Category: Let's talk
, I've noticed many blind people have an extremely bad habit when it comes to access technology. Many come into the idea of a new product or a new way to get things done basing their expectations off only the Negative, and generally doing everything they can to justify things staying the same. Methods of attack usually take the form of overdramatizing the flaws, and directing personal attacks at the users of said products or systems. Though the fact is, everything changes, and if we don't find ways to keep up with change, we’re going to be left behind. It’s just that simple. So rather than picking up a product and approaching it threw preconceptions, people need to learn how to take a step back and really get to know a product for what it is, not what they believe it should be, not what they've predefined it would be, but what it is. In the end, I think this is the reason so many assistive technology devices never get the user base they could, leaving innovation to be achieved in baby steps over the course of years. Look at our "note takers" and ask yourself if you believe they truly are equal to what others have access to in this day and age. Look at countless devices we have, and ask you if they really are at their peak. How much of this is just the blind being complacent and how much of it is the blind being obstinate as a hole remains a mystery that we’ll probably never know the answer to, however I still find the above point valid to quite an extent.
Yes, I know much of what was stated above brims with generalization, but sadly many blind people have shown me over the course of time that much of what I say here applies to a good group, if not a majority. Saddest of all, it seems to be this over vocal minority holding everyone back, preventing innovation for all. Many seem to have this idea that if a product isn’t good for them, its surely not going to be good for anyone else. Leading me to wonder just how such a counterproductive philosophy could be so often used in a community this small.
In my opinion, the logical approach would be to encourage the innovation and progression, for all users. It matters not if some like touch screens and some like buttons, or if one likes one note taking device or operating system over another. As a hole, it’s quite possible that multiple categories of products could be developed to meet the needs of all, if only people took a step back, and considered the needs of more than just themselves.
I know that just wishing for something like this in the technology space would require miracle enough, but couldn’t we extend this same philosophy to methods of travel, daily living and so much more? In my humble opinion, I see no need for all the hatred and bigotry this community seems to lash out at itself with. In short, I advocate a position of tolerance, if not unification. Much more could be gained if those among us all felt free to share their opinions, ideals and philosophies in constructive ways, rather than childishly lashing out at others that don’t conform to their ideals. Just think about it, hundreds of new methods could emerge, putting people in a greater position to mix and match until they’ve created their perfect workflow for life. It would be really nice if more people felt compelled to spread the knowledge, not the hate.
Justa line of my thinking transcribed to page,
Take it for what it’s worth.
P.s
The above piece neither seeks to ignore or imply that the “Sighted community” or any other community lacks this problem. Nor is their a specific wish to imply that the blind community has this problem in any greater excess than any other, Rather it was written with the blind in mind, as a focus, due to the smaller nature of the “blind community” as a hole, gaining to an extent the ability to extrapolate a potential impact of said actions on a smaller more relevant scale. Based on my own perceptions of the situation as a hole
I'll venture to guess that people are afraid of change whether they admit it or not...so instead of evaluating technology as it comes, they'd much rather stick with what they have, and complain just for the sake of complaining.
in saying that, thanks for posting such a topic; maybe it'll get people to at least think about their actions/the ways they perceive things.
Most people make purchase decisions based on what they need: people don't buy a device to translate perceptions, but to get things done. Someday, for example, the iPhone will be so entrenched nobody will want to buy another device because they have so many iPhone apps right now that do their work, assist with productivity and the like. What post 1 implies may someday be a reality when connectivity and the cloud are ubiquitous - you sign into one account in one place and there's your data / apps / nothing ever gets lost.
But for now it sounds like an idealistic illusion, cute in its own way if you will, but nothing more.
People don't get a device for the device's sake: they get one because of what it *does*. If it requires an enormous paradigm shift, well a question comes in: Do I have time to learn the new paradigm? Should I wait till I go on vacation and then get one so I can learn to use it before I return to work / school? How well does this device interface with all the apps at work / school? When it's your own money and your over 18 / caring for yourself and others, these are the real question a massive majority of people are asking. I'm sure blind are no different.
