I have begun a move to WordPress and a new host for my website and blogs. I am merging my photography blog with Large Print Ideas at the new site, tim o'brien photos. You can find all new and old Large Print Ideas here. I will be customizing this page a bit in the future.
See you there!
I am creating an Amazon Listmania list, Lov Vision Gadgets, for all those nifty little things that I fund unexpectedly helpful as a visually-impaired person. This is not a list for those expensive low vision aids. Instead, I want to highlight items not marketed for the visually impaired, but are still quite useful. The first item on the list is the LED headlamp about which I recently posted.
Suggestions are welcome!
Inspired by a fellow visually-impaired photographer on Flickr (see the image of Sandra on the right), I went to my local outdoors store and bought an LED headlamp, the Tikka Plus, from Petzl. The headlamp is great for reading! I have been using booklights to supplement ambient room lighting for a while now, but have never been satisfied. My eyesight forces me to hold the book quite close, so these booklights are often obstructed by my own forehead. While the headlamp is not perfect, it is a significant advance in convenience and quality.
Personally, I would prefer a more diffuse light and one with more low intensity options. The light is designed to throw a wide beam outdoors or in caves, so the light hitting a page a few inches a way works more like a spotlight. I will experiment with some ways to diffuse the light a bit, possible some opaque paper, bu tI already look geeky enough with it on.
Hopefully, someone will come out with a headlamp designed specifically for the visually impaired, or at least for home honnyists whose need for close up lighting is similar. I have contacted Petzl with the suggestion.
Addendum: I have found a web site that has a headlamp specifically for the visually impaired। I can not say anything more about the lamp or the site as I have had no experience with either. Leave a comment if have any thoughts.
For the visually impaired, Google's (as well as MS and most websites) color scheme is downright bad. Does Google have or could it develop an alternative accessible co or scheme? Not only should it be high contrast, but also light-on-dark. For me, I like yellow-on-black. Firefox and IE allow users to impose color schemes while browsing, but this method changes all text and background to the same two colors. This ruins the full use of each page. For example, in Gmail, the star feature becomes useless.For another, regular text and hyperlinks become indistinguishable. So this solution is only partial. This remains true for other websites and for Windows as well. Both Vista and XP have high-contrast color schemes, but there are both aesthetically unappealing (Visually impaired does not equal aesthetically unaware) and more problematic then helpful. Is this something that Google could/will implement? Is this something a third-party could do well? There are some third party tools (e.g. Firefox's Accessibar), but none are subtle enough to retain the full nature of each web page. Is anyone up for the challenge? Thanks! PS Can someone create a nice Vista/XP theme with accessible and aesthetic colors and font sizesI will relay any useful responses.
The Touch Sight, a concept camera from Samsung, is a great stride forward for visually impaired photographers with little of no vision. Instead of an LCD screen, it has a Braiille display that can present the image in a 3D format. Since it is only a concept, it is not for sale.
I will email the designer (Chueh Lee: chueh.lee@samsung.com), to offer thanks and encouragement. Maybe you have a moment to do so as well.
I just stumbled across this essay, a blind flaneur » Curiosity & The Blind Photographer, on "accessibility in terms of culture and cultural production." A worthwhile read with some magnificent photos. What do you think? What is the link between accessibility and curiosity? Is access no longer a one-way street?
Amartya Sen paved new roads in economic thought when he changed the idea of poverty being absolute to being relative. To translate, Sen simply pointed out that what would have being accounted wealthy a thousand years ago would be accounted poverty today. Sen pushed a participatory (i.e. relative) concept of poverty. Someone is poor if they cannot fully participate in the economy (too poor for a phone, transport or sufficient nutrition for health, e.g.).
I can see clearly a parallel here to accessibility being defined as the ability to participate in society (or culture). Food for thought...
Slashdot is running an interesting piece on a new accessible technology in development; GM Researching Windshields For Old Drivers. It seems like a cool idea that would benefit all drivers, not just older ones.
I really appreciate seeing developments in technology oriented towards accessibility like this one. Maybe one day, this will allow partially sighted folks to drive as well.
