5 Exciting Tech Innovations for the Blind in 2022 | #AdaptingSightPodcast #1

it can be very frustrating dealing with technology that's not designed for people like me in the blind Community but in 2022 it was very exciting to see some pretty cool new and creative Innovations in accessibility and Technology For the Blind Community I want to talk through some of those things and explain what I found exciting and some lessons that can be learned for other companies some tech to look out for and just hopefully some interesting conversations so that hopefully in 2023 we can continue to see more and more products be made more accessible and also products intentionally designed to help the blind Community apple is definitely a company that sets the bar for accessibility and shows what's possible with making technologies that everybody uses accessible for all people with disabilities so one of the coolest features that I found this year with my iPhone was the fact that I could now be able to interact with text within images with voiceover in the past when I used voiceover which is a screen reader built into my phone I can read text for example in text messages or text on a website or an email but if that text is in an image I'm not able to rely on it I either have to depend on there hopefully being alt text in the image to describe it maybe a description below or what has been cool recently is the auto generated kind of explanation of what that image is which is exciting but still not always good enough for text and images but this year with some new iOS updates if I get a any picture sent to me for example that is someone took a photo of some text or a screenshot of a social media post I can now read through that with voiceover and easily just use the voiceover rotor in select image Explorer and interact with that text just like you would with any text on a website or an email what's really crazy is that this even works for handwriting at times and is very impressive because man I do not like having to zoom in and use the vision I do have to try to read handwriting it makes things a lot easier and can be really helpful if you're taking a picture of a food or prescription label and being able to read through some details on that it can be helpful for if someone takes a photo of some like a page of text that they typed out whatever it might be it just makes things a lot quicker especially if I'm in a group conversation and people are talking about something that has text in a photo I'm able to follow along much faster and it's really impressive and nice to have this technology and what's interesting is that many screen readers will normally rely on and just interact with the HTML of the web page or the structure of a mobile app and this is very exciting just to see a different approach in layer to using some newer Technologies to be able to not just rely on the text that's there but scan and discover the text that is there it's almost like a workaround for many different examples of websites or products that may have uh different types of images for example maybe a learning platform has a bunch of images of things that have text in it and if it's not set up with the right alt text which would be related to the HTML and code of the program then you can't really follow along so having these unique solutions that are almost like a workaround it's not relying on the developer of the website or the application to make it accessible it uses a software that can in certain ways make almost anything accessible but it's not something that should be relied on it should ideally be the software should the the screen reader software should be accessible and have these features that can create workarounds but ideally the products are designed accessibly as well but I found this feature incredibly useful to have and also this technology also has other implications to where if I'm using the magnifier app on my phone and it can read out loud the text that may be in frame what's pretty crazy is that I was at a Street crossing and held my phone up and uh it was able to recognize the text on the street sign across the street and I wasn't even trying to like point it at it zoom in on it it just recognized it and I found that to be super helpful for transportation which is pretty crazy that it's able to see that and I think this goes to also say that what's been really exciting is just the better camera technology as well speaking of iPhones because I've been able to uh really much better rely on the magnification of the camera for example when I have the magnifier app I can way more easily zoom in on things and be able to see the detail to read the text or figure out um you know a new piece of tech that I'm unboxing I need to see okay where does this where is the um where does it say this or that to to follow the instructions on it on it when setting it up um and that's really cool because a lot of people see nice new camera to take good photos and I think that's awesome because I like taking the nice photos and the nice videos and oh it's great that there's low light performance but what's really cool is that they decide in unintentional effects at times is that it's way easier to magnify on things because it can focus better I don't need as much light when zooming in and focus trying to focus on something and having these improvements go a long way because sometimes I feel weird where I'm like oh my gosh I got the newest latest greatest nicest iPhone am I just being flashy but it's like no there's a lot of features in it that I rely on daily and to many people would make a very marginal difference in their life but certain features for me can help improve productivity and work with just entertainment and day-to-day life whatever it might be so it just helps remind me that uh you know even if it's the nicest coolest new thing if it has those differences that are going to make a big impact on your life for a person