As to limited innovation: well, the hardware isn't that disposable. Somebody pays $6000 that's an enormous amount of cash to sink into a device, so they will stick with it because of the investment. Again, over 18 / self-sufficient understand this. The new devices are a lot more disposable, and with cloudsync - Android syncs with gmail, Apple (if you buy into the subscription) syncs with MobileMe. So you sinc a few hundred into the device, a couple years go by, it's easier to conceive of sinking more money into a new device.
The best bubble is a burst one.
One thing that really annoys me is when people get criticized for not going with the most expensive computer/phone out there. I think accessible phones, and the more fancy phones are awesome, but is it that big a deal that I have a cheap, prepaid phone in the meantime. There's nothing wrong with making a suggestion, and I welcome them, but if a certain product works best for a certain person, isn't that enough?
Leo, I agree with your points, and as an over 18 year old student I see where you're comeing from. But I think you missed the over all point I was making. People tend to arive at odd conclusions, simply because they failed to step back and look at something to see how it truely fits in to their lives as is because they get caught up in what they expect/asume something is or isn't and take these views and misuse them in their ownconclusions and in those that they try to lead others to. As I stated, its not about what you have as long as you understand what options you actually have and don't, and can make an informed choice based on those. I just used the blindness angle above because it provided the best angle for common dialogue. Though, I feel that the way I wrote out my points led to confusion for the most part.
Well I still think paradigms aside, it's about getting 'er done: Will device X at least do Y for me whatever Y that is? The truth is, once you're beyond school, devices are there as an accessory to assist in what you're doing. Life comes first, the device second, meaning most of the population would rather spedn their time doing what it is they do, than learning to use a device to do what it is they do.
This may sound silly to you, but as klunky as Windows 3.11 was, we had to fight to deploy Windows 95 on literally thousands of users, because they were going to go home one night, come back the next day, and get a completely new desktop. Did we know there were going to be major improvements? Of course. However, the downtime in productivity while they learned to use it was something neither their bosses nor they themselves were very interested in.
Frankly I could care less what I think or don't think about a touch screen, or even my own past frustrations with Apple as a professional in the technology industry (a really small group of the user population): The iOS device has come out with a ton of productivity applications in the past year for users in general, and blind users in particular. Beyond the schoolhouse door and the theory textbook is a cold world where people basically don't care about the fact you're learning a new device or exploring new paradigms: they need whatever it is you provide, and they need it yesterday, usually because someone else needs something from them.
And when it comes to shifting all your information, that really is a concern. So how well will the new device take all the old device's data and port it over so I can use it? Kids' medical records / school information / social security number, bank info, addresses and phone numbers, things you use to do life with. The older you get, the more information you're responsible for. Frankly I've heard this piddly paradigm theory since the days of the Apple Newton in the mid 1990s, to the Palm OS early days, to Windows CE to the rest. Some solutions like Palm Desktop have been a veritable pain in the ass for conversion, some products like Apple's Newton had no porting abilities at all, Microsoft ActiveSync was probably the most seamless of its time with Nokia PC Suite Generation II being a close second. Now that iTunes has got a fair kick in the pants and will sync your Outlook data *properly* it's at least good for a port, though maybe not for keeping multi-profile (home / work / hobbies) up-to-date.
It's all in how well the device works to move what you already have into the new environment.
So now, finances aside, I consider an iOS device not only a possibility but a very good option. A year ago? I don't think so. I also have the experience to know where these things are likely to break down, where one iTunes will probably break another set of profile data (no synciing with multiple partnerships one at work and one at home) and other productivity enhancements the working class of folk have come to depend upon. But here the cloud can take over with apps like GMail.
This is the way it really does work, in the real world, with real users:
I got my wife a Nokia series 40 phone - one of the ubiquitous messaging phones no fanboy would stoop to own but most of the world does. Going from an LG messaging phone to a Nokia phone, her only comment was: "It was so much easier to find where everything is!" I could (and probably, like a fool, did) expound on how Nokia was a far superior product. However, she's thinking mom called, she needs to look up a number / enter data into her phone book / text someone at the hospital where the sister-in-law is at, and all without either calling me or trying to poke around in the menus. Never mind that for her this was a real improvement: the old LG devices didn't multitask. But that panicky "Where is it!" experience when you're in the middle of responding to something, not playing with your device, is precisely why it's difficult to get a user to change devices.