To continue the theme of useful Firefox extensions, I also find myself using Image Zoom all the time. This extension adds another option to the context menu (the one that pops up when you use the right click button). With it installed, you have the option to increase the size of the image (i.e. zoom in) right there in the web page. You don't have to copy and paste it into another program or open it in its own page, you can just zoom in right there. Very useful!
In particular, I find it useful when shopping (either in Amazon or eBay) and the accompanying image is just too small to make out. Now I right-click on the image and zoom in. I have also found it useful on those DIY project pages when the illustrations are just too tiny to help.
Some images do not have good resolution, so, when you zoom in, the image 'pixelates' and becomes blurry. But that is not Image Zoom's fault. Give it a try. You will like it.
As I noted in the last post, I have just moved to a Windows Vista machine. I have spent the last few days looking for a decent theme with large fonts and good light-on-dark contrast. There are none!
The Windows high contrast themes, besides being hideous, do not have large text. To check these out, you can either right-click on the desktop and select 'Personalize' and then to 'Windows Colors and Appearance' or go to the 'Ease of Access Center' Control Panel and then to 'Set Up High Contrast'. Either way, you are stuck with an ugly interface with the small font. The 'Ease of Access Center' has an option for changing something called DPI to make the font easier to read, but that only goes so far.
I checked out the trial version of WindowBlinds, but I could not easily find any accessible themes. After a frustrating few minutes with the software, I sent an email to the company who sells it, asking them if WindowBlinds offeres any accessible themes.
In the end, I spent a good chunk of time adjusting all the color and font settings in the 'Windows Colors and Appearance' panel. After a few mistakes and having to start from scratch a few times, I succeeded in creating and saving a minimally acceptable theme. It is not professional in the least. My next job is to figure out how to export and share it with you. For now, email me if you would like a copy.
Do you know of any useful themes? Do you know someone who can create one? Let me know!
Having just moved to a new computer, I have been installing software and making the system more accessible. In trying to find all the little ways to make Firefox more accessible, I ran across this website, AccessFirefox.org. They do a remarkable job of collecting all the Firefox themes ans extensions that help make Firefox a superior browser for ease of use. My favorite so far is Accessibar, which adds a toolbar to the top of the screen that allows you to control the text size and the colors of each website. The large icon themes are also quite useful.
The one item that is missing right now is No Squint. With the latest version of Firefox, No Squint allows you to control the full zoom and text zoom of each website. What is particularly useful is that it remember the particular setting for each site. I find that different websites require different adjustments, depending on the amount of text vs. images and how many columns the site has. Accisbar allows you to adjust font sizes, but is not site specific and has no 'memory'. I will recommend that AccessFirefox add No Squint to their list.
Do you know of any Firefox extensions or Greasemonkey scripts that make Firefox and the web more accessible? Please let me know!
Our local VisionWalk, which raises money for the Foundation Fighting Blindness, is coming up in June. So I am getting serious about organizing my walking team and finding support. I would like to ask that you consider helping out your local walk in some way; with your feet, with your checkbook or even with your camera.
I am organizing Team Eureka for this year's VisionWalk in Raleigh, NC. If you will be in the Triangle area, please consider walking with us. You can join the team, help us raise money or assist us in whatever way you would like.
Thanks! -
I spotted this article, Study explores how blind pedestrians can cross safely, in the Triangle's News & Observer. "Walk faster" does not seem like the best technology for pedestrians, never mind visually impaired ones.
This is what I have being saying for a while now:
“A lot of technology was originally developed for people with severe disabilities,” Mr. Sinclair said. “But these solutions are proving valuable to a much broader range of people.”
Th Times is running a piece, At a Certain Age, Simplicity Sells in High-Tech Gadgets , in today's paper. It is worth the read, though it is light on examples. The article mentions the new Jitterbug, some new GPS units and some desktop concessions.
When are these companies going to realize that a few easy design tweaks can make their products more appealing (and accessible) to a wider audience? More high-contrast visual interfaces, more auditory and tactile cues, more text-to-speech. None of this would be expensive, bue all of it would make products better.
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