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Re: insight re Android accessibility from a blind user

for

From: Jim Allan
Date: Apr 8, 2013 10:28AM

Birkir,
You don't always have access to a keyboard. I have a friend, who is totally
blind, who uses Fleksy (http://fleksy.com/) and is up to 20 words per
minutes on the touch screen keyboard. She says it is a bit pricy $15, but
well worth the speed. I watched, slack jawed in amazement, as she typed a
long sentence and didn't hit any letter correctly. She said the sentence
would read "......" and that is exactly what it said.

Jim


On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I thought I was of the same opinion as you guys, and I am by no means
> an Apple fan (I don't like to commit to one technology or one way of
> doing things)in any way, but once I did pick up the iPhone and
> listened to one podcast on how to use it, it truly became simple for
> me (this was the iPhone 4, tested nothing before that).
> The thing with touchscreen devices and devices like the iPhone, is
> that Apple pretty much had to invent a touchscreen accessible
> interface from scratch, none of us have ever used a touchscreen device
> ever, and we deep down are afraid that it is impossible (well,
> speaking for myself anyway).
> Now, once you pick up an iPhone, turn on Voiceover by triple clicking
> the round home button on the bottom, you really just have to remember
> flicking a finger to the right to go to next item on the page, left to
> go to previous item, double tap to activate an item, press the round
> home button to go back (a bit like the escapte key), and flick up or
> down with a finger to invoke special actions (like delete in the mail
> app).
> There are a few extra gestures that are more advanced, and they take
> time, but this is pretty much all you have to remember initially.
> I do agree that Apple have not done a great job of teaching the
> touchscreen with Voiceover users how to operate the phone, I found
> podcasts from Vision Australia that got me into it, but I do give
> Apple credit for having done pretty well with inventing a pretty
> usable touchscreen interface more or less out of the blue.
> I still can't stand touch typing, use external Bluetooth keyboard,
> braille display or the braille touch app for input most of the time,
> and I am not in any way saying this is perfect, but if you dig up an
> iPhone, the podcast, and just go for an hour of two of experimenting,
> you might be surprised (you might not, I am not saying what worked for
> me will or will not work for someone else, but I do recognize the
> feeling that this possibly cannot work, but then it was quickly
> dismissed when I started playing).
> So definitely don't be shy to give it a shot, and see if you like it.
> No guarantee that you will or you should, but you might.
> Cheers
> -B
> P.s. just to reiterate it, I don't want to be associated with
> everything is so wonderful from Apple crowd. This is not perfect and I
> can see how people have issues with their overly tight control over
> their interface (for one thing I have, along with their dealers in
> Iceland, been trying to get Apple to install an Icelandic TTS voice on
> their iOS line of devices for years .. they do not allow third party
> TTS apps except inside applications, but so far with absolutely no
> feedback, success or glimpse of hope, and it irritates me to no end
> that a company assumes this tight a control over its interface, making
> it unusable to a whole nation).
>
> On 4/7/13, Lucy Greco < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> > Thanks for the assurance that it's not just me smile I hate some of
> these
> > new devices.
> >
> > Lucia Greco
> > Web Access Analyst
> > IST-Campus Technology Services
> > University of California, Berkeley
> > (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> > http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> > Follow me on twitter @accessaces
> >
> >
> >