So I think if you enter being blind into the equation: People like us are already behind when it comes to speed on certain things in work and other immediate concerns, so now you introduce a new paradigm - arguably a better paradigm in countless ways, - nobody cares: they still need the person to produce, be it a phone number, school info or whatever. Nobody wants to say "Excuse me sir, while I play with my new device and figure out where in the hell they put notes in here." Not when you're in the middle of handling something.
Device transition is difficult precisely because life simply doesn't stop and wait for Transition Time to be over.
I must admit that I'm one of those who tend to stick with tried and true technology. But I don't put down those who choose to use the newer things. Just because I personally don't like touchscreens doesn't mean, for example, that I'd call the owner of an IPhone stupid or ridiculous. I agree that there should be multiple categories to meet the needs of everyone, but in such a small community, I doubt that this could truly happen.
When I buy something, I usually buy it for what it can do as well as for the quality of the item. While many might be content to replace their technology every four or five years, I'm not, even if the prices have gone down. I'm also finding that with the lowering of prices comes bad quality, both in mainstream and in adaptive technology. Why can't things be affordable and still made to last? But of course, that wouldn't make economic sense. So I do the best that I can. My moto is if it's not broken don't fix it, if it's easily fixable do so and only if there's a true advantage in another model or if the old one can't be fixed should you buy a new one. I've been criticised alot over this point. Some people merely tell me that I can't live in the past or I'll be left behind, others simply insist that I use modern technology for it's own sake and still others try to blame me and those who think along the same lines for the fact that blind technology isn't as advanced as that made for sighted people. But not everything I use has been made for the blind and not everything I refuse to use is simply a matter of taste. Yes, I choose to buy things with dials over touchscreens and believe that certain things work fine in their analogue forms. I've chosen a Muvo T100 over an IPod and an IBM Thinkpad X32 over a netbook. Those are all personal preferences. But some technology is downright dangerous. I would never, if I could avoid it, buy an electric flat top stove. I understand that some blind people are comfortable with them and that's fine. But I personally feel very uncomfortable with the idea of working on a stove that has no flame and no burner, only a flat surface that could get ridiculously hot with no warning sound, smell or heat and scar me for life if I'm not careful. I also wouldn't use a truly vintage toaster, the kind with coils that you need to open, because of it's danger. So these ideas are not only limited to modern appliances.
I think that some modern inventions cause trouble in other ways. Fewer and fewer people are reading actual paper books, and while this is great for those of us who no longer need to lug around heavy braille volumes, I think the sighted are missing out on something, the smell and feel of real paper, of something of substance in their hand. Soon, there won't be pens or pencils and everything will be done on computers. These aps, as people call them, take away the ability to spell, to do mathematics, to think for onesself and hand it over to a machine. I've always been the type to remember phone numbers and now find that I'm losing this ability as I can just look them up in a file. I used to play with my Language Master and had an excellent spelling ability but now find that disappearing as well. This, I think, is a greater danger than most people realise and it downright scares me to the point that I'm trying to remedy it, at least for myself. I'd rather keep my whits about me if I can, whether I'm using something made for the sighted or for the blind.
But back to adaptive technology, while prices certainly have dropped over the last decade or two, they're still extremely high on many things, so not everyone can afford all these new gadgits. Even if one has the time as I do, it's not always easy to acclimatise to a totally new interface. What's more, training isn't always provided or may be very scant. So now a person has this brand new tech and has no clue how to use it. It's difficult enough when it's a mainstream product and we have to use it in a different way so can't ask any technician for help but even more so when it's something made just for us and the company doesn't have anyone available to help us use it or if, because we're no longer in school, our local and/or state agency won't help us. And again, if something is still working or can very easily be fixed, why should it be replaced with another newer product, particularly when it would cost less to just keep using the old one or to have it repaired? I don't see why it's necessary for a home user of any technology to change it if it's working fine for them. Many people are now using Windows 7. I'm still using XP, and when I really need a break from it all, I turn on my DOS machine. I also know another person who has never used Windows in her life, only DOS and Linux. Yet both of us manage to do the things that are important to us just as well as those who have the latest and greatest machine with 7 on it.