with a disability it's definitely worth it one of the next exciting accessibility Innovations of 2022 was probably seeing how Sony brought screen reader functions to their a74 camera this is pretty crazy because they took what so many people think is such a visual tool which it is in many ways but brought features of a screen reader to the menu system on the camera which basically means that you can use the arrow keys just like anybody else would to navigate through the menu but it's going to read out loud the items that are in the menu which is super cool and exciting because for me when I use cameras like I'm filming this video on right now it can be really hard to use and navigate through the menu because no matter how close I look I can't see or read the text on the screen but with these new features uh it's still definitely a beta version and being figured out but people who are blind are able to hear the features in the menu system and eventually this I assume these features would evolve into as you change your shutter speed or your aperture it's going to be reading those out loud as well um I do think that's super duper exciting I've gotten into cameras since my vision loss as a way to help clearly capture things around me and be able to share that perspective with others and at first I thought this was like super ironic because oh I was the visually impaired person be into something that's so visual but the more and more I got into it I thought it made sense like if you can't see well why wouldn't you use a tool that can see well and then the better I I got at this I thought you know I feel like it's not just me that would like this I feel like camera should be made even more accessible because in so many ways they are and continuing to improve these features would allow more people to capture sight and experience this not just for themselves but to share it with other people so it's amazing to see these improvements that Sony is trying to make plus there's other features of this camera that help make it accessible the autofocus technology is getting so much better in cameras because one of the hardest things for me to do is to make sure focus is Right mostly if I had to rely on manual focus or had a really bad lens but with how good autofocus is these days it's really nice that I'm able to not have to think about it that much and in the a74 the autofocus is very very good and so that's one less thing to have to think about for someone who has some level of a visual impairment that isn't able to see the focus as well also they have cool features like the buttons have different uh like tactile distinguishes just tactile ways to distinguish them and you're able to more easily differentiate them when uh which I think is another feature that is cool for anybody because if you're holding up the camera looking through the viewfinder you're not looking at the buttons that you're trying to press to adjust different settings so the more that you could anybody could be more tactile is a great thing and it's a super exciting way where when you make your products more accessible for people with disabilities there's gonna be ways that it's going to benefit everybody and make just a better experience overall and you'll find innovative solutions that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise and I think the Sony a74 becoming more accessible is really exciting um and I think it's also a really cool area where companies like Sony and also um even Apple in certain ways have done they're able to release beta versions of accessibility features and I think a lot of large tech companies you don't always see these Super Beta features that we wait till they're they could wait till they're very polished and and ready um but I think it's it's a place where the the progress should be applauded and um is very cool that they're able to have a beta put it out there get feedback um I think is is amazing the next area of accessibility that I found to be really cool to see some progress in in 2022 was with Fiverr um I got to be a part of a project done with open inclusion to help make Fiverr their freelancing platform more accessible for people with disabilities I thought this was super exciting because I have a big passion for uh seeing how employment can be made more accessible for people with disabilities especially the blind community and Fiverr is a really cool way for anybody to get a flexible employment opportunities by freelancing any skills that they have online and so it was really exciting to help Fiverr with figuring out okay how could you help train and onboard people with disabilities how could you then make their platform more accessible what are the unique challenges that people may face and it was a really cool project to see you know it was really the beginning of this new adventure for the company and uh it's something that you know you you should expect there to be challenges um and expect there to be a certain accessibility issues that you're not sure how to figure out um but again it's it's super cool to see that it's all about just making that progress and also realizing that it's really cool to set up this kind of entrepreneurial experience for some people but it's also not going to work for everybody and when designing any program project application it's important to know who you're designing for especially keeping disabilities in mind and realizing that sometimes you will have to exclude people but it's to best include in design for those who you do want to help for example Fiverr would work great for a person with a disability that has entrepreneurial spirit that needs a flexible work for just it may be because their health or the benefits that they're receiving there's a lot of different factors but for someone who wants to have a more steady income and be a part of a larger team I it wouldn't maybe be the best opportunity but I think it's more so about creating all sorts