Gary,

Why not check out Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
They have a huge ongoing project on telephone accessibility.  The URL is
http://trace.wisc.edu.

Hope this helps.


Matt Conaway

On Sun, 8 Jul 2001, Gary Peterson wrote:

> Hello Listers,
>
> I work as a Consumer Advocate with the San Andreas Regional
> Center in California.  I am totally blind and have Cerebral Palsy
> both from birth.  I use an electric wheelchair with assistants.
> I have reasonably good use of my hands and the rest of my upper
> body.
>
> The majority of my time is spent out in the field traveling in my
> van.  My biggest challenge is being able to use my cell phone
> totally independent of others.  Right now, I have to depend on my
> staff to place all my calls for me because   The buttons are way
> to small with very little spacing in between.  Although my
> overall spasticity is relatively mild, there are lots of times
> when I end up losing calls while in the process of  being handed
> the phone.  My hand jumps,  and I end up unintentionally hitting
> 1 or more buttons.  Occasionally I even loose the phone
> altogether.
>
> The mottle is a Motorola 02044  I think it may be from a group of
> phones that the agency has recycled.  From looking at phones of
> colleagues and friends, the brand doesn't seem to matter.  They
> all seem to have the same draw backs across the bored.
>
> The other issue for me is finding a service provider with a voice
> menuing option.  Others who are totally blind and use cell phones
> pagers etc, have told me they all face the same issue of   having
> to rely on others to do their programming for them.
>
> So my question would be what are my alternatives here?  Is this
> an issue for lots of you out there?  Any recommendations of web
> sites or groups addressing these issues?  Not only am I trying to
> resolve these issues on a work level, but somewhere down the
> road, I would like my own cell phone  and or pager.  However if
> the technology is truly as limited as it appears, I don't want to
> make the investment at this time.
>
> Please feel free to pass this along to as many sources as you
> think might be of help here.  If there's something better out
> there,  I would like to be able to go to my agency with it ASAP.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Gary Peterson
>