Carol, I totally agree with what you said here.
In my particular case, having lost my site at the age of 40, it has been
a very steep learning curve for me for everything.
It has not been helped by the fact that I have limited sensation in my
fingers, so braille was never an option for me. Nor is the tactic
feedback on Android/IOS phones, which means that these are not a
feasible option for me either. My fingers also find tapping difficult,
so that is another difficulty for me.
I solved my phone problem by purchasing a Telorion phone, the original
Samsung 4. I was disappointed that this option wasn't included in
Steve's article as I can't be the only one with sensory problems.
I am not technically savvy, and it takes me a while to learn new things.
But had I been starting out from scratch, I'm afraid Steve's article
would have left me none the wiser and feeling dejected that I couldn't
join in the technology revolution because of the limitations I have.
Cheers
CJ
On 22/08/2016 17:58, Carol Pearson (Redacted sender carol.pearson29 for
DMARC) wrote:
Well, I'm just piggy-backing on this one as I didn't get round to
reading it earlier.
Yes, it was a useful article for those who need to know, but it didn't
give too much, which would have left the average "man in the street"
totally baffled! ...
I personally think that (because you are technically very savvy and love
playing with something new) you're doing great yourself, but for every
one person who does really well with their Accessible solutions, there
are others who don't or just can't get where they need to be. The
reasons for this include but are not limited to:
1) The person's starting point and ability to learn has a
considerable bearing on the ultimate result of his/her achievements with
the ever-changing accessable products available.
2) Insufficient care is often not taken by those selling equipment
and/or those assessing and recommending what an individual should use.
(Of course, it can be argued that some just buy for the sake of it and
are not able to manage that which appealed so much to them at the time!)
3) Technology is changing so fast that people get to a "stop" point
when they just can't learn any more ....
4) The amount of teaching required is not given and therefore
sometimes/quite often - - those of us struggling a bit (or a lot) are
therefore limited by what they are able to learn for themselves. This
isn't always sufficient ...
And so the list could go on ...
I am not convinced that Braille has got where it really needs to be for
most folk. After all, who wants to couple learning of a phone or tablet
with a Braille display, the intricasies of learning the differences that
BrailleBack makes to an already learned (learning) TalkBack system, or
alternatively, struggling with corrections that they may have to make
after dictation.
Finally, for this post, Coping with those things that go wrong and
without sight are just either difficult, extremely difficult and
time-consuming or just impossible to sort!
Can we go back 50 years? No, no, I don't think so!
However, it's good to get away from the technology sometimes and just
take a break - so I'll do that right now!
Well done though, Steve, on your concise and useful contribution.
Carol P
