[real-eyes] Touch-screen gadgets alienate blind
- From: <bigdaddylou63@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:06:16 -0500
> Touch-screen gadgets alienate blind
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Tech
>
>
>
> NEW YORK (Reuters) -
>
>
>
> The craze for touch-screen gadgets, sparked by Apple Inc's popular iPhone,
> is raising worries that a whole generation of consumer electronics
>
> will be out of the reach of the blind.
>
> Motown icon Stevie Wonder and other advocates came to the world's biggest
> gadget fest, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week,
> to
> convince
>
> vendors to consider the needs of the blind.
>
> Wonder told a CES event that his wishlist included a car he could drive --
> which he acknowledged was probably "a ways away" -- and a Sirius XM
> satellite
>
> radio he could operate.
>
> "If you can take those few steps further, you can give us the excitement,
> the pleasure and the freedom of being a part of it," said the famed
> musician.
>
> Wonder said some companies had managed to make their products more
> accessible to the blind, sometimes without even meaning to. He cited an
> iPod
> music player
>
> and Research in Motion's BlackBerry as gadgets he likes to use.
>
> Advocates argue that if product designers take into account blind needs,
> they would make electronics that are easier to use for the sighted as
> well.
>
> The good news is that manufacturers do not need to put large sums of money
> into making products accessible, nor would they have to forsake
> innovation,
> said
>
> Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation For The Blind.
>
> "We don't want to hold up technological progress," he said. "What we're
> saying is, think about the interface and set it up in such a way that it's
> simple
>
> .... The simpler you make the user interface of a product, it's going to
> reach more people sighted or blind."
>
> TOUCH SCREENS
>
> With the popularity of touch screens, once simple products such as
> televisions and stereos have become difficult for blind people to use as
> they often require
>
> navigation of multiple menus that need to be seen to be used effectively.
>
> "That's an increasing problem with new digital devices. It's easy to add
> feature after feature that's buried under menu after submenu," said Mike
> Starling,
>
> chief technology officer of National Public Radio, which is working on
> accessible options.
>
> Manufacturers have been putting touch screens in everything from
> calculators
> and watches to computers and music players.
>
> Sendero Group President Mike May, who is blind, joked, "Can I ski 60 miles
> an hour downhill? Yes. Use a flat panel microwave? No." Sendero makes GPS
> navigational
>
> devices that have an audio output for the blind.
>
> There are also screen readers that give an audio reading of a phone's
> menu.
> But Anne Taylor, director of access technologies at the National
> Federation
>
> for the Blind, says they do not yet help her to use a touch-screen phone.
>
> She said the ability to use a device without needing to look at it could
> help sighted people who are driving or older people whose eyesight is
> starting
>
> to deteriorate.
>
> While blind users can buy screen-reading software for $300 upward, it
> tends
> to only work on certain phones, often the most expensive smartphones.
> Sendero
>
> said accessible technology is often expensive, and about 70 percent of the
> U.S. blind population is unemployed.
>
> Taylor is using CES as a forum to present vendors a set of suggestions for
> product design that she sees benefiting both sighted and blind consumers.
>
> For example, manufacturers could include an easy-to-use start-over button,
> different sounds for different menus, and controls with good tactile
> feedback.
>
> PROGRESS
>
> Ahead of the show, there were some signs that vendors, while unlikely to
> give up on the touch-screen trend, may be more ready to consider consumers
> with
>
> disabilities.
>
> Developers at Google Inc are working on ways to make touch-screen phones,
> including those based on its own Android mobile software, usable for blind
> people.
>
> National Public Radio announced a special radio receiver technology and
> software that would connect a digital radio to a dynamic Braille
> generating
> device.
>
> It has also created special digital radio channels for readings of the
> day's
> newspapers.
>
> Dice Electronics has made a prototype radio that incorporates the NPR
> technology, and NPR's Starling hopes this will become a commercial product
> in 2009.
>
> Starling has also set up meetings at CES with other manufacturers in the
> hope they will include NPR's technology. He said responses to requests for
> information,
>
> which often go unheeded, are much more active this year.
>
> Some manufacturers could use their production facilities to make such
> devices, as demand weakens for more mainstream products in the economic
> downturn,
>
> he said.
>
> "I think in general there may be a view that accessibility may be becoming
> the new green," said Starling.
>
> (For more news from the Consumer Electronics Show, please click on
> http://www.reuters.com/news/topics/CES and visit the Reuters MediaFile
> blog
> at http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile)
>
> (Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Richard Chang)
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