Let me just remind everyone, not every product that comes to market is accessible to all sighted people either. So it is important to keep giving feedback to developers, manufacturers, and inventers. It is not productive to be so myopic in our thinking. We are better served to think in terms of how accessibility can be integrated into products that are mainstream such as iPhone, Android phones, and some whirlpool and GE appliances. FYI, I was recently shopping for a dryer and found a whole new crop of laundry appliances with smooth touch screens.
-----Original Message-----
From: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Pietruk
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2014 1:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VICUG-L] From My Blog/My response to the braille Monitor Article About the iPhone
e
Amen to what you say. And yes, what you say certainly isn't what blind
people want to hear these days; but it is the honest truth.
When I was in high school and college in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
my parents (and even teachers) reminded me that the world didn't have to
adapt to me but I to it. And if I wanted to be a success at whatever I
did, I had to do it better than the average sighted person.
This business of everything has to be made usable by a blind person is
impossible to achieve. When people design things, they design things to
meet a specific need and if it doesn't work for everyone -- well that's
the way it goes. You cannot create something that everyone can use
equally; and if everything that had to be equally usable, few (if any) new
things would come onto the market.
That mentality suggests that everything must be somehow regulated by some
higher authority; and, frankly, there is too much regulation already --
and the lives of the average blind person haven't been made all that much
better by it.
And, frankly, what we are losing is the realization by the average blind
person that improvisation and experimenting is a key to a blind person
succeeding. And that's what those who succeed in the sighted everyday
world have had to do.
Is that fare? Probably not. But no one ever said that life is fare; and
those who reach that higher rung forget fairness and just do what they
have to do.
They may not always succeed; but then again there are no guarantees on
that either.
And your point that most improvements in the lives of blind people come
from innovations made by the blind themselves or companies that serve us.
Very little of it comes from government actions and organizations making
demands.
That's not what the peanut gallery wants to hear -- I understand that --
but then again learning how to survive and improvise was one of the
lessons I was taught in school.
Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.
Frederick W Faber, 19th century English hymn writer and theologian
On Sun, 8 Jun 2014, Catherine Getchell wrote:
> Then so do cars and roadways. I say that just to make the point that
> not everything in the world is blind friendly. If we hope it will be
> some day, or expect it to be, we're going to constantly be
> disappointed. Sighted people invent stuff that sighted people can use
> with their vision, end of story. There's no law that requires that
> every device be accessible to us. The only way we can ensure that all
> technology is accessible is for blind people to corner the market on
> inventing technology and then figure out a way to make products we
> develop both be user friendly for us and appealing to sighted people.
> I realize that's not a popular opinion in the blind community.
>
> On 6/8/14, Claude Everett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > I mean fully accessible, not something like readily accessible, Is that
> > satisfactory?
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Claude Everett
> > "Every one has a disability, Some, are more aware of it than others."
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Hilbert Poehlman
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2014 8:25 AM
> > To: Claude Everett
> > Cc: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [VICUG-L] From My Blog/My response to the braille Monitor
> > Article About the iPhone
> >
> > Please define accessible
> >
> > -- Jonnie Appleseed with his Hands-On Technolog(eye)s touching the internet
> > Reducing technologys' disabilities one byte at a time
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jun 7, 2014, at 1:34 AM, Claude Everett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > Then all these touch screen devices need to be completely accessible to the
> > blind and to other persons with other disabilities.
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Claude Everett
> > "Every one has a disability, Some, are more aware of it than others."
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Chittenden
> > Sent: Friday, June 06, 2014 6:44 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [VICUG-L] From My Blog/My response to the braille Monitor
> > Article About the iPhone
> >
> > No matter how much a few people complain, as with GUI replacing DOS, the
> > touchscreen will replace the non-active screen and physical buttons.
> >
> > In every sector studied, systems / kiosks / devices with touchscreen
> > displays and well-designed user interfaces reduce errors and customer
> > service calls from 15%-20% to 3%-5% as compared with non-interactive
> > displays coupled with physical controls such as buttons. In addition, as of
> > 2011, it is now less expensive for manufacturers to purchase touchscreen
> > displays than non-interactive displays with physical controls.
> >
> > David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
> > Email: [log in to unmask]
> > Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> >> On 6 Jun 2014, at 8:26, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> >>
> >> David,
> >>
> >> You make some really good points about Mr. Chong's article. But I also
> >> agree with Christopher when he says he did not find it nearly so
> > objectionable.
> >>
> >> There are plainly many folks who just have trouble with some of these
> >> things, like the IPhone, and the Android phone.
> >> I may or may not be one of them.
> >>
> >> Personally, I am trying to be objective about this whole era we are
> >> finding ourselves in, with the new technology as to the telephone. I
> >> am with my first ever Android device about a month now. I do not have
> >> to be good all at once with it, and am learning. And while there are
> >> amazing things about it, as a phone, my old clamshell flip phone is
> >> hands down more convenient to just pull out from my pocket and place
> >> my call. Trouble is the display is completely inaccessible, but the
> >> voice dialing (described in an earlier post I made) is not on any
> >> other
> > phone yet.
> >>
> >> A while back you were reminiscing about the old DOS computers, before
> >> Windows and Macs took over. I sort of liken this revolution to that
> >> time. I really got pretty confident using DOS. Then everything flipped
> >> into GUI land, and we all had to get our mouse pointer cursors and
> >> what
> > not.
> >>
> >> But on another aspect, it is the social aspects of these things that
> >> bothers me. No one is talking to one another anymore. People are on
> >> the street, just about running me over as I am walking with a cane,
> >> sometimes I think they are saying something to me, but no, they are
> >> walking right up to and around me, preoccupied with themselves,
> >> talking on their phones. And for that matter, the same bunch of folks
> >> might well be going to run one of us over as they drive an automobile,
> >> or even a bicycle while being inattentive with the vehicle they are
> > supposed to be in control of.
> >>
> >> I sort of really miss the phone booth.
> >> I mean, now where do I have to go to change in to my Superman costume!
> >> So yes, I just get cranky. Maybe it is being 61 years of age, and
> >> wondering when the learning curve will start to straighten me out.
> >>
> >> And when I am in a bit of a foul mood about the touch screen, I ask
> >> myself, how can it be that the simple buttons such as we have on
> >> devices like the Humanware Victor Stream or any number of other real
> >> hardware devices that uses real buttons, really logically not be a
> >> better idea than this touch screen gesture navigation, so called
> > innovation? I want not to have to fight with a communication device.
> >>
> >> Plus, have you read how much harm has come from the exploitation to
> > acquire the rare elements to make touch screen technology? Somewhere in the
> > Congo in Africa, I think, thousands of indigenous peoples moved or assailed
> > to get this material. Makes me feel kind of guilty even holding the thing.
> >>
> >> Sorry for such a long piece. But I really welcome the debate and the
> >> many
> > points I get to be hearing through this discussion group.
> >>
> >> This is probably some sort of transitional period.
> >> I look for the joy, and I look for what I want. I guess we all do.
> >> I hope that some of this makes some sense to someone.
> >>
> >> Rik James
> >>
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