Thanks Penny. Just about the time I think I know everything, I learn
something new.
Nearly all of our clients either have internet, or have family or
friends who do. This has been a dramatic change from when Cathy and
I first began serving older blind and low vision folks, some 21 years
ago. Back then most older people still thought in terms of writing a
letter, or telephoning friends. The typewriter was still a fixture in
their den, and they struggled to understand the wonders of the four
track Talking Book machines. In today's world the internet is where
it's at. This is one reason we begin and encourage support groups.
Not only do folks share information, they share their time. Those who
still can use computers assist those who can no longer do so. Family
friends who are already used to being in the role of helper, often
take on other folks in the group. My hope is that this
interconnection within the older population will continue to flourish
so that eventually we seniors can stand together and gain the long
overdue services we need in order to maintain quality of life. I look
forward to the day when computers can be voice activated, easily, and
all functions are voice active. But there will always be those with
additional issues to blindness. Hearing is number one among secondary
disabilities, at times outweighing vision loss. Second is short term
memory issues. It doesn't matter how simple the instruction is, if
the next day the blind person can't remember to say, "Computer, on!"
We've tried the Moshi clock with several clients who were unable to
remember how to set and change settings on their audio clocks. But
the commands must be exact. So many of our clients were raised to be
polite, so they say, "Hello Moshi, please tell me the time." Moshi
replies, "I'm sorry, I don't understand your command." We go over and
over the simple commands, but even though we leave believing that they
have them well in their mind, within days, when we contact them for a
progress report, they tell us that they can't use that clock.
Until we arrive in this place ourselves, we really don't get it. At
80, and still being relatively sharp mentally, I see the writing on
the wall. I am following my mother's family tradition of forgetting
words, names and places that I could rattle off some years back. My
dad was razor sharp mentally, until the day he died at 88. But
Mother, a Master Gardener, would tell Cathy, "I used to know the name
of that plant, but it doesn't even come to me anymore."
It took us weeks of work to finally get Cathy's mother to use a cell
phone. She will be 90 on her next birthday. Over and over we would
go. Having her practice all the functions she would need in order to
get a call out. Even now after a couple of years, she is just as apt
to punch the wrong button when trying to answer her phone. Then she
attempts to figure out what she's done. Cathy has spent hours
unraveling the messes her mother has made. And this lady still has
good vision.
So no matter how uncomplicated and easy to operate, the Talking Book
Player will never be accessible to everyone. We will always need a
strong support network to assist some folks to this wonderful service.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/17/15, Penny Reeder <penny.reeder@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for your additional suggestions, Miriam, and for the feedback
from everyone. Perhaps you all don't know it, but there are YouTube
videos online to assist people with learning to use the NLS player.
Now, before you all yell at me, yes, I know there are still people who
don't go online and people who don't have access to computers, but
most of these folks have family members who do spend lots of time
online, via smart phones, tablets, and computers, so if the word can
be spread more comprehensively, perhaps these instructional videos can
come in handy for helping people to learn and to remember how to use
the player.
Penny
On 11/14/15, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 11/14/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Just in case Penny is appointed to that committee tasked with makingA good idea. A large yellow letter would help many of our clients.
suggestions for redesigning the player:
I began thinking about what Frank said about the elderly sending back
the
machines because they found them too difficult, and about the teaching
that
Carl and Cathy do with their clients to help them use the machines, and
two
things came to mind. 1. Elderly people are often forgetful. 2. The newly
blinded elderly usually have some vision and they are accustomed to
depending on their vision. Carl mentioned emphasizing the red color of
the
power button, and the green color of the play button. When I first got
the
machine, I didn't depend on the key describer mode to remind me what the
buttons were. I depended on the braille letter next to each button and
set
of arrows until I became familiar with the player. The newly blind
elderly
don't use braille, but they're not going to take the cartridge out of
the
machine and press the keys each time they need to know what they are. So
it
would be a really good idea to put a large yellow letter next to each
control in addition to the braille letter. Bright yellow is the easiest
color to see and it is a good contrast with the dark gray of the
machine.
Some help would still be necessary and there isn't room for an entire
word
Despite efforts to teach them to rely on touch to identify the keys on
the player, they get their noses right down on the player, trying to
sight read the Braille dots.
Carl> to be written in large enough print for people to see it. But the S
for
speed and the V for volume, for example, just as we have in braille,
would
be helpful.
Miriam