I see that a lot with regard to the IPhone and IPod Touch, well any device using a touch screen rather than a physical keyboard. And while I'll freely admit I was one of the more serious doubters and naysayers at least I was willing to pop on over to my local AT&T store and play around with a VoiceOver enabled IPhone not once but several times and realize that yes, it could in fact be done. Heck, I bought a Touch this year and wouldn't go back if someone paid me a million bucks. Of course I still do have the VR Stream for those formats the Touch can't play. And I've also occasionally gotten flack for using Window-Eyes instead of JFW, but that's what worked better for me and I like GW's customer support better than FS.
Ah yes. The monopoly of Freedom Scientific. Glad to see more people getting away from it. It's not a bad product in itself but it's become so bloated over the years and costs so much that it's almost not worth it these days.
Good points again Leo. I'll admit more than anything else, it was a short sighted rant, not spasificly related to apple or what have you. But, i've seen countless examples of what you've spoken of in the real world Though, honestly, I hadn't put them into the above equasion.
Once we cross that line, where you have a cloud-based account storing your data and any device can use it, the port business will no longer be a problem. And the porting is usually the most nightmarish part to set up.
Maybe, but that's probably only for the business users. I've salways managed to transfer my documents and even my pictures, music and videos between various forms of Windows and Mac and my documents from Windows to DOS. I'm sure that the others will work as well, providing that I have the right software. The only things I've ever had difficulty in transferring have been my Greek texts or even files with names written in the language. Other than that, everything has been flawless.
IT's not just blind people. I'd say that a fair number of people, blind or sighted, fight change. Change means that you have to deal with something unusual or diferent, and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
Oh nobody's aying it's only blind people. THe point here I think is that it is extremely common among blind people. I myself used the IPhone and IPod Touch as an example. Even after it's been proven that touch screens can be made accessible and that makers of such devices are now well and truly without excuses, there are still blind people who don't want to embrace it. They'll try it for, say, a few minutes and say it can't be done or it's too hard. My question is what they'll do if or when physical keyboards with actual buttons go out of fashion.
There are still sighted people who don't want to either. Photons aren't an issue people. I can't interpret a single photon: a total blind bat, and i'm willing to use a touch screen. My wife basically doesn't want to, and probably never will. So why are we picking on the blind over this? I see it all the time among sighted users of any number of things. It's that ingrown toenail thing again, where if blind people see a flaw, they think it's all the blind or higher among the blind.
What pray tell, does vision hardware have to do with the acceptance of, or resistance to, change?
Like I said, nobody's saying it's only blind people who do it. We all know this. But the topic was about blind people who do, or at least that's the example here.
Let me ask you guys this. Why the fuck do you care who's resistant to change and who isn't? Unless it's someone you're close to, or who you have to live with, why do you care what the so-called blind community as a whole does? I don't like touch screens, and I probably never will, but last time I checked, that's called a preference. To my knowledge, I've never actively thought, "hey, today I'm going to hate touch screens/Apple products/insert anything you're a fan of, just to perpetuate a stereotype. It doesn't work that way. I also hate cheese and am not the biggest fan of cd's. I think cheese smells like ass and that cd's break too easily, so I own a turn table because I like the sound of vinyl. For portability, I have many many mp3's and have no problem with them, because unless my hard drive crashes (knock on wood) they're not going anywhere, nor are they going to get damaged. Yet people shake their head at me and say, "you're too young to understand this" or "vinyl is outdated and crappy, and you should throw it away." Or, "wow you're weird if you don't like cheese. Are you lactose intolerant?" No, I just happen to not like it. Preferences, people, preferences! Just because a preference is unusual or not "cool" doesn't mean you should blame it on something external like the blind community. Last time I checked, we were all individuals, with the right to make our own choices on what we like and don't like. So if I'm skeptical about touch screens, or hate the voice that comes with the IPhone, I'm not doing it to drag everyone backwards by the hair into the dark ages. I'm doing it because that's how I feel.
Amen screaming_turtle I made a topic asking about a phone I wanted because its the preffence I chose. Oh sure got the help but now its this load of bullshit about touch screens. If someone likes chocolate more then venela, or banana more then apple its there choice. If I didn't like the touch screen and want buttons thats my choice. We have the right to choose and we shouldn't be fucken cridasized for our choices.
Damn straight. Also, this notion that I, or a single blind person or small group of blind people have the power to make the advancement of technology stagnant is just so...goddamn ridiculous there's no words for it. Life goes on, whether we like it or not.