of different opportunities that people with disabilities can have just like so many other people in the general population do but when things are made accessible you're kind of constrained to the paths that you may choose For Better or For Worse so it was very cool to see if I were doing this um I think it's cool too since Fiverr is a very creative platform and it was exciting to see other people's with disabilities that were into different creative Outlets that you wouldn't guess other vision impaired people that were like me into video editing and just good to like learn from other people and it will be cool to see how more companies will want to embrace inclusion and work with different types of disabilities to gain different perspectives and I think using Fiverr is a great way to start experiencing that and hiring some of the people that are part of fiverr's Empower program which is what it's called I think is is a very good way to help at times de-risk people hiring people with disabilities and I say de-risk not that it should be a risky thing but um whenever you're doing something new people could feel like they're taking a risk or a chance on something so anyway to remove friction from that process I think is is great so I think that is is another good benefit for companies in um it will be cool to see the example that Fiverr can help set for other Industries to realize that being more inclusive shouldn't just be a a feature or something to bring brag about or show the good that you're doing it should just be something that everyone thinks about and when you're creating tools for a very wide variety of people you should definitely be thinking about different disability types and uh especially how that can be an asset to improve the design of what you're making the this of your software or the customer experience the support there's a lot of different takeaways and things to learn from it so it was a very cool experience to have there were a lot of exciting development and accessibility but probably what got me most excited was learning about collusive I first learned about collusive at the CSUN assistive technology conference I went to back in March I read a paragraph about what they were doing online and was quickly sold just hearing about how they're helping provide training to the blind Community to remove barriers to employment I was like this is amazing thing I wish I had something like this years ago at the start of my vision loss and I quickly wanted to learn more long story short I've ended up working with them and now in full time with clusive doing marketing but I still want to share just how excited I am on what inclusive is doing and probably the coolest thing that I want to share with others is that clusive has developed a free mobile app to provide free training with a variety of Occupational training courses some modules from our full paid courses and to help learn Gmail and Outlook with jaws and there will continue to be added and updated other content there but it's super duper exciting because I have found when trying to learn any assistive technology it's hard to find good training you have to look all sorts of different places if it even is somewhere and to be able to have an app on your phone to start learning things and having high quality training from assistive technology users that are specialists in this area it's really really cool and a special thing because technology can be very very frustrating as someone who's blind and it can also be one of your best friends because it allows you to do so so much and allows you to do the things that you thought you weren't able to do and keep up in education and employment and hobbies and so much more and so to have training that is designed for the blind community in an accessible way and in ways that's like fun and enjoyable even at times I think it's super cool and it's something I want everybody to know about because I think that having the right education in the right areas and teaching towards the right skills is what helps Empower and lead to employment or college or whatever skills you're looking to gain as someone who is blind or recently dealing with vision loss whatever that may be and I think what inclusive is doing just by you know creating uh their learning platform that is fully accessible for all the full courses uh is super cool because there's so many places that I go in my life that aren't designed for me in this digital world that we live work and play in and when I can go to a place that is designed for me or and with me in mind and uh it's really special especially when the company incorporates people with disabilities throughout the whole process of Designing and developing any new product it's really cool and something to have there be an example set for in other companies to incorporate people with disabilities throughout their development process but you can find the collusive mobile app on the IOS app store on any Apple iPhone and download it for free start learning and stand by for more content there and I really hope that can help a lot of people start their Learning Journey with assistive technology get over some of those barriers but most importantly it's just to help with getting the occupational Training those job skills which is the most important part how are you applying your technology and learning those other skills to gain employment and then a piece of technology that a lot of people have been talking about recently has been chat GPT but I haven't heard many people talk about how does this affect people who are blind or other people with disabilities and I think it could be a very powerful tool in many ways let me explain so chat GPT for those of you who don't know is basically this artificial intelligence tool where you can type in any question that you have and it'll come up with a very good answer there are limitations to how much it knows and how accurate it is in certain