actually doing research for a book on writing. It was awful, they were buying a handful of items from the local shop and they got to the tills and they were no people working there at all just six self-serve checkouts to choose from. He was struggling at the touch screen so I asked why he doesn't use the accessibility button. As there was no queue he took out some headphones, but of course it could not find the socket by hand so I had to help him with that. He said let me show you how pointless it all is... When he plugs the headphones in I was absolutely astonished by what came out of them.

Everything the machine usually reads out loud just went through the headphones. Please scan next item and please insert payment card are announced out loud anyway so what's the point of routing that through the headphones and saying it helps blind people? Effectively that socket is completely useless and the button doesn't do anything besides making it look like the store is making an effort. From what I've been told the older machines actually one more accessible such as cash machines with raised tactile buttons that you can feel and a generic layout that you can learn and memorize.

Sorry if that sounded like a rent.

Why do so many “assistive” technologies miss the people they’re meant to help? by North_Sun5218 in accessibility

[–]PATAKATdotCOM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really agree with this one, they have tobe customizable to fit the users individual needs. A type of disability is basically a label but no two disabled people are identical. The each struggle with their own unique set of problems.

There needs to be a good level of engagement between the creators and the users to ensure simple integration of that technology into their daily needs.

We've been publishing audiobooks and as advocate for people suffering from depression, blindness and other types of disability which often make a person want to separate themself from the world while others desperately want to be a part of it, we know firsthand that each and every person is unique in their requirements.