[access-uk] FW: Re: Digital phones accesible to sight-impaired people

  • From: "John Farley" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "john_farley" for DMARC)
  • To: "access uk" <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2015 12:30:01 +0100

Hello Clive,
Please take a look at Accessaphone.com for a potential solution to your
telephony needs.

It should cover most of your requirements.

It is based in the USA, but there is a UK dealer for it.




Regards, John


From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 11:39 AM
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:
· 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
· 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
· Change the phone settings back to the default when I return to the
office
· 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
· 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
· Set the system so that people can see whether I’m in the office, at a
meeting, working from home (etc) before phoning me
· Knowthe 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
Put a caller through to a colleague

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] On Behalf Of
Clive.Lever@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 20 October 2015 12:58
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; 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


Kent County Council
Room G37
Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent.
ME14 1XQ

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