ways it's similar to Google to where you can ask it a specific question like give me a 500 word summary of the American Revolution and it will it'll give you a good summary and that condensed amount of time or in other ways you can use it to create something you could say uh create a five paragraph summary of the American Revolution um don't think you can start using this to do your homework for you but just trying to give examples of how this works but some of the areas that I think this is really cool um to help give a better idea of this and this is also something you just have to test out yourself to explore is I don't like to edit like Word documents for grammar and spelling mistakes but with chat gbt I can say fix the grammar and spelling in and then put quotes and put paste in the text and it will fix all the spelling and grammar mistakes and then I could even say like make that sound better for um or just make the sentence structure better make that sound better and more persuasive or make that better for a social media caption whatever it might be and it'll help generate different ideas and I think this is really cool to wear it can be used as a tool to create ideas a lot of people can be afraid that oh it's just creating content and stealing creativity but for me I can find it very helpful if I have to come up with some text rather than staring at a blank screen I can ask for an idea or I could type out my idea I have for let's say a social media caption and then I could say like say it a different way say it in a way that's more funny whatever that may be uh it helps come up with different ideas especially when I don't love using a screen reader on my computer or magnification to edit that text it's really nice to have something that's gonna Just Adjust things for me and again be used as a tool not something that I'm relying on to create work but it's you know it's it's something I can rely on that can assist in the process of creating content or whatever that might be you could also when writing an email be like uh hey just make this email sound more friendly which can be helpful or again fixed the errors that are in this email and uh there's always like a new way that I'm finding out about how to use it um you know if I need to shorten something or if I need to be like how many words are in this um it can be really helpful and especially when uh there's a lot there can be a variety of tasks that I do that can take longer when on my computer and if it could help speed up my workflow you know I think that's very exciting to have something that's going to help me be more efficient plus I feel like the screen reader accessibility of the application is pretty good which is really nice to have also sometimes it can be annoying to Google search things and find the right answer to what I might be looking for and to be able to ask a very specific question and get a short answer is really helpful and cuts down time whether you know sometimes I can try to look up what a certain shortcut key is for my screen reader or a shortcut key just for any basic function on my computer you know this is an area where sometimes it's right sometimes it's wrong but for simple answers it's much nicer to get that straight answer really quick from chat GPT versus type it in Google figuring out which of the links is best to click on and then find it within that link it's it's very similar to when you search something on Google and get that featured snippet which is that little paragraph that appears at the very top sometimes it's really nice just to get that very direct answer there's lots of limitations to chat GPT like with any tool but it's very new and I just think it's an exciting thing to bring up about in the conversation of accessibility because it's so hopefully something that people will be keeping in mind who are developing this but more so the users of it should be keeping in mind how can this be a tool that more people can use so those are just a couple of things I found to be really exciting develop developments and Innovations in accessibility in 2022 and I hope that we can continue to see progress in these areas can learn from what other companies are doing and that they can set a precedence for others to have better examples of how to make this digital world we live in more accessible because it still really is a new frontier in many ways it is something that they're are examples of but man there needs to be a lot more and the more examples in the more companies that really Embrace accessibility I don't want to say the easier it will be but um or even more simple but just the better the process could go uh because you know it's one thing to have all sorts of websites try to be more accessible and it's another when the company that is in charge of hosting and creating those websites creates an infrastructure of accessibility so that when websites are built they're already quite accessible from the get-go so having more of these larger organizations that support other organizations that create products that all of us use the more they Implement and learn about accessibility it's going to have a huge impact on most importantly people with disabilities there are opportunities in education in employment and and just being more involved with Society because I think that's really what accessibility is all about and can sometimes be forgotten and is why people with disabilities need to be Champion excess champ Champion championing accessibility in leading that charge so that we can all remember the impact this has on many people's lives because for me it's had an absolute tremendous impact and this is only just the beginning so I hope you're able to learn something from that if you have any questions on it feel free to comment and let me know but thank you so much for listening and stay tuned for future adapting site shows

2023-01-17 01:25

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