Clive,
Replies interspersed with your message.
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 21 October 2015 11:39
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Digital phones accesible to sight-impaired people
Hello David,
I can answer and make calls with no difficulty. However, that is only the most
basic functionality of the phone, and colleagues do a lot more which I can’t
access, including:
Yes, because of integration with Outlook, emails can be read through the phone
and probably calendar appointments made and looked up.
Log in and out of the phone system at will, which we are all told we must do
each day on arrival and before departure
Not relevant here as Microsoft Lync runs in the background so whenever I am
logged in Microsoft Lync knows about me.
Change my phone settings so that calls are temporarily diverted to, say, my
home landline if I’m working from home, or my mobile if I’m out and about
I’ve never needed to do this but the option obviously exists.
Change the phone settings back to the default when I return to the office
I’ve never needed to do this but the option obviously exists.
Pick up another call when a colleague’s phone rings, because you have to key in
the number that appears on their screen – it’s not always easy to tell which
phone is ringing, because there are several phones close to each other where a
bank of four desks meet at a point, and everyone has the same ring tone
Noone here answers anyone else’s call.
Know who is calling before I pick up the phone – so others say “Hello Clive”,
while I wait for them to identify themselves, and they often expect me to just
know – this is not a show-stopper, but it does feel disempowering
Microsoft Lync identifies any known caller so I hear this automatically from
JAWS.
Set the system so that people can see whether I’m in the office, at a meeting,
working from home (etc) before phoning me
Microsoft Lync has a status setting which states this, and I can alter this
easily.
Know the location of the person Iwant to call (as above) – not knowing this
leads to a lot of unnecessary unsuccessful calls – I dial and hear ‘the party
you have called cannot be reached” where a sighted colleague would not waste
time dialling; I’d know they were unavailable, the sited person would know why
and have a good idea of whether to call bak in an hour or the following day
Microsoft Lync shows the status of any contact I care to choose so JAWS reports
whether any contact I choose is offline, busy, available etc.
Put a caller through to a colleague
Noone does this round here.
How much of that is available to you?
Best,
Clive
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
David Boden
Sent: 20 October 2015 14:17
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: Digital phones accesible to sight-impaired people
Clive,
We at Notts County Council use Microsoft Lync, integrated into Outlook as our
phone system. One is expected to use headphones but I have a phone plugged
into a USB port made by a company called PolyCom. I can then answer and make
calls in the old-fashioned way rather than use the on-screen keypad and chase
focus around the screen.
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 20 October 2015 12:58
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [access-uk] Digital phones accesible to sight-impaired people
Hello all,
About a year or so ago, we migrated from an analogue phone system to a digital
replacement system. Much of the functionality relies on touch screens, and
menu-driven options which are silent. In addition, the idea is that your phone
and your desktop work interactively with each other, so you go into the
intranet to log in and out of the system, and to auto-forward your calls to the
phone you are using when off site…except that the icon seen on the front page
when you log into the intranet cannot be heard. It’s not just inaccessible with
speech, it’s totally undetectable.
True or false? “Digital phones” (by which our technician means landline
handsets) “designed for users with sight-impairments are really non-existent
at the moment, which means that if we want to procure a phone for you, it will
likely have to be an old-style analogue phone.” If there are any such handsets,
what are they and wherecan you buy them?
The second question is: how likely is it that Jaws scripting could resolve the
problem of the undetectable icon on the intranet home page?
And finally, does anyone else have any experience of using the phone system we
have installed? We call it ‘unified communications’. The web-based side of the
system is called Openscape, made by the German firm, Siemans.
Clive Lever
Diversity and Equality Officer
Kent County Council
Office: 03000 416388
Email: clive.lever@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:clive.lever@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Kent County Council
Room G37
Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent.
ME14 1XQ
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The following message has been applied automatically, to promote news and
information from Nottinghamshire County Council about events and services:
Planning your wedding? Come along to the Nottingham Wedding Fayre, Sunday 1
November, 11am – 3pm at Welbeck Hall. Free entry, expert advice and specialist
wedding suppliers, let us help make your day!
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Emails and any attachments from Nottinghamshire County Council are
confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender
immediately by replying to the email, and then delete it without making copies
or using it in any other way. Senders and recipients of email should be aware
that, under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act
2000, the contents may have to be disclosed in response to a request.
Although any attachments to the message will have been checked for viruses
before transmission, you are urged to carry out your own virus check before
opening attachments, since the County Council accepts no responsibility for
loss or damage caused by software viruses.
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